Welsh Journals

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF ROBERT ROBERTS A WANDERING SCHOLAR AS TOLD BY HIMSELF This autobiography, which started in the June (1914) number of The Welsh Outlook," deals with the period of roughly 1834-1863. The author was born at Havod Bach, near Uangemyw, in 1834, and is still remembered by old inhabitants in that district. XVII. (continued) William Jones and myself soon afterwards went to the Masters' Meeting at Caernarvon. We used to walk to Llanllechid on Saturday and return early on Monday morning, preferring that long walk to spending a dreary Sunday at Caernarvon. We remained there a month, during which little occurred deserving of mention. I saw my old friends and formed a few new acquaintances. Ellis was now established at a small school near Caernarvon, receiving little pay, but very con- tented and happy: industriously reading for his certificate and amusing himself with a little verse writing, Bob Evans was also stationed at a school at a little distance, in good spirits, but broken in health and not likely to continue among us long. He had given up reading, but discoursed weet music out of his fiddle and thereby afforded us much entertainment. Richard Owen, "the Puseyite" had thrown up his school in disgust and gone to the Australian goldfields. Goliath had gone back to his Methodist friends, and was now at Bala, in training for the ministry. So there were the usual changes-old friends had disappeared, and new ones had taken their place. On my return from Caernarvon, my schoolroom was finished, and a few days afterwards, it was opened. It was a large building, capable of holding about three hundred children, and there was a good house adjoining. The population was so great that though there were three other large schools within a mile. we entered 300 names the first day, and it soon appeared that a still larger building would be required. A large number were very young, and had never attended school; very few could read or write, and there was a roughness of manner among them which was rather repelling. But I was for- tunate enough to obtain the services of some elder boys and girls, who were of great assistance to me in teaching, and the youngest children being placed under the care of a mistress, my work was much lightened. Still, it was a heavy undertaking for a youth of seventeen: the strain upon the physical powers was great, and the responsibility of such a charge was greater than I could well realise, but I had sufficient confidence in myself and entered upon the work witdout fear or hesitation. I worked very hard, and succeeded in getting my assistants to work hard, too the visible progress was small and slow, and I was at times a good deal disheartened at the apparent disproportion between the improvement and the labour bestowed, but it came at last in about a year's time the school was brought into a fair state of efficiency. I found a considerable amount of unreasonableness among the parents. unreasonable expectations of rapid progress, silly complaints about trifling matters of discipline, and other little disagreements of that sort: but that annoyance wore away as the parents acquired con- fidence in me. I also found that the more I was known to the parents, the less difficulty I had with the children; this encouraged me to cultivate their acquaintance. They were rough, and what is called unmannerly, in their conduct and conversation; but the roughness was all of the outside at heart they were a friendly social people. The men were generally intelligent, fond of reading, much given to polemics and politics for labouring men who had received but little early education, they were the best informed people I ever saw. The women were greatly inferior to the men. They married young, were very ignorant, coarse, given to incongruous finery, and spoiled their children sadly. was amused to see the mothers bring up their children for enrolment on the opening day, with their mouths full of toffy, india rock, or other sweetmeat, and thought it a pity they could not be sent to school as well as their offspring. My female assistant, a married woman, lived in my house, and cooked for me. Her husband was leader of the Church Choir,