Produced by Brian Foley and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) [ Transcriber's Note: Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible; some minor changes have been made to correct typographical errors, and some inconsistent spelling. ] UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND. BY THE REV. SAMUEL HAUGHTON, M.D, F.R.S., FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. LONDON: WILLIAMS & NORGATE. DUBLIN: McGLASHAN & GILL. 1868. _Price One Shilling._ DUBLIN: Printed at the University Press, BY M. H. GILL. UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN IRELAND. INTRODUCTION. The political condition of Ireland is, at present, grave; and, in the event of a war with the United States, would become menacing, to England. Irish politicians assert--and it is partly admitted by their opponents--that, in the existing state of Ireland, three questions demand an immediate solution: these questions are, the Land Question, the Church Question, and the Education Question. The tenant farmers of Ireland wish for fixity of tenure, and care but little for compensation for improvements, except as a means of obtaining a practical fixity of tenure; and they would, unquestionably, rejoice to see transferred to themselves, as occupiers of the soil, the rights now enjoyed by absentee noblemen and landlords. It is the opinion of many that the Land question cannot be settled without such a change of owners as would practically amount to a revolution. With respect to the question of the Church, the more intelligent laymen of the Irish National party openly avow their wish to alienate the property of the Church, on the ground that its existence forms a barrier to the union of Irish Protestants with the Catholic majority in the formation of a truly National Irish party. It is asserted, and apparently not without reason, that if the Irish Protestants felt themselves cast off by England, and their Church endowments confiscated, they might become more willing to join their countrymen in an anti-English policy, which the rude breath of war might some day fan into a demand for an Irish Republic, under the guarantee of France and America. It is for English politicians to decide how far the advantages of religious equality would compensate for the risk of national disloyalty.