fast putting an end to their hallucination. To expend public money recklessly, simply to create small holdings, is a gross maladministration. No Committee ought to give an order, and no County Council ought to sanction an order, for the creation of small holdings, unless there is ample evidence that the constitution of such holdings would lead to more beneficial use of the land and more employment of labour on the land.

CHAPTER VIII

THE EDUCATION PROBLEM

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

ANY changes of opinion and policy have affected the

M question of education since 1847, the time when

elementary education began to convulse the Principality. There are, however, two important facts that have, meanwhile, been amply demonstrated, namely, the justice and expediency of exceptional treatment for Wales, and the ability of Welshmen to hold their own in the field of learning when given equal advantages with their English competitors. Even if space permitted, it would serve no useful purpose to detail the prolonged controversies of that and subsequent periods. Then, as now, the religious aspect constituted the main difficulty. "I will now give my reasons," said the late Professor W. Morgan, of Carmarthen, the father of Judge Lloyd Morgan, in his address to the members of the Carmarthen School Board, "for objecting to the introduction of religious teaching into elementary schools. I object because the public schoolmaster is not the proper teacher, the day-school is not the proper place, and the State is not the proper paymaster." Then there was the question of State-aided education. The principle was accepted by Churchmen, but Nonconformists were sharply divided among themselves. Those of them whose attachment to Nonconformity was stronger than their attachment to education violently opposed it; while those whose attachment to education was stronger than their attachment to Nonconformity strongly advocated it.

The misery and ignorance of the children were deplorable; so were the misery and ignorance of the masses of the people. The

schoolmasters that were available were bankrupt tradesmen, fraudulent excisemen, sailors, soldiers, and cattle-drovers who had picked up a little English in foreign ports. Dean Cotton, who taught himself, and who established by private subscription an elementary school in almost every parish of the Diocese of Bangor, compared some of the native teachers to "teapots, which could make good tea, but could not pour it." Not only was there a lamentable lack of duly qualified teachers, but of buildings suitable for teaching purposes. Schools were held in churches, chapels, and dilapidated houses, without fire, ventilation, or any conveniences. The greater part of the children had never heard or uttered a word of English, except what they heard and tried to utter within the walls of the schools. They had to walk two, three, or four miles over the hills in stormy weather, without any human being to greet them or a place of shelter on the way, and were obliged to stand or sit all day in their wet clothes, with their little ration of bread and butter in their pocket. Such were the difficulties that Welsh children in Wild Wales had to encounter in pursuit of knowledge during the earlier part of the reign of Queen Victoria; such was the state of things when Nonconformists were disputing with Churchmen as to the wisdom of giving religious instruction in the only schools that were available, and arguing among themselves over theoretical logic, and whether it was correct in principle to accept State-aided education.

The Circulating Schools had ceased to exist in 1779 pending a Chancery suit respecting the funds which Griffith Jones and Madam Bevan had bequeathed for the carrying on of the schools. The charity came again into operation in 1809, yielding an annual income of £944, 12s. It has since been worked under a scheme embodied in an order of the Lord Chancellor harmonising with the conditions of the original trust. The Circulating Schools were, to all intents and purposes, National Schools; that is, they were conducted on the same principles as those of the “National Society for Educating the Poor in the Principles of the Church of England," which was founded in 1811. National Schools are so designated because they are founded on the principles of that Society, and are assisted by its funds for that purpose. Those principles are, that there can be no proper education that is not co-ordinated with religious instruction and definite religious

belief. Large numbers of Nonconformist children were educated in the National Schools, many of them receiving in that way their first religious impressions. Notably among them may be mentioned the late Rev. Owen Thomas, D.D. (the celebrated Welsh Methodist minister), and the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before 1827 the Church had 106 schools in North Wales, and before 1847 it had 279, where 18,732 children were trained. In South Wales the Church had 312 schools before the year 1847, with 16,868 children. The increase was such that by 1902 they numbered 677, in which 91,605 children were being educated. Under the Act of 1902 the managers of the National Schools were relieved from the cost of secular education, the Church lending its buildings to the education authorities for secular education, the Church being granted permission to impart religious instruction in them during school hours. The Church schools had been maintained by voluntary subscriptions and the Government grant, but the managers found it difficult to keep up with the great increase in the cost of education occasioned by the introduction of School Boards in 1870, and which made rapid headway throughout the whole of Wales. The cost per scholar in the National Schools for Wales in 1902 amounted to £2, 6s. 9d. The cost per scholar in the Board Schools, which drew extensively from the rates, for the same year, was £2, 15s. 9d. for Wales.

In 1808, three years before the National School Society was founded in 1811, "The British and Foreign School Society for the Teaching of the Children of the Poorer Classes, and especially with a view of giving the whole Population of England Scriptural Education," was formed through the efforts of Joseph Lancaster. This society established schools in Wales which were in operation before the National Schools came into existence. Dr. Bell, who came into prominence in connection with the National School Society, did not look favourably upon the British and Foreign School Society. He characterised the idea of teaching the poorer children to read and write, and to impart general knowledge to them, as "Utopian." Secular education was not held in high esteem in those days, being calculated, it was thought, to lead to such evils as early marriages and general social discontent. In 1806 Archdeacon Denbury, in a charge to his clergy, said "that Lancaster could not be compared except

to Julian the Apostate," that "his scheme was nothing but wild, unreasonable, and anti-Christian," and "that it was not fit to answer any purpose but to make the great body of the people one mass of Deism." Earl Russell, a good Churchman, writing in 1872, said: "The clergy of those days, even the liberal clergy, were generally opposed to the education of the poor." With regard to the great aim of the British and Foreign School Society, he wrote: "One would have thought that such a simple and good object as to teach the people to read and write, and understand the Bible, if it should not have a warm support, would not meet with any opposition." Dr. Bell looked with great disfavour upon the efforts that were being made to supply education outside of the Church. His opposition was due, chiefly, to the fact that he thought it was the function of the Church to provide whatever education the children needed. It was a mistaken policy, as subsequent events proved. Had the Church authorities co-operated with the efforts that were made outside the Church, the gain, even to the Church herself, would have been great.

In 1835 the Government commenced to give grants towards the building of schools; the amount rapidly increased, and was extended to the payment of teachers and the supply of school apparatus. As Nonconformists objected to State-aided education, the spread of the British Schools, which were under Government inspection, was comparatively slow, the offer of grants for building purposes and the upkeep of the teaching staff having been declined on "conscientious" ground. Some years later, seeing the greater progress of the National Schools, which were in receipt of Government grants, the Nonconformists changed their attitude and expressed their readiness to accept Government aid. But, between 1835 and 1845, a large number of districts had been amply supplied with National Schools, and the Government conscquently refused grants for establishing British Schools in the same districts. Nonconformists of more modern times have unjustly used this fact as indicating preferential treatment for Churchmen over Nonconformists, and have built upon it a superstructure of religious and political grievance, which, historically, is quite unwarrantable. This sentiment of grievance has had a marked effect on the fortunes of the voluntary schools in Wales and in the country generally. In