Welsh Journals

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ST. DAVID'S COLLEGE, LAMPETER.1 IT has been said that the art of giving a lecture consists in knowing what to leave out. This rather suggests that the lecturer's knowledge of his subject is comprehensive if not complete. In actual fact, it is not so much a case of knowing what one is to leave out as of leaving out what one doesn't know. The omissions in this talk belong to both categories. In 1878 Bishop Basil Jones delivered his presidential address to the Cambrian Archaeological Association, which, like our meeting today, was held in this College. I borrow his opening words Let me request my hearers to pardon errors and supply omissions.' The subject allotted to me is St. David's College.' A full-scale history of S.D.C., though periodically mooted, has never been pro- duced. The story in outline has often been told,. and that story must be familiar to many. I am faced by a dilemma. My time in a talk is inevitably rationed. Shall I repeat that outline story, and seek to compress the eventful history of 120 years into half an hour ? Or, shall I concentrate on some manageable period, and, if so, which period ? Shall it be the present and recent past plus our plans and prospects for the future ? Or, shall I investigate the origins and beginnings of our institution and tell that thrilling story, with some degree of thoroughness ? This is what I propose to do. Our meeting is held under the auspices of the Cardiganshire Antiquarian Society, and I take it that the antiquities rather than the modernities of the subject represent its proper concern. In the annals of higher education in Wales, a pioneer and peculiar position is occupied by St. David's College, Lampeter, possessing, as it does, the distinction of being the oldest College of a university character in the Principality. It owes its foundation to the insight and initiative of one man- himself not a Welshman. But what was said of the centurion of Capernaum may with a slight adaptation be said of him He is worthy for he loveth our nation and hath built us a College.' That man was Dr. Thomas Burgess, who was bishop of St. David's from 1803 to 1825. The preceding Hanoverian rSgime, by which alien (and often sceptical) bishops were foisted on Wales for over a century, forms a !An address given at the College, 30 October 1948.