But life in the Royal circle was not all amusement. Baron Stockmar bears testimony to the zeal with which both the Prince and the Queen devoted themselves at this time to business and graver studies. And many events were happening, many intellectual and social movements beginning to develop, which keenly interested them. The unsatisfactory position of British art--emphasised by the fate of Haydon, who committed suicide in despair of ever interesting the English people in the higher forms of art--the development of the great movement in favour of popular education, and the rise of what afterwards came to be known as the Party of Secularism, were keenly canvassed during the latter part of this eventful year in every circle where thoughtful men and women met. Among the many remarkable movements that arose when the country was liberated from the strain of the Free Trade agitation, was that which originated the strife between parties as to the share which the Church and the State should take in the work of education. A crude and rudimentary scheme of national education was part of Lord John Russell’s programme, and the attention of the country had been excited by a pamphlet published by the late Dr. Hook, then Vicar of Leeds, afterwards Dean of Chichester, in which he proposed a plan which very much resembles that which the late Mr. W. E. Forster induced Parliament to accept in 1870. Her Majesty and Prince Albert were deeply interested in Dr. Hook’s plan, the leading points of which were: (1) Schools to be universally supported by the State; (2) Education to be secular, but one day in the week to be set apart for religious instruction, which should be given by each denomination to the children of its own members. The Secularist Party owed their origin to Mr. Holyoake, who at this time began to propagate the system of ethics known as Secularism, a system which aimed at promoting the welfare of mankind by human means, and measuring it by utilitarian standards. The service of others he held to be the highest duty of life. Secularism rejoiced in life as the sphere of exalting duties. It was a religion of doubt, neither affirming nor denying the existence of a Deity. Ultimately it came to be termed Agnosticism, and the working classes seemed to be considerably influenced by Mr. Holyoake’s teaching during this year and a few of the years that followed.