TOPICS OF THE DAY.

RESULTS OF THE EDUCATION CONFERENCE.

l'az Conference opened by Prince Albert this week fulfilled our expectation, in leading "more to indirect than direct results,"— the very words of Earl Granville at the final meeting. At the first glance over the reports both of the General Meetings and the Sections, there appears to be an endless variety of Views and of schemes, all tending to do "something," but inconsistent with each other' if not neutralizing each other. On a more careful survey we find, that under the surface of this seemingly unordered commotion there are two currents of opinion, which are gradually acquiring steadiness of action and strength. The firet, and in mere quantitative weight the strongest current, is that which points to free and unrestrained development of existing institutions, without more legislative interference. The opinion tends towards voluntary associations, distributing certificates or prizes to young students, and thus drawing forth the natural energies of the individual. The Reverend W. J. Kennedy, one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, went into greater detail on this subject than any other speaker. He proposed that the country should be marked out into di stricts ; that an officer should be appointed in every.distriet ; and

in that the chief business of this officer should consist persuading

the parents among the working classes to allow a more general school-attendance, even paying, if necessary, the school-fee out of a common fund. An association at Manchester has worked this plan with some success' and it only needs a permanent machinery to give the action its full effect. The second great current of opinion runs in an obliquely opposite direction. The representation us, that even with the aid of philanthropic associations, but without legislative interference, the working classes are unable to help their children to a better education. The parents themselves are too little educated to appreciate the necessity of better teaching; they bring up their children with too little discipline to be effectually under authority ; but above all, the demands of the labourmarket offer a price for the children. The needs of a frugal home, or the exactions of a dissolute parent, are influenced snore by the earnings of the immediate week than by the future prospects of the child ; and the immediate motive to industrial employment is thus stronger than the prospective motive which would bring about voluntary schooling. The high hand of the law, therefore, must be stretched out to protect the weak against the strong, the child against the parent, the next generation against the present. Mr. Akroyd, Member for Huddersfield, who has done more for the cause of education than most men living., and who may be considered impartial in his judgment 'between employers and employed, strongly recommends legislative interference. Ho and others want to compel owners of factories to refuse admission into their works without the passport of an education-certificate. Such educational protection was also demanded in a petition from the workmen of Birmingham, directed to the President and Committee of the Conference. It will be observed that these two currents of opinion are grounded on onesided views of the great question: those on one side perceive the impracticability of applying a Germanic police screw to the English people ; on the other side is perceived the difficulty of escaping from the ill-educated present to the bettereducated future. The discussion has not yet sufficiently refined and fused opinion to produce one common conclusion.

As good hats, says the Times, attract purchasers and bring a good trade, good schools would attract pupils. But good schools must be paid for, and those who have pupils to supply do not appreciate education at the price-current. Besides, the schools in this country are bad, as Sir John Pakington showed from the very reports of the official Inspectors of Schools ; and how are the schools to be made better without a supply of scholars ? It looks bike a dead lock.

• Yet it is impossible that such an assemblage as that which we have just witnessed could be collected without substantial results. When influence, wealth, and intelligence are combined— when various important classes come together, and the institutions of the state are represented, all impressed with the necessity for education, and all desirous of bringing it about—the education must come, and this appeal to the power of collective opinion must accelerate its progress.

The examinations now instituted or proposed will afford an incentive to scholars, and will supply, a standard for the improvement of schools ; and there will be a demand for teachers. Educated persons in all ranks will multiply, and the example of the preference given to educated persons will in itself be the greatest incentive both to the young and to their parents. Thus, the merease of education will be the first incentive towards the further increase of education. Concurrently with this advance, improvements in machinery and in the modes of trading are already assisting the economy of time. One evidence is afforded in the growing facility for granting school-hours or half-holidays in some branches of trade if not in whole towns ; and here we have the disengagement of time for the purposes of study through economy of industry. A third important advance consists in a better economy of teaching, which not only selects the objects of instruction with a more practical view to the capacity and future destination of the pupil, but consumes less time in specific methods of instruction, and thus requires less sacrifice from the pupil or his parents. All these processes are going on; they all assist

each other; and their movement l■ ill be increased by the weight of opinion enforced upon all classes of the community through the collective influence which has assembled this week, with the active aid and guidance of the Queen's Consort.

