We now address ourselves to the main features of the reports themselves; and shall begin by observing that each volume consists of an introductory report, followed and supported by an immense mass of detailed evidence, accounts of the examination of each school, and elaborate tables, enough to confound the diligence of the most indefatigable reader, and amply sufficient to satisfy the statistical appetites of Mr Kay Shuttleworth, the secretary of the committee, and Mr Williams, late M.P. for Coventry, in whose motion these volumes originated. The first volume (Mr Lingen's) contains 62 pages of introductory report, and 492 of evidence and tables. The second volume, (Mr Symons's,) 68 of report, and 266 of evidence, &c.; and the third, (Mr Johnson's,) which is the volume devoted to North Wales, has also 68 of report, and 358 of evidence. The reports of nearly all the schools, with very few and widely-scattered exceptions, run all on the same themes; the inability of the children to answer the examiner's questions, and their ignorance, bad pronunciation, bad syntax, &c., of the English language. We know for a fact, on the other hand, that the returns of the inspectors are disputed in a great number of cases by competent judges residing in or near the parishes where the examinations took place; and that the inspectors are accused of having conducted their examinations not only in an off-hand flippant manner, with much precipitancy, but with a method so decidedly English, and therefore foreign, as at once to unnerve both the children and the schoolmasters, and thus to have produced the most negative and unfavourable results possible. In a great many instances, too, the inspectors are accused of having made erroneous returns. We have been ourselves at the pains to make inquiries into these points, but for the very obvious reason of not wishing to involve ourselves in controversy, we abstain from discussing the evidence, especially with three lawyers for our antagonists: we leave this task to the Welsh local press, which has been for some time past running a-muck at them, and is disposed to devour them--reports, pens, ink, wigs, gowns, and all. We shall content ourselves with stating, that we know of one instance in which the inspector has sent in a very unfavourable report of a considerable school, which had been thoroughly and patiently examined only a few weeks before by one of the Welsh bishops, aided by some local clergymen, in the presence of a large concourse of the laity, and when the result had turned out to be highly creditable both to the teachers and the scholars. In the latter case, the children had been questioned both in Welsh and English by Welsh people, and by people whom they knew and were not afraid of. In the former, they had been examined by one of her Majesty's inspectors, learned in the law, but not in the Welsh language, nor in the art of conciliating the Welsh people. We shall take instances from each of the three reports,