George Salmon. 351 



voiced wisdom ; but there was also the gratitude of men who owed him 

 much." 



While he had a fairly free hand in the control of the Divinity 

 School, the loss of his Fellowship apparently had debarred him from 

 having any more important share in the management of the University. 

 This he resented, and he is said to have annoyed the members of the 

 Board by declaring in the Synod that the only difference between 

 Junior and Senior Fellows is that the latter are the longest livers. In 

 1874 he was chiefly instrumental in the origination of the Academic 

 Council " to co-operate with the Board and have a share in the 

 regulation of the Studies, Lectures, and Examinations, and in the 

 appointment and election of Professors." By a strange irony, when he 

 became Provost, he did everything in his power to render this Council 

 impotent. 



In 1888, on the death of Jellett, Salmon was admitted Provost of 

 Trinity College. He was then in his sixty-ninth year, and he held the 

 office longer than any Provost since the Right Hon. Hely Hutchinson, 

 who died in 1794. He was also the first Provost since Hutchinson 

 who was not a Fellow at the time of his election. It was no light task 

 to which he was called. The governing body of the University of 

 Dublin consists, as has been said, of the Provost and the seven Senior 

 Fellows, the Provost being appointed by the Crown, and the Senior 

 Fellows attaining their position by virtue of seniority. This board 

 transacts practically all the business of the University. Its members 

 hold the offices of vice-provost, registrar, bursar, senior lecturer, senior 

 dean, catechist, auditor, and senior proctor. In addition, it not 

 unfrequently happens that a member of the board is librarian, or that 

 he takes part in the examination for fellowship, or in some other 

 important examination. There is nothing to correspond to the Cam- 

 bridge syndicates, unless it be the medical school committee or the 

 academic council, and of the former a member of the board is chairman, 

 while at least three senior fellows and the provost have belonged to the 

 latter since its inception, the provost being the ex offido chairman. 

 Enough has been said to show the difficulty of Dr. Salmon's office as 

 the head of a responsible board overloaded with duties of the most 

 multifarious kind a board composed of eight men whose united ages 

 at one time approached, if they did not exceed, the magnificent total 

 of five hundred and eighty years. " There is, said Salmon, one thing 

 worse than an incompetent Bursar, and that is an indispensable one," 

 when only one member of the board was fit to undertake the arduous 

 office. 



The period of Salmon's Provostship was in many respects a critical 

 time in the history of Trinity College. The evils spoken of had 



C 