"WASTE NOT, WANT NOT ! "

As we expected, the House of Commons has been provoked by the continued outlay of the public money in every direction, with no apparent means of control, to interfere roughly by putting a dead stop to the process ; and, as usual in such cases, it has begun the reaction in a very questionable mode. It has stopped the illconsidered outlay of public money, for the benefit of private landlords in making the survey of the United Kingdom on the scale of land lords, inches to the mile ; but it has also held the hand of

Government from assisting the people of Finsbury in establishing a park for that quarter, which requires it as much as any other district of the Metropolis, but is invidiously debarred from advantages allowed to others. It always happens so. The servants of the public, acting under the Executive or Parliament, have been spending money as if it came like manna from the skies, for all kinds of objects, desirable or undesirable, and now a rude stoppage is to be put to the outlay, not only respecting many works which are questionable, but arresting those which are most desirable ; the stoppage as well as the continuance equally proving the necessity of some concentrated authority, some real public responsibility. The other night, the First Commissioner of Public Works was baited for the excesses of Sir Charles Barry ; Lord Claude Hamilton demanding a stricter account of the unchecked expenditure which has been going on in the name of the eminent architect. More than 2,000,000/. has been spent on the new Houses of Parliament, the expenditure is still going on without any prospect that it will cease, and we have not got what we expected for the money. The stone is beginning to give way under the weather and the damp of the site, even before the buildings are finished ; the iron roof is beginning to show signs of corrosion ; and the edifice proves to be unsuitable for the purposes required. Both chambers have needed alterations in order to render them fit even for the obvious work of speaking. In the House of Lords the reporters could not hear without a special contrivance. Lord Claude Hamilton enumerates the changes in the House of Commons— "In the first place, the floor had to be lengthened ; then the seats had to be altered ; next, the galleries for Members had to be changed ; the Strangers' gallery and the Reporters' gallery had likewise to be remodelled ; the long lancet-shaped windows at first introduced were found ill-adapted to the character of the House, and had to be all altered ; the arrangements for ventilation had been the subject of numerous changes; and, last of all, it being discovered that nobody could hear in the House, the roof had to be entirely altered. What private firm that carried on its affairs with anything like ordinary prudence would allow an architect to play this game with them and not even require him to state the expense incurred by such innumerable changes ? "

There are of course two sides to a story, and Mr. Malins appears as counsel for Sir Charles Barry, with considerable effect. It was not Sir Charles, but the House, which was answerable for most of the alterations made in the original plan. As to the remuneration of Sir Charles, five per cent is the usual allowance to an architect ; and, we may add, the emoluments which Sir Charles Barry is supposed to have derived from the two Houses of Parliament during the years which he has been engaged upon the work did not exceed the fair remuneration for an architect of his standing, and do not equal the pay for an ordinary engineer in the employment of a railway company. Yet the fact remains that we have load these incessant alterations. At least half a million has been spent for objects which have been proved worthless or 'wrong; and there is no effectual means either of checking the outlay or of obtaining the thing wanted for the money. It is plain to ordinary apprehension, that before a shilling is laid out—before even the commencement of the work—the employer ought to obtain distinct plans, with some guarantee for their practicability in attaining the object desired. Exeter Hall did not prove to be a place in which speakers could not be heard, yet it would afford space for two or three Parliaments. It is the same with St. Martin's Hall, and will be the same with the chapel which they are building for Mr. Spurgeon. The Houses of Parliament are not the only example of this total absence of efficient agency for the public. In a previous debate, Lord Palmerston gallantly took upon himself the responsibility for the purchase of Aldershott, with a statement that it was difficult to find a place suitable for the evolution of troops and available for purchase. Mr. Caird, who speaks on land and its purchase with almost an official authority, shows how gross was this mistake on the part of the First Lord of the Treasury.

