Welsh Journals

lose'. Moreover, even the labour movement, or at least a large part of it, began to come round. There were still plenty of difficulties ahead. TJ's remarkable re- sourcefulness in finding evacuee tenants covered the war-time inter- mission, but the 1950s were especially difficult so far as money and student recruitment were concerned; and for a time the future of resi- dential adult education colleges was uncertain. Mercifully, prospects improved and by 1960 Coleg Harlech's future was assured; the number of students (including the valuable leaven of those from overseas) increased substantially and their quality improved. The college went from strength to strength. This is a remarkable and important story and Peter Stead's anniversary book recounts it in a lively and thoroughly interesting way. Lady White's memoir of her father is a valuable supplement to the official history of the college. Her essay (which is innocent of any suggestion of excessive filial piety) is full of revealing detail and perceptive insights about a quite exceptional man. It is high time that Wales acknowledged the enormous debt it owes to Thomas Jones's beneficent activities. These two works advance the cause of his proper recognition. E. L. ELLIS Aberystwyth. HISTORY TEACHING AND HISTORICAL UNDERSTANDING. Edited by A. K. Dickinson and P. J. Lee. Heinemann, 1978. Pp. viii, 176. £ 6.00, paper £ 2.80. History teachers owe a considerable debt to historians at the London Institute of Education. They have provided us with the invaluable Hand- book for History Teachers and the more theoretical Studies in the Nature and Teaching of History. Now two younger historians there have increased our indebtedness with a major collection of essays. They are theoretical; but like all theoretical work on the teaching of history they have prof- ound practical implications. The major impact the book must have is on discussions of the New History in schools. Two of its main features are subjected to rigorous examination in the first chapters. It has been argued forcefully, and rightly, by advocates of new approaches that pupils should be allowed to interpret, at their own level, historical documents and other primary sources. As a result archive material of all shapes and sizes, in boxes and plastic bags, has proliferated. 'The child as historian' has become a cliche of the New History. Missionaries are not the most objective advocates and some absurd claims have been made about the benefits deriving from the use of primary sources. As Dickinson, Gard and Lee argue in the first article, 'it is therefore important to try to get clear what is inherent in the historian's use of his evidence, and what impli- cations this may have for the use of "sources" in school history'. Despite rather too great a reliance on Hexter as model, they succeed admirably in clearing up some of the dense undergrowth surrounding the historical and pedagogic claims made for the use of 'evidence' in school. The