BISHOP WELLDON'S presidential address has already been printed in NATURE, and it is therefore unnecessary to dwell upon it at any length. Teachers will find it animated by a high conception of the dignity and influence of their calling and a sympathetic insight into its characteristic difficulties, as might be expected from a one-time headmaster of a great English public school, though they may consider it lacking in practical suggestion for raising the profession in the general estimation, the public-school headmaster, happily for himself, being exempt from the necessity for considering such mundane matters as tenure, salaries, and pensions. To the general reader the most interesting part of the address will probably be Dr. Welldon's remarks on the relations of the Board of Education with the secondary schools and with the local authorities, which were prompted by his experience as deputy chairman of the Manchester Education Committee. He has learnt that the antagonism between the schools and the rates is a constant quantity, and that, accordingly, new services imposed on the authorities, commendable in themselves, as, for instance, the feeding of necessitous children and medical inspection, will in part be paid for out of funds which are needed for the performance of the older duties, unless, indeed, the Board of Education can induce the Treasury to grant additional Tielp from public funds, a consummation which is likely to remain unrealised so long as the Parliamentary chiefs of the Board are chosen from ex-Treasury officials. In the Board's relations with the schools Dr. Welldon deprecated the tendency to a bureaucratic regulation of details, which is well known to characterise the dealings of the Board with elementary schools. Such methods may be wholesome when applied to unsatisfactory schools, for they assure a minimum of efficiency; but the maximum of efficiency cannot be obtained under a code of regulations it requires freedom, spontaneity, and individualism for its growth.