as does not belong to the crown; but in the case of Edinburgh, the patronage of some of the older chairs is in the hands of a body of curators. Disciplinary powers are retained by the senatus, and the general council remains, as under the act of 1858, a purely advisory body. Another advisory body—the students' representative council—was added by the commission. The curriculum of all the faculties (except divinity) was reorganized: the most important alterations consisted in the abolition of the once sacred six as compulsory subjects in arts (Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Logic and Moral Philosophy).[1] The curriculum was greatly widened, an elaborate scheme of “options” introduced, and a new system of honours degrees was established. The length of residence required was reduced from four years to three, and the courts were empowered to institute summer sessions, and to admit women to lectures and degrees in all faculties.
There has been since the act of 1858 a great development of student life, illustrated by the institution of student's unions in all four universities, by the publication of undergraduate magazines, and by the growth, in Edinburgh, of combined residences and settlements.
Parliamentary grants to Scottish universities. All the four universities of Scotland were aided from time to time in the last century by grants from government, and in 1905 received a material addition to their resources by the magnificent donation of £2,000,000 from Mr Carnegie.
Trinity College, Dublin, was founded in 1591, under the auspices of Sir John Perrot, the Irish viceroy. A royal charter nominated a provost and a minimum number of Trinity College, Dublin. three fellows and three scholars as a body corporate, empowered to establish among themselves “whatever laws of either of the universities of Cambridge or Oxford they may judge to be apt and suitable; and especially that no other persons should teach or profess the liberal arts in Ireland without the queen's special licence.” The first five provosts of Trinity College were all Cambridge men, and under the influence of Archbishop Loftus, the first provost, and his successors, the foundation received a strongly Puritan bias. The original statutes were mainly the work of Temple, the fourth provost, modified by Bedell, the eminent bishop of Kilmore, and the policy of Laud and Wentworth was to make the college more distinctly Anglican as regards its tone and belief. At the Restoration its condition was found to be that of a well ordered home of learning and piety, with its estates well secured and its privileges unimpaired. Under Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who succeeded to the vice-chancellorship, its progress in learning was considerable, and the statutes underwent a further modification. Prior to the year 1873 the provostship, fellowships and foundation scholarships could be held only by members of the Church of Ireland; but all such restrictions were abolished by Act 36 Vict. c. 21, whereby the requirement of subscription to any article or formulary of faith was finally abrogated.
The first departure from the above exclusive system dates from the creation of the Queen's University, incorporated by Queen's University. royal charter on the 3rd of September 1850. By this charter the general legislation of the university, together with its government and administration, was vested in the university senate. In 1864 the charter of 1850 was superseded by a supplementary charter, and the university reconstituted “in order to render more complete and satisfactory the courses of education to be followed by students in the colleges”; and finally, in 1880, by virtue of the act of parliament known as the University Education (Ireland) Act 1879, the Queen's University gave place to the Royal University of Ireland. Royal University of Ireland, which was practically a reconstitution of the former foundation, the dissolution of the Queen's University being decreed so soon as the newly constituted body should be in a position to confer degrees; at the same time all graduates of the Queen's University were recognized as graduates of the new university with corresponding degrees, and all matriculated students of the former as entitled to the same status in the latter. The university confers degrees in arts (B.A., M.A., D.Litt.), science, engineering, music, medicine, surgery, obstetrics and law. The preliminary pass examinations in arts were to be held at annually selected centres,—those chosen in 1885 being Dublin, Belfast, Carlow, Cork, Galway, Limerick and Londonderry—all honour examinations, and all examinations in other faculties, in Dublin. The Queen's Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway. Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway were founded in December 1845, under an act of parliament “to enable Her Majesty to endow new colleges for the advancement of learning in Ireland,” and were subsequently incorporated as colleges of the university. Their professors were at the same time constituted professors in the university, and conducted the examinations. But in the reconstruction of 1880 the chief share in the conduct of the examinations and advising the senate with respect to them was vested in a board of fellows, elected by the senate in equal numbers from the non-denominational colleges and the purely Roman Catholic institutions. The colleges retained, however, their independence, being in no way subject to the control of the university senate except in the regulations with respect to the requirements for degrees and other academic distinctions. In 1907 a scheme was projected by Mr Bryce (then chief secretary for Ireland) for reconstructing the university, University of Dublin. whereby Trinity College was to become merged in a new “University of Dublin,” in which the Queen's Colleges and a new college for Roman Catholics were also to be included. The control of the entire community was to be vested in a board, partly nominated by the crown and partly by the colleges and the general body of students. The scheme, however, was strongly opposed by the Dublin University Defence Committee on the ground that the ideals which had hitherto dominated the aims and teaching of Trinity College were incompatible with a system in which regard for the principle of authority and the repudiation of scientific theorization (as it finds expression in the Index) are leading features. On the other hand, the Irish bishops, while admitting the need for more efficient scientific instruction of the Catholic youth throughout their respective dioceses, declined to give support to measures whereby such students would be attracted into an atmosphere inimical to their religious faith. It was consequently next proposed by the government to establish two new universities—one in Dublin (side by side with Trinity College) and one in Belfast—in which, although no religious tests were to be enforced, it should be tacitly agreed that the former was to be the resort for Catholics, the latter for Presbyterians, Trinity College remaining, as before, the recognized Episcopalian centre. To this considerable exception was taken—the nonconformists, more especially, maintaining that such an arrangement could not fail to be prejudicial to the higher interests of the people by imparting to education a denominational bias which it was most desirable to avoid—and eventually Mr Birrell's measure was brought forward and ultimately adopted, whereby Trinity College has been left intact, but two new universities were created, one in Dublin and one in Belfast, the former involving the erection of another college (towards the expense of which the government was pledged to contribute) and the incorporation of the Queen's Colleges at Cork and Galway; while the college in Belfast was to form the nucleus of the second university. In order further to ensure their representative character, the new university of Dublin had a nominated senate of 36 members, of whom all but seven were to be Roman Catholics; that of Belfast had a similar body, of whom all but one were to be Protestants. In all these new centres there were to be no religious tests either for professors or students. On the other hand, the obligation formerly imposed of a preliminary course of study at one or other of the colleges before admission to degrees had been abolished at the foundation of the Royal University, the examinations being now open,
- ↑ At Edinburgh there was a seventh, viz. rhetoric and English literature.