" Woolmer Forest, for example, offers a much larger spacethan Aldershott. There are 6000 acres yielding almost nothing, traversed by.a direct road from the metropolis, and skirted by a railway. The ground is beautifully undulated, is better supplied with water than Aldershott, and is well adapted for a camp. The Government had given 14/. an acre for Aldershott, and he doubted whether they could get more than that money for it if the camp were withdrawn. Woolmer Forest was valued for sale not long ago 'by the Crown Surveyor at 3/. or 41.; so that if the Government had fixed upon this estate as the site for the camp, they would have saved a great deal of money and very much increased the value of the adjoining land. The New Forest, Hampshire, contains 65,000 acres, of which 30,000 acres are unoccupied ; it is traversed by a railway, and is within a short march from Portsmouth. If the Government had established their camp here, they would have had many applications for leases, and would have raised the value of that which belongs to the nation." Now we cannot expect Lord Palmerston to know all these dotails; but there was Mr. Caird, who had them all at his fingersends; whereas the official surveyors, as we learn from the facts, were in complete ignorance of the resources which they possessed in the very lands of the Crown, while they went abroad purchasing Aldershott at a wasteful cost.

The grant for Finsbury is denied on the score that it is properly a local charge, and that the imperial revenues should not be put into requisition for it. The argument would be valid if it were clearly made out; but we have yet to ascertain what is or is not a "local charge." Paving and lighting clearly belong to that class ; the British Museum and the National Gallery are properly treated as imperial subjects : where is the line of demarcation? And as soon as the line of demarcation between imperial and local charges is established, we have a clear ground marked out for the construction of a local authority, coordinate and coextensive with the incidents of local charge, exactly-as in the ease of poor-law rating and poor-law administration. Until the Imperial Government and Legislature endow the Metropolis with the proper authority and machinery for municipally bringing the resources of the whole to bear upon the improvement of the several parts, it is proper and fitting that the Imperial administration should perform that office.

Every one of these cases of doubtful administration, of money waste, and of resources misused, we find to arise from the disorganized state of authority, local or imperial, and the absence of concentrated responsibility. In the case of the Houses of Parliament, the changes of plan, the waste of time and of money, have arisen from a course the very opposite of that which the present Minister of Public Works has been blamed for adopting—when, before laying a single stone of the new Public Offices, he required a plan not only for those buildings, but for consecutive improvements which might be required in the same neighbourhood. We want some officer to secure us the same foresight and the same consistency of action, both under the general and the local administration." We should then have public buildings executed when they are wanted, giving us the objects which are required, and we should have somebody who could answer to Parliament for the details of the expenditure, as well as for the adoption, the rejection, or the delay of the many improvements urged upon the Executive by humanitarian schemers, local agitators, or speculative projectors. We should, too, have a check against that real source of many of the worst abuses—the interference of wealthy -or high-born dilettanti in the professional business of the architect and builder.

PROVISION FOR RETIRING BISHOPS.

Tire question raised by Lord Redesdale on Friday, in connexion with the resignation of the Bishop of Norwich, is one which requires a better answer than any which was given to it by the Ministers that evening. Two Bishops were permitted to resign last year, and for them ample provision was made. A solemn assurance was given that no kind of bargain or even understanding existed, but that the Bishops resigned without any reserve. Now the incapacity or illness of those two Bishops could not have rendered any special arrangement necessary for their simple retirement without a provision : or, if their money comfort was the paramount object, they might have remained where they were, since prelates had before continued to hold their sees after they had become incapable of performing the duties. But it was understood that retirement would be very convenient to the comfort and health of the prelates ; and it remained the fact, that they did not relinquish their position until a provision for them had been settled. Early last year, it was supposed that the Government intended to provide for the retirement of bishops by a general measure ; but the general measure was not forthcoming at the proper time, and a special act was passed for those two cases ; the general act, it was understood, being deferred till the present year. In this year another bishop has been compelled by ill health to resign, but the circumstances are very different. The Bishop of Norwich might have continued to hold the title, rank, and emoluments of his see, and have simply discontinued the exercise of his duties. It was conscientious principle which induced him to give up his office, and he did so without waiting until Parliament should make provision for him. It was of course to be expected that his case would be included in that "general measure" which was to have been introduced last year, which is now to be introduced next year ; but when Lord Redesdale inquires for it, he is told that the case of Dr. Hinds "did not press," and that the question of a general measure is surrounded by "difficulties." "The Lord. Chancellor would feel extremely obliged to the noble lord, if he would suggest a mode in which this question could be settled : the difficulty was to provide funds." Now we are not aware that any "difficulties " exist which are more likely to be settled in 1858 than they have been in 1857 or were in 1856. Deliberation is one thing, procrastination is another; and the measure which is a simple act of justice to Dr. Hinds, of decent provision for the public order after the special measure introduced last year, has most likely been deferred simply because differences of opinion among the various members of the Government have prevented an instant settlement, and thus the arrangement has been procrastinated from time to time.

