ening chapters fill two or three large
manuscript books. The plan was abandoned for one more suitable to his
powers. Meanwhile, the literary activity which had alarmed his father
was not abated, and, indeed, before very long, was increased.

IV. EDUCATION COMMISSION AND RECORDERSHIP

Another employment for a time gave him work, outside both of his
professional and his literary career, though it remained something of a
parenthesis. On June 30, 1858, a royal commission was appointed to
investigate the state of popular education. The Duke of Newcastle was
chairman and the other members were Sir J. T. Coleridge, W. C. Lake
(afterwards Dean of Durham), Professor Goldwin Smith, Nassau Senior,
Edward Miall, and the Rev. William Rogers, now rector of St. Botolph,
Bishopsgate.[72] The Duke of Newcastle was, as I have said, the patron
of the editor of the 'Saturday Review,' and perhaps had some interest in
that adventure as in the 'Morning Chronicle.' He probably knew of my
brother through this connection, and he now proposed him, says Mr.
Rogers,[73] as secretary to the commission. The commission began by
sending out assistant-commissioners to the selected districts: it
afterwards examined a number of experts in educational matters; it sent
Mark Pattison and Matthew Arnold to report upon the systems in Germany,
France, and Switzerland; it examined all the previous reports presented
to the Committee of the Privy Council; it collected a quantity of
information from the various societies, from the managers of government,
naval and military schools, from schools for paupers and vagrants, and
from reformatories; it made an investigation into the state of the
charitable endowments, and it compiled a number of statistical tables
setting forth the results obtained. 'The man to whom more than to anyone
else the country owed a debt of gratitude,' says Mr. Rogers, 'was
Fitzjames Stephen.... Though under thirty, he brought to the task a
combination of talents rarely found in any one individual. To his keen
insight, wide grasp, accurately balanced judgment, and marvellous
aptitude for details, was due much of the success with which we were
able to lay down the future lines of popular education. I have often
thought it strange that this recognition has not in time past been more
publicly made.'

The Commission lasted till June 30, 1861. It published six fat volumes
of reports, which are of great value to the historian of education. The
p