It must not be supposed that less care was bestowed upon the intellectual training of the Prince of Wales than upon his manners and deportment. The Prince Consort would indeed have been faithless to his own traditions, and to King Leopold and Baron Stockmar, those watchful advisers who so jealously guarded his youth, had he failed to lay down in precise detail the daily tasks of his son.

It is no exaggeration to say that every hour of the Prince of Wales's time, from his earliest boyhood until the death of his father, was mapped out by his governors and preceptors, and submitted for approval. It is no mere phrase, but a sober fact, to say that every day of the boy's life a report of his progress was sent up to his parents. And this was no perfunctory service on the part of his teachers, for hardly a week passed without some criticism of their methods, some word of commendation, or some expression of regret at their failure to come up to the lofty standard which was always before the mind of the Prince Consort.

It would be profitless to go at length into the daily routine of the young Prince's studies. The elaboratelyprepared tabular statements of his work show no marked originality on the part of his professors, but a somewhat soaring ambition.

Without the stimulus of competition, surrounded by the disturbing influences of regal state, deprived of the free companionship of boys of his own age, it is not surprising that the Prince of Wales, although he never rebelled, passively resisted the high pressure of his father's system of education. It was undoubtedly the case, and King Edward, in referring to those days, regretted the decision which isolated him during the crucial years of his later boyhood from contact with his equals in age and intellectual attainments.

It would not have been surprising if he had acquired no taste for books, because, as he often himself complained, he was never given any liberty of choice, and every book came before him as a task. History, for instance, as he in later life explained, was presented to him in its driest and most tabulated form. But, notwithstanding these drawbacks, King Edward thoroughly enjoyed biography, and his memory, so largely dependent

upon visual keenness, was prodigious, but he often said that of the groundwork of history he had been deprived by reaction from the insistent boredom of his historical teaching in boyhood.

The tutor to whom the Prince of Wales was most warmly attached realised quite early the truth. He saw that the method of high tension was failing to produce the results hoped for by the boy's anxious parents, and that his pupil's too-alert intelligence, his exuberant sense of life, his moral restlessness under restraint, and his budding manhood, were deadly influences entirely subversive of the scholastic ideas of the Prince Consort.

To some not unfrequent expressions of disappointment from the Prince at his son's want of studious reflection this teacher replied:

'At any rate, he is storing up materials for future thought, and is learning almost unconsciously from objective teaching much which, I think, could never have been taught him subjectively.'

This accurate and discerning analysis of his capacity was true of King Edward then and throughout his life, and the failing or quality, whichever it may be held to be, was one of the causes which largely contributed to his successful management of public affairs during his reign. A great reader the King never was, but he was a great observer.

From his German University he brought away no smattering of German metaphysics, but a complete mastery of German speech. His experience of Edinburgh student life, although he found time at Holyrood hang rather heavily, was of permanent value to him. He often spoke in later years with sly amusement of the rather solemn dinners in the old Palace, where the companions of this lad of eighteen were men so distinguished, but so unjoyous, as the Lord Advocate, Lord Melville, the Provost, the Sheriff, and Lord Playfair. But he never altogether forgot Lord Playfair's lectures, which he regularly attended, on the composition and working of iron ore. They imparted to him a certain liking for practical science and its votaries which he never wholly lost. His literary relaxation at this time was confined to Vol. 213.-No. 424.

с

an abridgment of Gibbon and Schmitz's History of the Middle Ages.'

The King often used to say that his University life at Oxford and Cambridge had been a mistake. He imputed no blame to the Prince Consort for deciding that for the Prince of Wales to live the life of an ordinary undergraduate was impossible. He realised perfectly the immense difficulties of the problem which confronted his parents of wishing to give him the benefit of that higher education-in its widest sense-which a University opens to her worthier sons, and at the same time to protect the Heir to the Throne from the familiarities-with their inevitable consequences-of undergraduate life.

The view of the Prince Consort cannot be better expressed than in his own words.

THE PRINCE TO THE DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH.

'Private and Confidential.

'MY DEAR DEAN OF CHRIST CHURCH,—Sir Charles Phipps has sent me on your letter. Before settling in my mind whether we could properly send the Prince of Wales to Oxford or Cambridge, it became necessary to know that he could be so placed there as to remain entirely master (or for his governor to remain so for him) of the choice of society which he might encounter or the young men he might wish or ought to associate with.