"The difficulty," says the Lord Chancellor, "is to find the funds," but the matter is "under consideration" ; an alarming promise ! Already two suggestions have been offered to the Go vernment, and we are convinced it would not be "difficult" to find some others from which to select one that would be both practicable and convenient. The Duke of Newcastle suggested that a retiring bishop might receive a provision in the form of a third or fourth or some other proportion of the revenues of the see, after retirement. But this would lead to a consequence which the Duke would probably be among the most strenuous in deprecating —the permanent diminution of the episcopal incomes. Should it be found practicable—and, no doubt, he is right in thinking that it could be—to obtain the services of as good a bishop for 35001. a year as for 45001., the next step inevitably would be to out off the superfluous 1000/. permanently. "And why not?" it may be said : "a bishop would have enough for all the requirements of his episcopal office were his income half that sum. Yes, but he would not have enough for the customary demands on existing bishops for general objects of social importance or for the numerous appeals which are made to them especially for charitable aid to the distressed. Let the change be made, if the benefit on the whole preponderates ; but whenever it is made, what will be disturbed and deranged by it ought to be considered, and not left to chance. When the religious houses were suppressed, who foresaw that their suppression would lead, through much suffering and privation, to the establishment of the present gigantic poorlaw ?—that, having dispersed the masses of wealth which were recognized as the resources of the otherwise pauper, some legal substitute would be requisite for the charity that was extinguished? It is in this broad view of collateral as well as direct consequences that the present accumulations of ecclesiastical wealth should be considered with reference to their future appropriation. A correspondent of the Times, " C. H. Davis," points at another source.

"When Bishop Carr resigned his see of Bombay, he was promoted to the rectory of Bath, which he still holds. The Cathedral Commissioners have suggested that some cathedral preferment would afford a suitable provision for retiring bishops. If, therefore, the first vacant deanery, or St. Paul's or Westminster canonry, were conferred upon Bishop Rinds, there would be a pension of at least 10001. a year (under the act of 3d and 4th of Victoria, chap. 113, see. 66) all ready at once. There would then be no occasion for any net of Parliament, if it were understood that resignation of a bishopric conferred a moral claim to the first vacant deanery or London canonry."

This suggestion shows at least that there are funds at command, though it is open to serious question. The bishopric of Bombay cannot be regarded as ranking with the bishopric of Norwich, and it would scarcely do to promote a man downwards after long and. faithful service in the Church. Besides, if we are not mistaken, although certain authority vests in the Dean and Chapter of a cathedral, the Dean is regarded as the working officer of the corporation, ''whose property and business he has to administer ; and. how these duties should be performed by a reverend gentleman incapacitated by illness for the duties of bishop, we do not see. It is rather like allowing the post-captain of a ship to retire into the office of first-lieutenant. If we are mistaken, and the deanery is a sinecure, it is an excellent reason why the office should be suppressed and the funds devoted to any suitable purpose for providing for a retiring bishop : but we believe we arc not mistaken as to the active duties required from a dean. A more simple and obvious mode of providing for the retirement of bishops would be to adopt the principle of a benefit club, which taxes the members of a profession generally to make provision for sickness and the retirement of individuals. Let episcopal incomes be taxed in the same way. The average sum required would not exceed 30004 , and would probably be under that estimate, if pensions were fixed at 1000/. a year for bishops and 1500/. for archbishops. The sum-total of episcopal incomes on the reduced Beale exceeds 150,000/. A tax of 2 per cent—no heavy burden—would give more than the sum assumed to be sufficient. Parliament may and probably will object to that sum being abstracted from the fund now appropriated to the further endowment of small livings ; but no one could object to the application of it from the bishops' incomes for the benefit of the episcopal body. The 3000/. so raised would represent the average sum annually required. Some years it may be more than enough for the object, and other years less. In order to adjust it to the fluctuations of demand, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners should receive the amount of the tax as an addition to their general fund, and undertake to provide the pension or pensions, whether in excess or short of it.

There is, no doubt, a euppoeable obstacle in the way of this arrangement. Existing bishops ought not, it may be said, to be taxed without their consent. Would any refuse ? Would it be either to their interest or to their credit to refuse?

