“It is impossible,” wrote Queen Victoria in her _Journal_, “to describe how beautiful and imposing the effect of the whole scene was in the fine old chapel, with the banners, the music, and the light shining on the altar.” It was significant of the young Queen’s native simplicity that the Prince was only christened Albert, after his father, and Edward, after his grandfather, the Duke of Kent. Both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert soon showed that they were determined to allow nothing like publicity to come near their nurseries, and the public obtained but few glimpses of the Prince of Wales as a child. Prince Albert’s intimate friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar, wrote a year after his birth to one of his friends:-- “The Prince, although a little plagued with his teeth, is strong upon his legs, with a calm, clear, bright expression of face.” Before he was eighteen months old His Royal Highness had already sat for his portrait several times. King Edward VII. was barely four months old when Baron Stockmar drew up a very long memorandum on the education of the Royal children. In this document he laid down that the beginning of education must be directed to the regulation of the child’s natural instincts, to give them the right direction, and above all to keep the mind pure. “This,” he went on, “is only to be effected by placing about children only those who are good and pure, who will teach not only by precept but by living example, for children are close observers, and prone to imitate whatever they see or hear, whether good or evil.” In the frankest manner the shrewd old German physician proceeded to point out that the irregularities of three of George III.’s sons--George IV., the Duke of York, and William IV.--had weakened the respect and influence of Royalty in this country, although the nation ultimately forgave them, because, “whatever the faults of those Princes were, _they were considered by the public as true English faults_”; whereas the faults of some of their brothers, who had been brought up on the Continent, though not at all worse, were not condoned, owing to the power of national prejudice. [Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA, THE EMPRESS FREDERICK, AND KING EDWARD VII. _From the Painting by S. Cousins, A.R.A._] The conclusion at which Baron Stockmar consequently arrived was, “that the education of the Royal infants ought to be from its earliest beginning _a truly moral and a truly English one_.” It ought therefore to be entrusted from the beginning only to persons who were themselves morally good, intelligent, well informed, and experienced, who should enjoy the full and implicit confidence of the Royal parents. The Baron did not mince matters with regard to “the malignant insinuations, cavillings, and calumnies of ignorant or intriguing people, who are more or less to be found at every Court, and who invariably try to destroy the parents’ confidence in the tutor.”