viii our University lists. Constantly, our students are passing into active life before they have completed their undergraduate course, by obtaining appointments in the public service, or by filling other posts for which they have been fitted by the education we have given them. Their names are, of course, missed from our degree lists, and the very mark of our health is turned into a weapon against us. * Among competitive examinations for the public service that for East Indian writerships stands distinguished from all others in this-that the prize is so high that the competitors are drawn from among the foremost men in the several Universities; and that the examinations sare, accordingly, framed on the model of those to which candidates for the highest honors at the close of an undergraduate career are subjected. This is far, very far indeed, from being the case with any other open competitive examination; and this renders success in the Indian examinations a thing of which any University may well be proud. In the examination of last year the Queen's University was unrepresented. That years should thus occasionally arise in which we, like other Universities, have no candidates to send forward, must be of course expected, and does not prevent our being able to refer with just pride to the lists of this examination, extending over the four years which have elapsed since these valuable appointments were thrown open to public competition. When first unexpectedly thrown open, our education was at once found ready to secure *The following table, extracted from the preface to the first volume of the Edinburgh Essays, merits the attention of every impartial person who has been led to object to the scanty number of our University degrees : ix success; and we have since so well maintained our ground, that we have, on the whole, obtained perhaps even a larger measure of success in proportion to our numbers than any other University in the kingdom, though this is, of course, a very unfavourable year to us, in which to make the comparison.* We can, indeed, though of course still in our infancy, point with confidence to what we have already effected, whether it be the intellectual success of our students which is looked to, or whether it be the successful cultivation of friendly feelings and mutual forbearance between highly educated members of different creeds. The Editor is deeply impressed with the conviction that in a community like that of Ireland, the latter is of an importance which can scarcely be overrated. He has watched, with interest, the effect on others of this intimate intercourse between men of different religious views, he has felt it himself, and is confident that in it lies one of the most powerful springs which act upon the happiness, loyalty, and prosperity of his country. If now the immense economic value of the extension of the higher subjects of education through a community be thrown into the scale, we may safely conclude, that instead of the expense of the Queen's * Of the seventy-three East Indian writerships which have been hitherto given away by open competition In examining this list, it should be borne in mind that Scotland has five universities, that Oxford has twenty colleges and five halls, and that Cambridge has seventeen colleges. On the other hand it should be recollected that the greater wealth of England prevents such appointments being considered so valuable there as they are among us. X University, or the Queen's Colleges being a just subject for cavil, any money laid out by Parliament upon them should be regarded like that spent on harbours, roads, or other necessary groundworks for the prosperity of the nation. Where every thing has to be constructed out of materials in themselves of a scattered nature, it must prove impossible to be secure against occasional errors: the Editor will therefore feel much indebted to any one who will furnish corrections which may render next year's Calendar more perfect; and requests that communications be addressed to the SECRETARY, Queen's University, Dublin Castle.. Number of Students in attendance this Session, Number entering for the first time this Session, Numbers of the various Religious Denominations in the Regulations for the Examination for the Indian Civil Papers set in the University Examinations of 1858, |