might choose to consider herself as an official responsible to the country first, and to the parents of the Royal children afterwards. Against such an idea the Queen most resolutely set her face. “I feel,” her Majesty writes, on behalf of herself and her husband, that “she (the Royal governess) ought to be responsible only to _us_, and _we_ to the country and nation.”[4] It was in pursuance of this idea that her Majesty made great sacrifices to keep her children as closely as possible in contact with her. Many curious memoranda from her pen exist, and through them all there runs the same thought--simplicity and domesticity must be the leading characteristics of the training of the Royal family. For example, whenever it was possible, the Queen insisted on retaining in her own hands the _religious_ education of her family, and it is now known that she did this from a dread lest their minds might at the most plastic period of life receive a sectarian bias. High Anglicanism was then militant, and many intrigues were set on foot by its professors to effect a lodgment in the Palace. The education of the Princess Royal, afterwards Princess Imperial of Germany, was almost entirely supervised and directed by the Queen herself, and with results much appreciated in Germany, where, through her tact, culture, high character, and strong common sense, her Imperial Highness has won for herself a position of unique political and social influence. The education of the Prince of Wales, however, now came more directly under the hands of Prince Albert; and one point of the highest importance to decide was whether it should be conservative or [Illustration: ROYAL VISIT TO IRELAND: THE QUEEN LEAVING KINGSTOWN.] liberal in its character. Prince Albert decided that it must be liberal in this sense, that it should prepare the Heir Apparent for taking his position in a changeful state of society, whose institutions were, to a great extent, in a transition stage. Every effort was to be made to prevent him from getting into his mind a notion that existing institutions were _sacrosanct_, and that resistance to all change was a sacred and patriotic duty. The history of George III. had evidently not been studied in vain. “The proper duty of Sovereigns in this country,” wrote Stockmar to Prince Albert, “is not to take the lead in change, but to act as a balance-wheel on the movements of the social body.” Above all, it was determined that the education of the young Prince must be at bottom English, and not foreign. Furnished with these principles to guide him, and with general instructions to make the basis of the young Prince’s training as broad and comprehensive as possible--to make it scientific as well as classical--Mr. Birch essayed his arduous task, aided not a little by shrewd advice from Bishop Wilberforce and Sir James Clark, the Queen’s favourite physician.