These suggestions at all events prove that there are resources_, and the Government must know of others. The question is, which

source to select; and it cannot take three years to make the selection for any men who will set their heads practically to choose the best.

PRINCE ALBERT'S PROMOTION.

PRINCE ALBERT has received the honour of promotion, but the public will be as much mystified as ourselves when it learns the rank to which the Prince has been raised. His Royal Highness has been promoted to be "Prince Consort" He is made what he already se. This seems to convert his Royal Highness, bodily, into a kind of identical proposition; and the conversion into himself raises in the mind a variety of puzzling questions as to the consequences. Nothing has been happier than the married life of the Prince hitherto; what 15 to happen after he is mado

officially "Prince Consort" ? We observe that persons who are appointed to any office under the Crown kiss hands on the occasion ; but it is not reported that Prince Albert kissed hands "on his appointment to be Prince Consort." The Leading Journal accompanies the first announcement of this intelligence with an explanation that only increases the per

plexity. No one can object," says the Times, "to the distinction which is thus conferred on the husband of the Queen after seventeen years of married life." But when we look to the capacities of the House of Commons for objection, the assumption appears too strong. People might naturally object to the distinction, since it is a distinetion without a differenee,—unless, indeed, there is to be a difference, and then every reasonable person might object. Another explanation is still more incomprehensible. "Suffice it to Bay, that it makes Prince Albert legally, as he is already actually, a member of the British Royal Family." This almost compels us to ask in what relation he stands to the Royal Children, if not " legally " ?

Some question had already been raised as to the position of Prince Albert toward the heir-apparent, as the Prince of Wales advances in years and takes a more conspicuous place before the public. The position of Prince Albert in the order of precedence had already been settled, and yet there was something indeterminate in his relations on public occasions. Perhaps that is now rendered more definite, though the public understood it well enough before. It is also explained, however, that hitherto Prince Albert has had no recognized or recognizable title abroad, and that his being made "Prince Consort of the United Kingdom" —whatever that may mean—places him in the " Royal " rank on the Continent, whereas hitherto he has only stood in the " Serene " rank.

"Her Majesty has then certainly transgressed no hound of moderation, when, after a reign of twenty years, she confers on her husband a title which, without giving him any authority at home assures to him a high

and definite position abroad His Royal Highness the Prince Consort of the 'Unite() Kingdom will be to us pretty much the same as his Royal Highness the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. But, in spite of the poet, there is much in a name; and, if there• be increased homage rendered to the new title on the banks of the Spree or the Danube, the English people will be happy to sanction and adopt it."

The Queen has indeed crowned the proverbial devotion of English wives for what ordinary woman would thus actually equip her husband for going out on the spree" ?

THE HYDE PARK MILITARY SHOW.

Tin distribution of the Victoria Cross, like O'Rourke's noble feast, "will ne'er be forgot" by those who were not there, for they have taken it seriously to heart. Early yesterday evening, Sir Charles Napier complained that the Navy was not represented by a sufficient force of sailors. Lord Donoughmore complained that the Peers were not provided ; and " parties " who had failed to get tickets are attacking Sir Richard Airey for the bad grammar of his circular reply announcing that tickets were exhausted,—as if grammar were yet a Horse Guards commodity ! Another omission is pointed out, remarkably enough, by the Ministerial Globe—no regiment of the Line was on the parade ! The last is decidedly a flaw.

Now this is rather inconsiderate. In reply to the Globe, "we are authorized to state," that everybody could not be on the ground ; and on the whole, we are not aware of the services before Sebastopol which entitled the Peerage to be of the party. Besides, Lord Vivian confessed that the real cause why Peers did not get tickets was their own "diffidence." And Lord Clanrioarde did get. a ticket. Mr. Henley saw in the absence of the sailors "an admission of administrative incapacity for which he was not prepared" : hut Mr. Henley can always hatch a proof of incapacity out of any egg. Sir Charles was ungrateful ; for to his question, beforehand, whether an Admiral in uniform would be allowed to be present on horseback," Mr. Osborne distinctly said, "If the gallant Admiral presents himself in Hyde Park mounted and in uniform, I am sure a fitting place will be given him." If there is any ground of complaint, it is that we have not a real theatre for the audience of these Imperial dramas.