nothing of me; but I have been more than
compensated by the confidence and the friendship of the best men of my
own political connection, and by the regard and favourable
interpretation of my motives, which I have heard expressed by my
generous opponents, from the days of Lord Castlereagh to these of Mr.
Disraeli.'

There were few questions in which Lord John Russell was more keenly
interested from youth to age than that of National Education. As a boy
he had met Joseph Lancaster, during a visit of that far-seeing and
practical friend of poor children to Woburn, and the impression which
the humble Quaker philanthropist made on the Duke of Bedford's
quick-witted as well as kind-hearted son was retained, as one of his
latest speeches show, to the close of life. At the opening of the new
British Schools in Richmond in the summer of 1867, Lord John referred to
his father's association with Joseph Lancaster, and added: 'In this way
I naturally became initiated into a desire for promoting schools for the
working classes, and I must say, from that time to this I never changed
my mind upon the subject. I think it is absolutely necessary our schools
should not merely be secular, but that they should be provided with
religious teaching, and that religious teaching ought not to be
sectarian. There will be plenty of time, when these children go to
church or chapel, that they should learn either that particular form of
doctrine their parents follow or adopt one more consistent with their
conscientious feelings; but I think, while they are young boys and girls
at school, it ought to be sufficient for them to know what Christ
taught, and what the apostles taught; and from those lessons and
precepts they may guide their conduct in life.'

Lord John put his hand to the plough in the day of small things, and,
through good and through evil report, from the days of Lancaster, Bell,
and Brougham, to those of Mr. Forster and the great measure of 1870, he
never withdrew from a task which lay always near to his heart. It is
difficult to believe that at the beginning of the present century there
were less than three thousand four hundred schools of all descriptions
in the whole of England, or that when the reign of George III. was
closing one-half of the children of the nation still ran wild without
the least pretence of education. At a still later period the marriage
statistics revealed the fact that one-third of the men and one-half of
the