influence, due to historical causes, the intensely religious character of the people, and the want of Catholic laymen qualified by education and position for social and political leadership.  What Bishop Berkeley said of them in 1749, in his letter, A Word to the Wise, still holds true, ’That no set of men on earth have it in their power to do good on easier terms, with more advantage to others, and less pains or loss to themselves.’  It would be folly to expect that in a mixed community the State should do anything to strengthen or perpetuate this power; but this result will certainly not follow from the more liberal education of the clergy, provided equal advantages are extended to the laity.  On the contrary, I am convinced that if the void in the lay leadership of the country be filled up by higher education of the better classes among the Catholic laity, the power of the priests, so far as it is abnormal or unnecessary will pass away; and, further, if I believed, with many who are opposed to the better education of the priesthood, that their power is based on falsehood or superstition, I would unhesitatingly advocate the spread of higher education among the laity and clergy alike, as the best means of effectually sapping and disintegrating it.[27]

I had for long indulged a hope that a university of the type which Ireland requires would have been the outcome of a great national educational movement emanating from Trinity College, which might, at this auspicious hour, have surpassed all the proud achievements of its three hundred years.  That hope was dispelled when the cry of ’Hands off Trinity’ was applied to the profane hands of the Royal Commission.  Perhaps that attitude may be reconsidered yet.  There is one hopeful sentiment which is often heard coming from that institution.  An opinion has been strongly expressed that nothing ought to be done to separate in secular life two sections of Irishmen who happen to belong to different creeds.  Whatever may be the logical outcome of the position taken up towards the University problem by those who give expression to this pious opinion, I do not for a moment doubt their sincerity.  But I often think that too much importance is attached to the danger of building new walls, and that there is too little appreciation of the wide and deep foundation of the already existing walls between the two sections of Irishmen who are so unhappily kept apart.  In dealing with this, as with all large Irish problems, it had better be frankly recognised that there are in the country two races, two creeds, and, what is too little considered, two separate spheres of economic interest and pursuit.  Socially two separate classes have naturally, nay inevitably, arisen out of these distinctions.  One class has superior advantages in many ways of great importance.  The other class is far more numerous, produces far the greater proportion of the nation’s wealth, and is, therefore, from the national point of view,