Welsh Journals

interesting, too, to note that some nine-tenths of the subscription to General Dyer came from one single woman admirer-a fact which sets more firmly in perspective Miss Chamberlain's reference to the extra- ordinary cross-section of 'clergymen, schoolgirls and former army officers' who contributed. What she makes abundantly clear is that both British and Indian society were in a process of fundamental change during the period of the Raj, and how wrong it is to judge one generation by the mores of another. Would Gandhi's methods of political action have had any effect in the early-nineteenth century or in Nazi Germany? The study of the interaction of the peoples of Britain and India is attractively written: the arguments are marshalled with a sense of fairness and with notable clarity. The judgement itself is scholarly, historically sensitive and sound. A. F. MCC. MADDEN Nuffield College, Oxford THE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF WALES, ABERYSTWYTH, 1872-1972. By E. L. Ellis. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1972. Pp. £ 5.00. Celebratory centenary histories are notoriously difficult things to produce. The pressures towards pious glorification are almost irresistible. But Dr. E. L. Ellis has scored a triumph. His book is firmly grounded in both Welsh and English manuscript sources. At the same time his professional training as a modern British historian helps him provide a proper context and enables him to avoid those inept comments about the national scene which so often mar such studies. The unique feature of Aberystwyth's achievement was its democracy, both financial and intellectual. Although the great generosity of the Davies family of Llandinam was its support again and again in time of trouble, it was not primarily the creation of a small cluster of great benefactors, either governmental or private. It depended almost literally on the pennies of ordinary people-a plethora of small gifts and covenants, the proceeds of chapel collections on 'University Sunday'-Sul y Brif- ysgol. Likewise, it aimed to bring a higher education within the reach of those people's children well before the notion of the 'educational ladder' was generally familiar and accepted, and in that part of the British Isles least well provided with secondary schools of any type. Of course there were problems; and some of the debates about the nature and standards of the teaching to be provided might be interestingly juxtaposed against the arguments going on about the nature of higher education for girls in England in the last three decades of the century. But the Aber- ystwyth initiative led directly to the Welsh Intermediate Education Act of 1889 and to the generous and immediate Welsh response to the legislation of 1902. Aberystwyth contributed also to curriculum innovation in agricultural and geographical work and in international relations. Dr. Ellis is