Parties who take an interest in the progress of education in this kingdom among those classes where it is most needed, that is to say, masses of miners and mechanics residing in districts from which all the higher and most of the middle classes have removed; where the clergy are few, hard worked, and ill paid; where the virtues of a thinly peopled agricultural district have been exchanged for the vices, without the refinements, of a crowded town population, should traverse this part of Staffordshire on foot. They will own that, in spite of the praiseworthy labours of both Church and Dissent,--in spite of the progress of Temperance Societies and Savings' Banks,--a crowd of children are daily growing up in a state of ignorance, dirt, and degradation fearful to contemplate. To active philanthropists, not to seekers of the picturesque, archaeologists, and antiquarians, do we address ourselves. Still we ought to add that, in the iron works and rolling mills, there are studies of half naked men in active motion at night, with effect of red firelight and dark shade, in which the power of painting flesh and muscular development might be more effectively displayed than in the perpetual repetition of model Eves and sprawling nymphs. * * * * * WOLVERHAMPTON formerly lay away from railroads, at a convenient omnibus distance; but competition has doubly pierced it through and through. One line connects it with Shrewsbury; another, on the point of completion, will connect it with Dudley, Birmingham, and Oxford, and another with Worcester,--add to these means of communication the canals existing before railroads commenced, extending to Hull, Liverpool, Chester, and London, and it will be seen that Wolverhampton is most fortunately placed. The great railway battle of the gauges commenced at Wolverhampton, and has been carried on ever since at the cost of more than a million sterling in legal and parliamentary expenses, beside the waste of capital in constructing three railways where one would have been sufficient, and the extra cost of land traversed where a price was paid, 1st, for the land; 2nd, for the revenue; 3rd, for compulsion; 4th, for influence, and 5th, for vote, if the landowner were a member of either House of Parliament. At the end of the battle, a competing line to London has been established, which will end shortly in a compromise; and, if one district has two railways, others, much needing, have none. The shareholders on both sides have lost their money, the engineers have reaped a harvest, and the lawyers have realized a fortune. The experience of water companies, gas companies, canal companies, and railway companies, has distinctly been, that, between great monied corporations with large capitals sunk in plant, competition is impossible and must end in a compromise.