Welsh Journals

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an academy of learning in British Caer-went? We shall never know, but it is diverting to sit at the feet of Canon Davies as he expatiates on the possibilities. Material is much more plentiful after the seventeenth century, and in using it the author reveals his patient scholarship, skill as an historian, and zest for the subject, obviously springing from his twin professional interests of teacher and cleric. To one of his readers, at least, several new facts have been revealed, and views of some familiar scenes have been given from a refreshingly new angle. With regrettable frequency it is commonly observed of South Wales that the approach to educational appointments is narrow, but there appears to have been some progress, for we are told that when Jesus College, Oxford, in the sixteenth century, accepted some financial responsibility for the grammar school at Abergavenny, the choice of master was restricted to Abergavenny 'or failing that a Monmouthshire man who had resided at Jesus College and taken his Master's Degree at Oxford'. Canon Davies is eloquent in his praise of the benevolence and sacrifice which in the nineteenth century produced schools in every parish, but he does not hesitate to make the judgment that there were thus too many schools. The parish proved too small a unit upon which to plan education, not least because if teachers are to be as good as they need to be they should be recruited on a wider basis than the parish. This study throws interesting side-lights on bilingualism. Until recently the industrial valleys of Monmouthshire were Welsh in speech; but for economic reasons, which appeared sound at the time, English was made the medium of instruction in the nineteenth century, with the single exception of Lady Llanover's school at Aber-carn, with the sad result that Welsh maintains a tenuous hold today only in the north-west corner of the county. Is this the shape of things to come for Wales ? Or are we now sufficiently well established in the welfare state to realize that man does not live by bread alone and that a linguistic culture is a trust to be honoured ? The book reminds us of the strange price which has been paid for religious intolerance. In the early part of the eighteenth century in Mon- mouth town subscriptions were sought for a 'S.P.C.K. school', but the best qualified master was unacceptable because he was the son of Dis- senting parents, and a notorious drunkard, David Jones, was appointed instead and the school declined. If Nonconformists had been better able to agree amongst themselves and had overcome their distaste for government grants there would have been more British schools; but Baptist quarrelled with Baptist, and the Superintendent at British schools in South Wales, himself a Baptist minister, expressed himself with feeling in his journal in 1853: 'O! when will my dear brethren be wise enough not to stand in their own light?'