The hundred servants employed in or out of the house had everything that could make their lives pleasant and happy. EDUCATION OF THE ROYAL FAMILY Amidst these surroundings the sons and daughters of the Royal couple were brought up. Upon the education of the boys the Prince of Wales utilized his own knowledge of life as well as the traditions of his father's training of himself. He is said to have believed that the study of men and the ways of the world had not been sufficiently considered in his own case and that he wished his sons, while escaping the nervousness, constraints and adulation which surrounded the Court, should also avoid the sycophancy and flattery which might be expected in their cases at a public school--even of the highest. He therefore decided that a training ship in early youth and the fresh air, vigorous life and wholesome discipline of the Navy in immediately following years would be the best system of education. Prince Albert Victor and Prince George were, consequently, placed on board the _Britannia_ training ship in 1870 and there they spent two years under conditions of study, work, training, mess, discipline and dress exactly similar to those of their shipmates. Their only dissipation was an occasional visit from their parents and the usual holiday period at home. During the two years spent on this ship they learned carpentering, the details of a ship's rigging and a certain amount of engineering. At the end of this period it was decided by the Prince to send his sons for a prolonged cruise around the world as midshipmen on H.M.S. _Bacchante_. They were to have the same duties and treatment as the other midshipmen--except perhaps that their teaching would be more careful and their studies more severe. Special instructors in seamanship, gunnery, mathematics and naval conditions were appointed, with the Rev. J. N. Dalton, M.A., as Governor, in charge while they were on shore and with supervision over their ordinary studies when at sea. Lord Charles Scott, Captain of the war-ship, was, of course, supreme when the Princes were on board his vessel. The cruise of the _Bacchante_ commenced in September, 1879, and terminated in August, 1882. During that period it traversed over fifty-four thousand miles and the Royal midshipmen saw and visited Gibraltar, Madeira, Teneriffe, the West India Islands, Bermuda, the Cape Verde Islands, Monte Video, the Falkland Islands, Cape Colony, Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and Brisbane, Victoria and Melbourne, New South Wales and Sydney, the Fiji Islands, Japan, Hong-Kong, Shanghai, Canton, the Straits Settlements, Ceylon, Egypt and the Holy Land, Athens, Crete, Corfu and Sicily. In 1886 two handsome volumes, carefully edited by the Rev. Mr. Dalton, and comprising the private journals and diaries of the young Princes, were published in London and were found to contain many sensible reflections and much garnered information upon the many countries visited during