TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN. [To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—I

have been much interested by the letters of " Moderator " on Trinity College, Dublin. On the whole, they convey a very faithful impression of the state and working of that great insti- tution, though with some inaccuracies, in matters especially of pecuniary detail. Of these inaccuracies your correspondent, " A. Member of the University of Dublin," has skilfully availed him- self to throw discredit on the critic of the present " best of all possible" colleges ; doing so, however, in such a way as sometimes to lead persons unacquainted with the actual facts into erroneous impressions through the means of the very corrections he supplies.

Thus, it is quite true that the Provost's separate estate is worth about 1,6001. a year, according to the Commissioners. But should any of your readers imagine from this, as they very well might, that the Provost's income was only 1,6001. a year, they would be grossly mistaken. For the Provost, in addition to his " separate estate," enjoys his share as a Senior Fellow, which is about 1,9001. a year. So that his income, as estimated by the Commissioners, is about 3,5001. a year ; and if this be what " Moderator " meant by his "separate estate," he was not so very far wrong when he valued it at 4,0001. a year.

Similarly, the whole average income of a Senior Fellow was valued by the Commissioners at about 1,8001. a year. But some of them, the Senior Bursar, for instance, have much more. His income is valued by the Commissioners at 2,1501. a year, besides his fellowship, which is, or was, 1,2501. more. This may go some way to explain " Moderator's" guess at the incomes of the Senior Fellows as varying from 2,0001. to 3,0001. a year Undoubtedly " Moderator" should have consulted the Report of the University Commission. But he would have there found only a statement of what the incomes of the College officials were in the years 1850 and 1851. Nor is there any means of knowing exactly what their incomes are now ; for the recommendation of the Commissioners, that the College accounts should be audited by independent persons and published, has, for reasons which " A Member of the University" can perhaps give, never been complied with.

Trinity College, like other similar institutions, has yet to learn that its funds, having been bestowed for public objects, are public property, and that the public has a right to know all about their disbursement.

I believe that the Senior Fellows have not acted ungenerously in money matters. It is generally said that they have resigned many hundreds a year each, easily earned indeed, in order to found new studentships, scholarships, and other useful prizes, besides gratify- ing the Junior Fellows by the establishment of two useless though lucrative offices, the holders of which, generally nicknamed Buffers, receive 8001. a year each for interposing between the Board and the body of Junior Fellows. But of these arrangements the outside public can know nothing authentic, till the College accounts be published, as they ought to be.

Obviously the publication of these accounts is the first step towards thorough reform—a step which those concerned, if they are anxious for the welfare of the College, ought to welcome, because it would at once remove misconceptions from without, and prevent maladministration from within.

1 have not " Moderator's " letters before me, and I forget whether he said anything about the emoluments of the Junior Fellows. If he did, it could not have been anything exaggerated, or it would not have escaped the criticism of "A Member of the University." It may not be amiss, however, to state that, according to the Commissioners, the average income of a Junior Fellow was between 6001. and 7001. a year in 1851 ; and that, if so, it must be much greater now, because the number of recipients is smaller, six fellowships having been since that suppressed, and the number of students paying fees is much greater than it then was, I think that " Moderator " noticed the abuse which consists in the Fellows engrossing large suites of rooms within the College, sometimes, indeed, whole houses, whether they reside in them or not, thus diminishing very materially the accommodation available for students. I do not perceive any reply to this in the letter of "A Member of the University."

The next point to which I shall advert is that which concerns classical Fellowships, or rather that which concerns the cultivation of ancient letters and learning, and the securities given by the College for the due teaching of this branch of learning by qualified and competent persons. " Moderator " had said, in my judgment very properly, that " some classical Fellowships are urgently needed." To which it is replied that in 1835 a new statute was procured modifying the Fellowship examination, and that " of the eight Fellows since elected no fewer than three were chosen mainly on account of their classical attainments, and without any exami- nation in mathematical or physical science."

To understand the point at issue, your readers.must know that, up to that date, mathematical knowlege was the sine qua non for obtaining a fellowship at Dublin. No matter how ignorant the candidate might be of Greek or Latin, or all that depends on their knowledge, he would be pretty sure of success if he were a good mathematician ; while, on the other hand, the best classical scholar ever " turned out," by Trinity or any other college, would not have the least chance of a fellowship, unless he were saturated with mathematics, or, at least, with mathematical formulas.

Imagine the results of such a system on the teaching and examina- tions of the University! Fancy the scholar, ripe and apt,—and some

such there were even at Dublin under this monstrous regime—

trembling before the incompetence of a man who had just suc- ceeded in obtaining a fellowship, and was called upon, the very next day sometimes, to examine in a subject of which he knew next to nothing ! The anomaly, or rather the absurdity, is so astounding that I am often tempted to doubt it ever could have existed, though, alas ! I know too well that it did exist, and still does exist in a great though diminished measure.

