have, rather arbitrarily, selected only two spheres or groups (as I may call them) as essential parts of our national education; the laws which regulate quantities and proportions, which form the subject of mathematics, and the laws regulating the expression of our thoughts through the medium of language, that is to say, grammar, which finds its purest expression in the classical languages. These laws are most important branches of knowledge, their study trains and elevates the mind, but they are not the only ones; there are others which we cannot disregard, which we cannot do without. 15. There are, for instance, the laws governing the human mind, and its relation to the Divine Spirit (the subject of logic and metaphysics); there are those which govern our bodily nature and its connection with the soul (the subject of physiology and psychology); those which govern human society, and the relations between man and man (the subjects of politics, jurisprudence, and political economy); and many others. 16. Whilst of the laws just mentioned some have been recognized as essentials of education in different institutions, and some will in the course of time more fully assert their right to recognition, the laws regulating matter and form are those which will constitute the chief object of your pursuits; and as the principle of subdivision of labour is the one most congenial to our age, I would advise you to keep to this speciality, and to follow with undivided attention chiefly the sciences of mechanics, physics, and chemistry, and the fine arts in painting, sculpture, and architecture. 17. You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon upon your country, and in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing the beneficial results upon our national powers of production. Other parts of the country will, I doubt not, emulate your example; and I live in hope that all these institutions will some day find a central point of union, and thus complete their national organization. 1. It is a great advantage, in estimating any character, to have a clear idea of the aspect of the person whose character is drawn. There are fortunately many portraits of the Prince Consort which possess considerable merit; still there is something about almost every countenance which no portrait can adequately convey, and which must be left to description. 2. The Prince had a noble presence. His carriage was erect; his figure betokened strength and activity; and his demeanour was dignified. He had a staid, earnest, thoughtful look, when he was in a grave mood; but when he smiled, his whole countenance was irradiated with pleasure; and there was a pleasant sound and a hearti ness about his laugh which will not soon be forgotten by those who were wont to hear it. 3. Character is written in the countenance, however difficult it may be to decipher; and in the Prince's face there were none of those fatal lines which indicate craft or insincerity, greed or sensuality; but all was clear, open, pure minded, and honest. Marks of thought, of care, of studiousness, were there; but they were accompanied by signs of a soul at peace with itself, and which was troubled chiefly by its love for others, and its solicitude for their welfare. 4. Perhaps the thing of all others that struck an observer most when he came to see the Prince nearly, was the originality of his mind; and it was an originality divested from all eccentricity. He would insist on thinking his own thoughts upon every subject that came before him; and whether he arrived at the same results as other men, or gainsaid them, his conclusions were always adopted upon laborious reasonings of his own. 5. In serious conversation he was perhaps the first man of his day. He was a very sincere person in his way of talking; so that when he spoke at all upon any subject, he never played with it; he never took one side of a question because the person he was conversing with had taken the other; and, in fact, earnest discussion was one of his greatest enjoyments. He was very patient in bearing criticism and contradiction; and, indeed, rather liked to be opposed, so that from opposition he might elicit truth, which was always his first object. 6. There have been few men who have had a greater love of freedom in its deepest and in its widest sense than the Prince Consort. Indeed, in this respect he was even more English than the English themselves. 7. A strong characteristic of the Prince's mind was its sense of duty. He was sure to go rigidly through anything he had undertaken to do; and he was one of those few men into whose minds questions of self-interest never enter, or are absolutely ignored, when the paramount obligation of duty is presented to them. 8. The Prince, as all know, was a man of many pursuits and of various accomplishments, with an ardent admiration for the beautiful both in Nature and in Art. Gradually, however, he gave up pursuits that he was fond of, such as the cultivation of music and drawing; not that he relished these pursuits less than heretofore, but that he felt it was incumbent upon him to attend more and more to business. He was not to employ himself upon what specially delighted him, but to attend to what it was his duty to attend to; and there was not time for both. 9. Another characteristic of the Prince (which is not always found in those who take a strict view of duty) was his strong aversion to anything like prejudice or intolerance. He loved to keep his own mind clear for the reception of new facts and arguments; and he rather expected that everybody else should do the same. His mind was eminently judicial; and it was never too late to bring him any new view or fresh fact, which might be made to bear upon the ultimate decision which he would have to give upon the matter. To investigate carefully, weigh patiently, discuss dispassionately, and then, not swiftly, but after much turning over the question in his mind, to come to a decision,—was his usual mode of procedure in all matters of much moment. 10. There was one very rare quality to be noticed in the Prince, that he had the greatest delight in anybody else saying a fine saying, or doing a great deed. He would rejoice over it and talk about it for days; and whether it was a thing nobly said or done by a little child, or by a veteran statesman, it gave him equal pleasure. He delighted in humanity doing well on any occasion and in any manner. 11. This is surely very uncommon. We meet with people who can say fine sayings, and even do noble actions, but who are not very fond of dwelling upon the great sayings or noble deeds of other persons. But, indeed, throughout his career the Prince was one of those who threw his life into other people's lives, and lived in them. And never was there an instance of more unselfish and chivalrous devotion than that of his to his Consortsovereign and to his adopted country. That her reign might be great and glorious; that his adopted country might excel in art, in science, in literature, and, what was dearer still to him, in social well-being, formed ever his chief hope and aim; and he would have been contented to have been very obscure, if these high aims and objects could in the least degree have thereby been furthered and secured. 12. This love of his adopted country did not prevent his being exceedingly attached to his birthplace and to his native country. He would recur in the most touching manner, and with childlike joy, to all the reminiscences of his happy childhood. But, indeed, it is clear that throughout his life he became in a certain measure attached to every place where he dwelt. This is natural, as he always sought to improve the people and the place where he lived; and so inevitably he became attached to it and to them. 13. The Prince had a horror of flattery. Dr. Johnson somewhere says that flattery shows at any rate a desire to please, and may therefore be estimated at something on that account. But the Prince could not view it in that light. He shuddered at it; he tried to get away from it as soon as he could. It was simply nauseous to him. He had the same feeling with regard to vice generally. Its presence depressed him, grieved him, and horrified him. 14. What, however, was especially repugnant to the Prince was lowness. He could not bear men to be actuated by low motives. A remarkably unselfish man himself, he scarcely understood selfishness in others; and when he recognized it he felt an abhorrence for it. The conditions that the Prince drew up for the prize that is given by her Majesty at Wellington College1 are very characteristic of him. This prize is not to be awarded to the most bookish boy, to the least faulty boy, to the boy 1 In Berkshire, erected by public subscription in memory of the great Duke of Wellington, who died 1852. |