According to the last census, there were in Ireland in 1861, ninety-eight classical schools under the management of societies or boards, and two hundred and three private classical schools. The total number of pupils in these schools was 10,346, of whom 5,118, or about one-half, were Catholics. There were also 1,242 Catholics returned as receiving collegiate education on the 17th of May of that year. We have thus a total of 6,360 Catholic youths receiving a superior education in Ireland. Few, if any, of the Catholic institutions to which these pupils belong look with favour on the existing universities. On the other hand, none of these youths ought to be excluded from University education on account of conscientious objections: and yet by far the greater number are practically excluded at present, at least they are excluded from participation in the highest University dignities, and from the management of those seats of learning and centres of intellectual progress, one of which is essentially Protestant, the other is condemned by their Church. Is this justice? is it equality? is it intellectual freedom? The unfairness of the present system will appear more clearly, if we consider the question of professional education. In the profession of the Law, out of 758 barristers in Ireland in 1861, 216 were returned as Catholics; 674 out of 1,882 attorneys; of 2,358 physicians and surgeons, 761 were Catholics; and 210 out of 419 apothecaries, many of whom hold a medical license. Of 1,065 members of other liberal professions, not ecclesiastics, the Census Commissioners state that 358 belonged to the Catholic religion; and of 267 professors in colleges, and tutors, 141 held the same faith. To these we must add 83 law students, 40 of whom are Catholics; and 329 Catholic medical students out of a total of 954. We have thus 2,729 Catholics out of a total of 7,758 persons engaged in the liberal professions, or aspiring to them. Let us now see the disabilities under which this large number, more than one-third of the whole, labour, when on conscientious grounds they object, as is generally the case, to existing University arrangements. With respect to the profession of the Law and to Attorneys, the following arrangement is at present in force by Act of Parliament, or by the resolution of the Benchers. All graduates of Trinity College or of the Queen's University can be called to the Bar at the end of _three_ years from the date of their registration as law students; while non-graduates are inadmissible to such call until the expiration of _five_ years from such date.