The second reading of the unmeaning Irish University Bill was
carried in the House of Lords on Tuesday, after two very able speeches on its unmeaningness by Lord Kimberley and Lord O'Hagan. Lord Cairns made one little point in its de- fence, and a very little one it was. The degrees granted to non- residents in Trinity College, Dublin, were only granted, he said, to non-residents who had paid the full fees of residents, so that they had to pay for what they did not get. Hence, Roman
Catho1i6s who object conscientiously to residence at Trinity College have to pay something in the nature of a fine for their convictions before they can take the degree. Valeat quantunz. The same objection does not exist to the London University degrees, which many Irish Catholics actually take without once leaving their own College,—the University sending down a Sub. Examiner with the papers, to conduct the examination in any College which is able to pay the small expense incurred. The important part of Lord Cairns's speech was the hint dropped at the end that the Senate of the new University might obtain new scholarships from Government for its successful students,—though he would not hear of granting results-fees to the Colleges which sent up those students on the principle of the Intermediate Education Act of last Session! Yet without these results-fees, that Education Act would have been a failure; and without such results-fees to the teaching bodies supplying the University with its candidates, this University Bill will be an absurdity. What is chiefly wanted is not State aid to the instructed, but State aid to the instructors. It is Irish teaching, not Irish talent, that asks for help.
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