I must further express my thanks to Bishop Barry for permission to make use of the following passages from the notes contributed by him to Dr. Gladstone:—­

I had the privilege of being a member of his committee for defining the curriculum of study, and here also—­the religious question being disposed of—­I was able to follow much the same line as his, and I remember being struck not only with his clear-headed ability, but with his strong commonsense, as to what was useful and practicable, and the utter absence in him of doctrinaire aspiration after ideal impossibilities.  There was (I think) very little under his chairmanship of strongly-accentuated difference of opinion.

In his action on the Board generally I was struck with these three characteristics:—­First, his remarkable power of speaking—­I may say, of oratory—­not only on his own scientific subjects, but on all the matters, many of which were of great practical interest and touched the deepest feelings, which came before the Board at that critical time.  Had he chosen—­and we heard at that time that he was considering whether he should choose—­to enter political life, it would certainly have made him a great power, possibly a leader, in that sphere.  Next, what constantly appears in his writings, even those of the most polemical kind—­a singular candour in recognising truths which might seen to militate against his own position, and a power of understanding and respecting his adversaries’ opinions, if only they were strongly and conscientiously held.  I remember his saying on one occasion that in his earlier experience of sickness and suffering, he had found that the most effective helpers of the higher humanity were not the scientist or the philosopher, but] “the parson, and the sister, and the Bible woman.” [Lastly, the strong commonsense, which enabled him to see what was] “within the range of practical politics,” [and to choose for the cause which he had at heart the line of least resistance, and to check, sometimes to rebuke, intolerant obstinacy even on the side which he was himself inclined to favour.  These qualities over and above his high intellectual ability made him, for the comparatively short time that he remained on the Board, one of its leading members.

No less vivid is the impression left, after many years, upon another member of the first School Board, the Reverend Benjamin Waugh, whose life-long work for the children is so well known.  From his recollections, written for the use of Professor Gladstone, it is my privilege to quote the following paragraphs:—­

I was drawn to him most, and was influenced by him most, because of his attitude to a child.  He was on the Board to establish schools for children.  His motive in every argument, in all the fun and ridicule he indulged in, and in his occasional anger, was the child.  He resented the idea that schools were to train either congregations for churches or hands for factories.  He was on the Board as a friend of children.  What he sought to do for the child was for the child’s sake, that it might live a fuller, truer, worthier life.  If ever his great tolerance with men with whom he differed on general principles seemed to fail him for a moment, it was because they seemed to him to seek other ends than the child for its own sake...