TRAINING OF A KING

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 144, 27 September 1910, Page 7

TRAINING OF A KING

REMARKABLE ARTICLE. Seldom in history can there have appeared, shortly after the death of a sovereign, so intimate and close an analysis of his character as that which is published in the July issue of the Quarterly Review. The writer of the extraordinary article, entitled "The Character of King Edward V 11.," had had the advantage of studying, by permission of his Majesty the King, many private papers in the Royal archives of Windsor Castle, and he has added to them the Letters from Sarah Lady Lyttelton, 17971870, which have been privately published (says the Daily Mail). Clearly working with much intimate knowledge in addition to these sources of information, and being, as clearly, a wise, broad-mind-ed, fearless, and discriminating critic, it is not too much to say that this writer has made a permanent contribution to history which every intelligent subject of the present dynasJty should read. King Edward was born at a critical period of our country was f.lr from prosperous, grave political conflicts were in progress, the great achievement of Queen Victoria's reign—the revival of the prestige of the Crown —was just begun. Yet, as Lady Lyttelton, the Prince's first governess, shows, never was a child more sedulously watched over by its parents: Nothing—not "the smallest thins—was left to chance. Not a week; jro&a day, not an hour of the time of this precious youth could safely or properly (be wasted. Other lads might occasionally run loose in the spring time, and foT other boys it might be legitimate to plunge into the region of romance. But for this boy the pages of even Sir Walter Scott were closed, and ■he must concentrate, upon "modern languages," upon "history," upon "'the sciences.' .... Daily, almost hourly, the Queen and the Prince kept watch and ward over those entrusted with the care of their son. Within the

walls of Buckingham Palace or Wind ®or Castle letters and notes constant!'.

passed, and have been carefully and elaborately preserved.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S MEMORANDA. It is the extracts from these notes which give its chief interest to the first part of this article. We are thus presented, more' fully and more confidentially than has ever been the case befon . with the story of how a boy was prepared by able "and devoted parents to brcome a great King. No detail was too small for these parents' loving scrutiny. When the Prince was fifteen Queten Victoria writes,to him about dress—for he had henceforward to buy ties and toilet accessories out of his own moderate allowance. , ~

Dress (she writes) is a trifling mat-" iter which ought not to , toe , given too much importance in our owA eyes. But it gives also the one outward .sign 'from which people ih .general can >rid often do judge from the internal staj« of mind and' feeling of a person, for this they all see, whilst the other they cannot see. On that account it is-of some importance, particularly* .in persons of high rank. I must, now ■that we do not wish to control yoijr own taste and fancies, which on tlie contrary we wish you to indulge and : develop; but we do expect Uhat. you will never wear anything extravagant' or slang, not because we don't like it, but because it. would prove a want of self-respect and be an offence- against decency, leading—as it has* often done before in others—to an indifference to what is morally wrong.

1 On 'his seventeenth birthday—an important occasion, for the Priaee had been appointed a colonel in the Army and had received the Order of the Garter—a long memorandum is addressed to him by his parents, Every sentence is full of loving counsel, and is worth reading.

A new sphere of life will open for you, in which you will have to Ibe taught what to do and what not to do, a subject requiring, study, more inrpsritarit than any in which you have hitherto been engaged. For it is a subject of study, and the most difficult one «?f your life, how to become; a good : man and a thorough gentleman. To the servants and those below you, ® you will always be courteous and kind, remembering that by haying engaged to serve you in return , for certain money payments they have not Burrendered their dignity which belong to them as brother men and. brother Christians. You, v will try to emancipate yourself as much as possible from the thraldom of abject dependence for your daijy wants of life on your servants.' The more you can,do.for yourself, and the kss you.need, thfe' greate! 1 wflf 'life yoto' inaeijendefee and real comfort. THE PRINCE'S "SET."