'In college this appeared to me almost impossible, and it was upon your suggesting that he need not live in college, and perhaps ought not to do so, and your pointing out the precedent of the Prince of Orange, that I thought the whole plan of a visit to the Universities feasible.

'I should be very sorry if plans were now proposed which would endanger the foundation upon which I built, and the more I think of it, the more I see the difficulties of the Prince of Wales being thrown together with the other young men, and having to make his selection of acquaintances when so thrown together with them; an entirely separate establishment would alone enable him to do so with safety.

'October 21, 1858.'

'(Signed)

ALBERT.

King Edward, however, clearly as he realised the difficulty, used to say in later years that the real choice lay between a regular collegiate life and not going to the

University at all. His preference would have been for the former alternative. One may, perhaps, be pardoned for adding that this opinion was delivered from a station so exalted, and a position so secure, that the dangers and risks which possibly were magnified by the Prince were possibly minimised by the King.

The anxieties of the Queen and Prince were very poignant, and their sense of the gravity of the moral and intellectual training of him who was to be King was so overwhelming that it undoubtedly added a heavy burden to the cares of State which their correspondence and diaries reveal.

The following letter was written to Colonel Brucethen acting as Governor to the Prince of Wales-by the Prince Consort after his first visit to his son at Oxford:

THE PRINCE TO COLONEL BRUCE.

'MY DEAR COLONEL BRUCE,-I was much pleased with my visit yesterday and glad to find the Prince so assiduous in his work and giving his willing and best attention to Mr Fisher.

'I must not conceal my disappointment, however, to find that, whilst we had hoped that the Prince would be able thoroughly to study the Law and Constitution with Mr Fisher, and attend two lectures, one in History, the other in Chemistry, merely to enable him to follow a part of the public instruction of Oxford besides, the time and work required to make these two lectures understood and profitable should swallow up the whole of the Prince's time. I do not blame him, for he is doing his best and deserves praise for that; but it makes me terribly anxious for the future, and anxious that not a moment be lost of the few precious weeks which the Prince has for his

studies.

time.

'We cannot afford to lose whole days out of the week for amusements, or to trench upon the hours of study by social calls, which have always had and naturally will always have hereafter the greatest share of the Prince's attention and The only use of Oxford is that it is a place for study, a refuge from the world and its claims. It does not require, I am sure, my setting this forth particularly either to you or the Prince himself; but I have thought it my duty to refer once more to this topic, as you will have to make your decisions with regard to various invitations and expectations as to what social amusements the Prince might join in.

"The Prince will have to see his sister one day when she comes, will have his birthday and afterwards hers to celebrate with us; here are already four or five days broken into and three quite lost.

'With regard to the Prince's choice of society, you will have to use the greatest circumspection. You are aware of the principles which we have laid down after anxious reflection and much communication with the different Ministers of the day, who look, as we do, upon the Prince's life as a public matter not unconnected with the present and prospective welfare of the nation and the State. In whatever decisions you may communicate to the Prince, he will recognise therefore the result of these determinations, and he will easily comprehend that his position and life must be different from that of the other undergraduates, that his belonging to a particular college even, which could not be avoided, has another significance from what it bears in other young men's lives. He belongs to the whole University and not to Christ Church in particular, as the Prince of Wales will always belong to the whole nation and not to the Peerage, the Army, etc., etc., although he may form part of them; that he can and ought never to belong to party, or faction, or coterie, or closed society, etc.

'Private individuals have a right to form associations and cast in their lot with them as a mode of gaining a position in life. The Prince of Wales has his position ready made for him by the nation and the constitution, and the nation has a clear and indisputable right to demand of him, that he will make that use of this position for which it was given him, viz., for the general good and welfare of the whole. I think it not superfluous to mark this strongly, as it requires reflection beyond the Prince's years to apprehend the difference in the claims upon him and upon others.

'I trust you will give the Prince an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the distinguished men of the place and give them in return the means of seeing the Prince. Your convivial meetings at dinner will give the best means for this; mixing them with some of the young students will give variety and interest to the conversation and do a favour to the young men, who have otherwise no means of meeting familiarly those from whom they expect to derive the benefit of education, and between whom and themselves habit and circumstances have placed unnecessary and hurtful barriers.

'I was very poorly yesterday evening after my return here, but am better this evening.

"This letter is for the Prince as well as for yourself, for he