Welsh Journals

THE LIFE AND OPINIONS ROBERT ROBERTS A WANDERING SCHOLAR This autobiography, which started in the June (1914) number of The Welsh Outlook," deals with the period of roughly 1834-1863. The author was bom at Havod Bach, near Llangernyw, in 1834, and is still remembered by old inhabitants in that district. XIX On my coasting voyage with Captain Evans, we called at a seaport town in Anglesea where my acquaintance M.W. was incumbent. Amlwch was a great resort of sailors, and my friend the Captain had many cronies to yarn with during the couple of days we stayed there, and I, not caring too much for the company of these worthies, who were rough sons of Boreas, went to the parsonage to see the parson- bard. In the course of conversation he told me that the master of the National School was leaving, that he could not as yet find a successor, that if I felt my- self strong enough after the ensuing holidays to take a temporary charge, he would be glad to offer me Amlwch that the work was light and the place healthy that a short stay in the place would enable me to see whether it would suit as a per- manency. I looked into the schoolroom, a large untidy-looking building there was no opportunity of seeing the scholars, as the school was closed on account of repairs. If I had seen them, I think that I should not have entertained the thought of coming among them, even for a limited time. When my health was re-established, I went over to Amlwch and commenced work. The first sight I had of my new pupils made me regret having ever come there, but it was too late to retract. When the school door was opened in the morning, in rushed a crowd of boys such as I never saw except in a gutter half of them had no shoes or stockings, most of them had evidently not been washed for some days past, and all were unruly as wild colts. There being no pupil teacher or assistant, I picked out three or four of the most likely looking boys to assist me in bringing some kind of order out of this chaos. After two or three failures, I succeeded at last in getting myself heard, but it was useless to give out any orders in English-that language was OF AS TOLD BY HIMSELF utterly unknown to all except two or three English- born boys who had drifted somehow into that out- of-the-way corner. The task before me seemed well- nigh hopeless but I set to it doggedly; drilling, organizing, classifying. How the late master man- aged was then a mystery to me. I afterwards found out that he was an easy-going man, case-hardened as to noise, and confusion, who spent more hours at the Ship than at the school, and left the teach- ing to take care of itself. There was a great deal to fight against at Amlwch, enough to frighten a timid man at once, and to cool the zeal of the most determined reformer. Big boys, thoroughly ignorant, brutal in their manners, and disgusting in their habits parents as ignorant and as brutal, who looked upon the schoolmaster as their natural enemy and resented his attempts at correcting their children's evil habits no en- couragement from outside, not one of the better classes ever entering the school, or taking the slightest interest in it the clergyman despondent the laity indifferent or hostile take it for all in all, I should not like to see its like again. One of the inducements to my taking the place at all was the fact of my acquaintance with M.W., the incumbent. Unfortunately, he was a man much easier to like at a distance than too near. When we were correspondents merely, I admired his learning, and when we saw each other but seldom, I liked his manner. But when I came to live in his parish, and began to have some intimacy with him, things looked rather different. As to his learning, the more I knew of him, the more I admired him, and my opinion of his mental ability increased every day. He was also friendly and affable, and did not attempt to treat me de haul en bos, still there was something in a longer acquaintance which made the Dr. Fell rhyme applicable. What it was, it would not be easy to define. One of the Llanllechid folks said