In its existing condition it was notoriously inadequate to
fulfil the design of its founder; and any establishment visibly
inadequate to its design tends to bring the design itself into some
degree of contempt. Yet even if it should be granted that there might
have been no fair ground of complaint if the college had never been
founded, to close it after its benefits, however scanty, had been
enjoyed for half a century, could not fail to have been regarded as an
unpardonable injustice and injury. The other alternative, therefore, was
practically the only one that remained; and in embracing it Peel was but
carrying out the original principle on which the college was founded. It
had been intended to be efficient; through lack of means it had proved
inefficient. The obvious and just remedy was to supply such increased
means as to create or bestow the efficiency originally aimed at. And it
was a felicitous idea to place the charge for the future on such a
footing as to combine with such an increase an avoidance of the
irritation which its yearly discussion had never failed to excite.
And at the same time, to carry still farther the principle of religious
toleration, or rather of religious equality, he induced the Parliament
to found a new university, consisting of three colleges, one in each of
the three provinces of Ulster, Munster and Connaught (Leinster, as
having Trinity College and Maynooth, being regarded as already
sufficiently provided with university education), which should be open
to students of every religious denomination, and at which, while every
kind of secular education, both literary and scientific, should be
given, the stirring up of religious controversy and animosity should be
guarded against, by the absence of any theological professorships.
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