When, however, the authorities of the College at length woke up to the conviction that in these days of competitive examinations and abolished monopoly it would no longer answer (pecuniarily) to appoint men to teach and examine in classics simply because they were good mathematicians, they ventured to give the classical part of the fellowship examination (for there always had been one, although it had latterly degenerated into a mere pretence) some definite and proportionate value. Accordingly, they decreed that mathematical science should count for 1,600 marks ; classical, embracing history, philology, &c., 900, that is to say, classics were to have just nine-sixteenths of the value of mathematics in deciding the result.

Is it any wonder that, under such a system, only three out of eight have been elected for competence to teach that branch of University studies which is most concerned with Law, Divinity, and Medicine, and which is supposed (except at Dublin) more pecu- liarly to form the taste and humanize the mind ? Three-eighths of the Fellows elected under the improved system have been actually proved by examination to possess some knowledge of Greek and Latin ! And this is the proportion deemed sufficient to satisfy all classical or humane requirements, when none of the previously elected fellows had given any guarantee, so far as his fellowship examination was concerned, that he was able to impart even the most rudimentary knowledge in that despised subject! For you must always remember that the then lately elected classical fellows are only three out of more than thirty fellows in all, and that the other twenty-seven or more had all been elected either on the old system, in which classics had no value, or on the new system as mathematicians chiefly or solely. I take "A Member's" own statistics.

It seems to me that nothing can be better fitted to give your readers some faint conception of the overawing prejudices of the mathematical clique which long swayed the College, than the air of triumph with which " A Member of the University " announces this wonderful result of the new system. It was time that some- thing should be done ; and classical scholars may well thank the competitive examination, and above all, the opposition of the Queen's College, for saving the ancient Irish University from becoming a mere second-rate copy of the Ecble Polytechnique.

No wonder that under such a system the only works which " A Member of the University" can cite in proof of the " intellectual condition and activity of the University " are " works which extend the bounds of science," like Sir W. R. Hamilton's treatise on " Quaternions," I presume ; or " which bring science, in its actual condition, within the reach of the many," like Messrs. Galbraith and Haughton's manuals. Divinity, law, history, philology, he has prudently omitted.

Doubtless great improvements have been made of late, not before they were wanted. But far more must be done if the University of Dublin is to become a fountain of "sweetness and light" to

Ireland. It is a radical defects—a defect so great that " mere " English people, unaccustomed to anything so monstrous, find it difficult to imagine its existence—that the whole University should be absolutely governed by the Provost and Senior Fellows of its one College. Yet this it is ; for the Senate of the Uni- versity, though it exist in name, has not the smallest real power. Whatever mischiefs ensued from the Laudian code which consigned Oxford and Cambridge to the management of the Hebdomadal Board, are tenfold intensified at Dublin, where that Board con- sists, not of Heads of various Colleges, competing with each other in generous rivalry, but of the mere Senior Fellows of a single college. So long as this vital defect lasts, the University will be regarded as a machine to promote the interests of the College corporation ; studies will be valued according as they pay, and success at competitive examinations will be the thing chiefly aimed at and chiefly appealed to, as it is by the " Member of the University" of Dublin. A great University has higher functions and should have higher aims. The cultivation of learning, one of the foremost of these, seems almost to have been forgotten at Dublin in the incessant work of cram.

It would tax your space too largely were I to attempt suggest- ing how the requisite changes in this direction may best be made. Nor do the symptoms of the times encourage one to make any such attempt. Yet I fancy I can see a picture of what the University of Dublin might become, if it were expanded beyond the dwarfing limits of Trinity College, if the oak were allowed to outgrow the flowerpot. But faction, and the peculiar incapacity of the Irish mind to see anything out of its own groove of motion, conjoined with ignorance or unbelief of anything better, will probably prevent the realization of any such ideal. The present administration of the University of Dublin are prepared to welcome even the endowment of the " Catholic University," portentous as is its constitution, if they can but maintain their own monopoly intact. The general mass of its graduates are blind to the real drift of a petition they have lately signed in thousands, the ostensible object of which is to preserve the Protestantism of the University, whilst it really aims at maintaining the Government of the University by the Fellows of its College. The Roman Catholic laity are helpless under the dictation of their priests, whose organization holds them completely in the grasp of the hierarchy ; and whose yoke, under Cardinal Cullen, is becoming tighter and heavier day by day. Politicians of the school now fashionable cannot be expected to fight for any ideal. The very thought is laughable to them. So we must submit to what selfish- ness and cowardice, backed up by ignorance and prejudice, may have in store for us.—I am, Sir, &c.,

ANOTHER MEMBER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF DUBLIN.