Welsh Journals

THE WELSH OUTLOOK and respect for the personality of a nation is fruitful in endless ways for the better life of nations and of men. We are really just entering upon a new view of international morality. In this respect, we are living in the most promising period of the history of SIR JOHN RHYS— 1840-1915 I.-BY SIR E. VINCENT EVANS. IN these terrible times of trial and stress the death of great men fails to give the impression that might be expected. But the removal of Sir John Rhys from the field of his manifold labours leaves a void that even the accumulated sorrows and woes of a world-at-war cannot fill. For many years John Rhys has been admittedly, both at home and abroad, the greatest scholar in the field of Celtic learning. Others labour diligently and well in the same ground-many of them owe much in the way of instruction and guidance to him-but it may safely be said that no one can ever fill his place. To all who love things Celtic he was ever a guide and a friend, to us who are of Wales he was a present help and a perpetual inspiration. John Rhys was born in the year 1840 at Abercacro, near Ponterwyd, one of the upland villages of Cardi- ganshire, not far from Devil's Bridge. He sprang from a class to which Wales is deeply indebted, that of the small peasant farmer who laboriously tills the scanty soil of the Welsh hill side and rears sons and daughters on a very moderate return for his toil, to become a credit and an honour to the land of their bitth. His early career was similar to that of many young Welshmen who, during the nineteenth century, say up to the establishment of the Welsh University and its Colleges, had to start under many and serious disadvantages to make their way in the world. That so many of them succeeded in attaining to responsible, some of them to eminent, positions, is a fact of which Wales has every reason to be proud. Young John Rhys-so we are informed by one related to him-received the earliest rudiments of knowledge in a pen-ty school near his home, kept by a Methodist preacher, but he very soon found himself a pupil at the British School in Penllwyn, a village associated with the names of others who have become more or less famous in Welsh story. From being a pupil teacher at the Penllwyn School, he took the customary next step, and went to the Normal College at Bangor to qualify as a schoolmaster, and after the usual course of study he became the head of a small school at Rhosybol in Anglesey. While there an the world, though we are writing it in tears. It is this, and no other is the supreme moral issue of the war. We are fighting for these generous ideas and by fighting for them we are helping to build humanity into one. essay which he sent in for a competition to an Eisteddfod held at Beaumaris, attracted the special attention of the Adjudicator, Dr. Charles Williams, the then Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, and led to the young schoolmaster of Rhosybol becoming in 1865 a scholar of Jesus. Two years later he took a Second Class in Classical Moderations, narrowly missing his First: following it after another two years with the best First of his year in Literae Humaniores. At the end of 1869 he was elected a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. While working at the University he also at intervals (1868-1870) attended lectures abroad at the Sorbonne College de France and the University of Heidelberg. In 1870 he matriculated at Leipsic and in 1871 at Gottingen. In the latter year he returned to Wales having been appointed Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools for the counties of Flint and Denbigh, and in 1872 he married Elspeth, daughter of John Davies, a charming and cultured lady who was his helpmeet and counsellor for close upon forty years. To them were born two daughters, Myfanwy and Olwen Rhys, both of whom have greatly distinguished themselves in various paths of learning. When it was decided in 1877, mainly on the initiative of the late Mathew Arnold, to establish a Chair of Celtic in the University of Oxford, John Rhys was found to be pre-eminently fitted for the position. He was already well known as a Celtic scholar by his contributions to leading European reviews, as well as by his articles in the Archaeologia Cambrensis and other journals, and great things were expected of him. From 1877 to the day of his death he held the Professorship of Celtic in his University, and established therein a world-wide reputation for research and scholarship. Elected an honorary Fellow of Jesus College in 1877 he became a Fellow in 1881 he was Hibbert Lecturer for the year 1886, choosing for his subject Celtic Heathendom Rhind Lecturer in Archaeology, Edinburgh in 1889 and President of the Anthropological Section of the British Association in 1900. He received the honorary degree of LLD from the University of