He was the centre from which whatever there was of spiritual life in the parish emanated. Self-reliant, resolute and unwearied, but kind and conciliatory, and withal cautious and discreet in his operations, he exhibited a thoroughness of character that enabled him to exercise a controlling influence over his charge, and his self-devotedness was often gladdened by the sympathy and encouraged by the affection of those whom he had won from the slavery of sin to the freedom of Christian life. When he settled down with his young wife among the scattered units that in the aggregate constituted his flock, he found them for the most part sunk in ignorance, mental and moral; and the parents, indifferent themselves, had allowed their children to grow up in the same indifference. To reclaim the young, he set about gathering them into the village schools, in the successful working of which he ever manifested the deepest interest. Public elementary education had then made but little progress, and the proverbial three R's, with perhaps a dash of unintelligible geography and history, made up the total of the knowledge usually imparted. Edward Stanley was far in advance of many of his clerical brethren in the desire to place the means of instruction within the reach of even the poorest classes of society, as well as to improve the methods of conveying it; and his zeal in this direction has been testified to by a former Chancellor of the diocese of Chester, the Rev. Henry Raikes. "He was the first," said the Chancellor, "who distinctly saw and boldly advocated the advantages of general education for the lower classes. Schools had been founded; he had borne his part--and a most active part--in the first movement, but I think that he first set the example of the extent to which general knowledge might be communicated--and beneficially communicated--in a parochial school. I well remember the appearance," he says, "of the school at Alderley, where, in addition to the usual range of desks and books, the apparatus for gymnastic exercises was seen suspended from the roof. I remember the admiration excited at a lecture which he delivered in Chester, where he exhibited a 'hortus siccus' of the plants found in the parish, made by one of the girls in the school; and, though few or none did more than wonder at what was accomplished at Alderley, an impression was created that a large amount of useful secular knowledge might be added without any deduction from what would be considered the proper objects of a school."