national or international, the
Prince of Wales has never grown weary, even when the public interest has
seemed to flag. On the 4th of April, 1870, His Royal Highness presided
at the rooms of the Society of Arts, in connection with the "Educational
Section" of a series of proposed International Exhibitions. On rising to
open the proceedings, the Prince said:--

"We are assembled here for the purpose of organizing the
educational section of the Exhibition to be held in 1871. I
appear before you on this occasion in a double capacity, for I
hold the position of President of your Society, and I am
President of the Royal Commission of 1851, having succeeded in
this post the late lamented Lord Derby, whose name will always
be remembered among the names of our great statesmen, and who
will be greatly missed from that Commission, the interest of
which he had so much at heart.

"The long-standing connection of the Society of Arts with
Exhibitions is well known, and in these very rooms the
Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862 were first planned. This Society
is, I consider, well qualified to deal with the subject before
it, and I assure you that it is a great gratification to me to
preside here and show that I am entirely alive to the great
question of the day--that of education.

"I have now to state that the meeting to-day is of members of a
large Committee, of persons eminent in their various stations
for the interest they have displayed in education, and that it
has been appointed without reference to politics, party,
denomination, or social position, for the purpose of obtaining
the best possible representation in 1871 of the various
materials and apparatus used in teaching, and exhibiting, as far
as practicable, the results of the many systems of instruction
which are in operation in this country and in other nations of
the world. Under the first class we find such objects as affect
the sanitary condition of schools--the desks and stools used,
maps and globes, books, pictures, scientific diagrams, objects
of natural history, and the like. Under the second class will be
shown illustrations of modes of teaching, drawing, reading,
writing, music, and gymnastics, and the interesting work of
educating those whom nature has deprived of sight, speech, and
hearing, with examples of the successful results.