THE TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN QUESTION.
Tire decision given by the Visitors in the case of Trinity College Dublin, which we reported in our last number, has but esta- blished the necessity of ulterior proceedings. That decision ap- pears to close the question on technical grounds, but it does so -without in the slightest degree satisfying public opinion ; leaving in fact the essential question entirely untouched. We explained some weeks back the nature of the abuses that have been alleged, and we must remember that it was not directly any part of the original business of the Visitors to investigate those abuses. The statement is, that the Provost and seven Senior Fellows, out of the twenty-eight, hold the management of the College in their own hands ; that while the funds of the College have been, during the"present century, steadily on the increase, the resources de- voted to the encouragement of learning have not proportionably increased, have perhaps decreased. The salaries of working Pro- fessors have positively diminished in one case from six hundred to two hundred a year, while the income of the common chest has positively increased ; the common chest being no longer devoted to the common purposes of the College. These allegations were originally brought before the public by Dr. Shaw, one of the Ju- nior Fellows, and the question first became the subject of judi- cial inquiry in the form of a charge against the accuser. He was charged with having violated discipline by discussing the internal affairs of the College in a mode contrary to the spirit of its sta- tutes, whereby he became guilty of a high statutable offence. He was summoned before the Board, and apparently on an admission, but, without any hearing on the merits of the case, or on the rea- sons which justified him, censured. By three censures a Fellow is ipso facto expelled from the College, so that a censure has a penal effect. Against that censure, Dr. Shaw appealed to the -Visitors.
The acting Visitors were Vice-Chancellor Blackburne and Archbishop Whately, who appear to have entered on their duties with a strictly conscientious view of their responsibilities, but also of their limited powers. They agreed to receive any mate- rial allegation against the government of the College which had already, been made the subject of decision by the Board itself, but they held that they could not admit within their purview any 3uestion which had not already been submitted to the Board, and 3ndicially decided by that body. They undertook to consider therefore the degree to which Dr. Shaw had, or had not, violated the statutes of the College by making his public representation, and also the degree to which the Board, the Provost, and Senior Fellows, had violated the constitution of the College and its laws by their mode of appropriating the funds. In reference to both -these charges, however,-the proceedings of the Visitation ended in sustaining the Board. The Visitors affirmed the decision of that body, that Dr. Shaw, in making his public representation, had been guilty of a statutable offence ; and the appropriation of the fees they found to be in accordance with the usage of Trinity College, while they could not ascertain that the general revenues of the College consisted of fees for degrees. " Any evidence to that effect," said Vice-Chancellor Blackburne, "is valueless placed in competition with the evidence afforded by the length of posses- 'Dion that carries with it the fullest assurance of right.' As soon as Dr. Shaw was first accused other gentlemen stepped forward to make themselves participators in his claim for reform. One of them was included in the proceedings taken by the Board, and this gentleman, Mr. Carmichael, has been suffered to come off With nothing more than the inconvenience of making his defence, that is, he has endured no other legal penalty ; for unhappily the proceedings against him have inflicted upon him a grievous do- mestic calamity. There is no doubt that a young wife, who had just given birth to a child, has been the victim of the agitation created by the case within a twelvemonth of her marriage ; and it has been supposed, not unnaturally, that the powerful sympathy created by such an event contributed to make the distinction in favour of Mr. Carmichael. It has also been held that he might perhaps be considered not to have participated in the inerimma- tory tendency of Dr. Shaw's first reference to the subject, but this distinction is scarcely tenable. Mr. Carmichael appears to have been as much responsible for the body of Dr. Shaw's statement as a man who endorses a bill is responsible for the debt acknowledged in it. It is scarcely unfair to suppose that the advocates of the status guo are partly conscious that their case is not perfectly solid, and that they do not desire to evoke further sympathies against them by increasing the number of their convicted oppo- nents. Dr. Shaw was perhaps the safest object of their rancour. He is understood not only to hold very liberal opinions—for that the Board might find lenient excuses,—but " to have the courage of his opinions." Although a Fellow of the Dublin College he was one of the first Professors of Queen's College Cork, filling the Chair for Natural History, which he held about three years ago; but on becoming by rotation one of the Tutors, he was obliged to choose between his Cork professorship and his Dublin Fellowship. The Queen's Colleges are not liked in the older corporation. The recent Visitation leaves the principal facts exactly where they were when it commenced. There are twenty-eight Fellows, of whom seven enjoy by far the larger proportion of revenues. The revenues have increased, but not the amount devoted to the general purposes of the College ; and, however true it may be that the decrease has fallen principally upon certain revenues, there has been an increase upon others which the Senior Fellows have always appropriated. However correct it may be to say that the appropriators are justified by the letter of the statutes, and by usage, there seems to be little doubt that the &dad ad- ministration of the College and the appropriation of its revenues are not in harmony with the design of the foundation any more than with the contemporary opinion of all classes of the commu- nity. By their decision, the Visitors have confessed that they have no power to enter upon the _substantial merits of these broader questions. So far as the charge against Dr. Shaw is concerned, the case is over ; but no progress whatever has been made in closing, scarcely in opening, the case of the College. Existing instruments are too feeble for the purpose, but we pre- sume somebody who has the requisite amount of information, and the right position, will supply the defect by calling for a Parlia- mentary visitation.
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