In a leading article in _The Times_ I read one day that a fact, which the writer had just discussed, occurred at a time “when Inspectors of Schools were really men of mark.” And about the same time I read in a novel by a lady writer that the objectionable young man of the story had got “one of those appointments which require no special capacity, such as an Inspectorship of Schools.” In the latter case I took pains to find out in what Inspector’s district the lady lived: and I discovered that her tyrant was one of the most amiable and most exemplary of men. Among other qualifications for the post he had the voice of a turtle-dove afflicted with tonsilitis; and as a preacher--he was in Holy Orders--he was inaudible at a distance of twenty feet from the pulpit. It is recorded of him that one Sunday, after he had been preaching in a strange church, the verger, or beadle, met one of the clerical staff, who had been engaged elsewhere, and said, “You ’aven’t missed much to-night, sir; we ’ad a bee in a bottle.” I cannot think how this colleague can have offended the lady: unless she sat under him. Her criticism betrays a sense of personal resentment. The complaint that things and persons are not what they were is familiar. It must have frequently been made by Eve, after her change of residence, and in the family of Noah it would be the merest commonplace. “What pterodactyls we used to have before the Flood!” But there is some justification for the lament of _The Times_. There were two or three Inspectors of Schools who were more distinguished than any whom I have known in later years. Dr. Temple, and Matthew Arnold, for instance, gave lustre to the office. But the former was “Inspector, chiefly of Training Schools” (_Life_, Vol. I., p. 97) for only two years; and the latter was--to put it in most courteous terms--more efficient on the literary side. “Mr. Arnold inspects our school in Westminster,” a London school manager said to me. “Of course we are much honoured, and the managers make a point of attending to meet him. He arrives in the course of the morning; shakes hands with the managers and teachers; and talks very pleasantly for a few minutes; then he walks through the classes between the desks, looking over the children’s shoulders at some exercises, and so makes his way to the door, and we see him no more.”