The same unwearying and detailed solicitude is shown in a confidential letter of instructions '"for' the guidance of the gentleinen appointed to • attend oh the Prince of Wales, 'who by their example are to train him to be the 'first gentleman in the country.'" Here are some passages from it: The Prince of Wales has arrived at that period in his life when the state ; of transition'commences from the habits, the dependence, and the subjection to control of a boy to the manners and the conduct, and ultimately to the self-reliance and responsibility, of a man. The most critical, the. most important, and the most dijicult ' period of a lifetime; that which all parents watch with the greatest anxiety. _ The usual and the most efficient means adopted for ensuring a happy result to this state of transition is to take care that upon entering into contact with the world the young may be placed in what is commonly called "a good set." In settling, therefore, the gentlemen to attend upon the Prince of Wales, the Royal parents have chosen them with great care, with a view to .their supplying, in some degree, this Want, and becoming themselves the representatives* as it were, of that "good set," by association with whom the ' Prince of Wales may acquire such a tone, and learn such manners and conduct, as may make him socially what his parents wish, and what the country will expect. On dress and manners this memorandum has much advice to give to these young men. "A gentleman does not indulge in careless, self-indulgent, lounging ways, slouching in his gait. . . . in dress he will never give in to the unfortunately loose and slang style which predominates at the present day. He will borrow nothing from the fashions of the groom or the gamekeeper. . . A gentleman having gained the prestige in society of good dress and appearance, and courteous manners, must maintain the good opinion of his companions by showing intelligence'in his conversation, and some knowledge of those studies and pursuits which adorn society and make it interesting. Mere games of cards and billiards, and idle, gossiping talk, will never teach

this; and to a Prince, who has usually to take the lead in conversation, the habit of finding something to say 'beyond mere questions as to health and 1 remarks upon the weather is most desirable. ' Ati OBSERVER OF MEN. The sde,velopment of the Prince's character was indeed not without its perplexities. 'His tutor excuses a want of studious reflection in his pupil by saying; "that he is learning almost unconsciously j from objective teaching much which could never have been tought him subjectively" —to,- which the writer of the article wisely that it was just this "failing or qualjty" which enabled King Edward so successfully to manage public affairs. •'A;, great reader the King never was, but he w«.s a great observer.". King Edward himself in later years, looking over some old; letters from one of his tutors, admitted the justice of the reproach that duriiig years of youth there was in 'hiffi~"a Want of enthusiasm and imamnation, and the absence or torpor ril'the fyo'etical element," and Sir Henry Bulwer, Ambassador at Constantinople, writing to the Queen of the Prince, comtaentsy"l do not think he will study or mtich "from books, but he will attain all that is practically necessary for him to kfiovv by observation and. use it I With address." And now, thus prepared, the ■ test comes, the boy becomes man, the ilian became King, and the first historian of King Edward VII. sums up the short brilliant reign: So far from his previous life, with

its ■ wafit of concentrated • energy, with", its so-called frivolities, and with wKat men always prejudiced and sometimes insincere call its ceremonial insanities, proving an obstacle to king- • ship; the sheer humanity of it had ' left" him unscathed of soul and most extraordinarily well equipped for dealbig with' the gravest' problem with Which. a Sovereign has to deal, that is- to say, the' eternkl problem; dj making good use of the' average man. ■ Whether it was a Radical politician or a 'foreign statesman, a man embittered by neglect or one of Fortune's favorites, an honest man or a villain, no One ever left the King's presence without a sense of his own increased importance in the worldly scale of things. It was this power of raising a man in his own estimation which was the mainspring of the King's influence. His varied intercourse with men of all sorts and conditions, his preference foi 1 objective rather thaii for subjective teaching, a-s his old tutor said of him in boyhood, and hfe frank interest in the'affairs of lotliergj had taught him the most profound s 'and the oftenest ignored of all platitudes) that the vast majority of men are good, a-nd that no man is wholly evil. • Thus the write* passes to the conilusion of his analysis'. \ge speaks of' King Edward's charm—"when the King talked into a room everyone felt the »low of a personal greeting"—of King Edward's simplicity, interest irf others, memory, conversational powers-—"one .of ;hq best ,«myexsß,,tionp,li«tß Jn" Europe" hejails him.