Welsh Journals

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conditions are to be established is a question which is beyond the scope of these articles to discuss. It may be said, however, that the miners and their leaders will have to deal with the first, and that the second can best be undertaken through existing educational agencies, and especially through a live and well-equipped university, organised on a demo- cratic basis, with branches in every mining town and WELSH EDUCATION AND NATIONAL UNITY FROM the numerous discussions which have taken place during the past months concerning University education in Wales-discussions vigorous, disinterested, and therefore illuminating-and from the brilliantly incisive articles published in June and July by the Welsh Outlook, certain main facts emerge. It is well to set these down plainly, since the conflict is stirring dust which may cause a man to mistake brothers-in-arms for antagonists. (i.) The teaching in our University Colleges is too mechanical and uninspiring, (ii.) This tameness can be cured, but in one way only-greater freedom for teacher and pupil. (iii.) According to one party such freedom can be secured only by erecting each College into a completely autonomous University. (iv.) Accord- ing to another party, complete educational freedom can be gained through powers already granted by Charter and even if in practice perfect freedom is not attainable, yet the single University, being a symbol of national unity, should be cherished and preserved, (v.) Others, again, while desiring freedom for the teacher and the pupil, would yet retain the central University control so as to avoid useless triplication of work-some subjects should be taught by one College only-and to provide one mind which shall oversee the whole Principality. This statement of opinions I believe to be both just and complete. Let us discuss each in turn, and endeavour to obtain the right view in the present topic One University or several ? Observers of our system, as actually worked, seem to agree that there is a lamentable lack of spontaneity and original force in our studies. The evil is threefold-our syllabuses, our examinations, our degree-schemes, all contribute thereto. As for the latter, an Arts- student who does not take Honours must complete nine courses before he can be presented for a degree village throughout the coalfield. All this is utopian enough. Perhaps it is still wilder to dream of some religion, some moral motive powerful enough to persuade the masters to think of the employing function as first and foremost a service of the nation and only in the second place a means of private profit. Observer. ­each course involving from three to five lectures (perhaps more) a week, study and written work connected therewith, and an examination at the session's end. In his first year he will generally pursue four Intermediate courses. He is not a schoolboy, but he is compelled to work like one- to absorb information on a given subject quickly and to pack it away so that it does not crowd out other subjects. What time has he to digest, to reflect, to compare and criticise ? Granting that each course of the nine is perfectly suited to the pupil and is well taught, the mere plurality is in itself an evil. A lad of nineteen hears, let us say, a wonderful lecture on Chaucer. Five minutes afterwards he takes his seat in a neighbouring room and passes another hour listening to a masterly treatment of the dynamics of a particle. Five minutes after the close of this he passes under the sway of a philosopher who has a new criticism of Leibnitz' monadology. What are the thoughts of our friend as he totters away to his lunch ? He has none. His mind, instead of forming a well-ordered livable chamber, is a squalid warehouse of tumbled and incompatible merchandise. And at night, when he approaches his work of preparation for the morrow, he must drag forth, not even Leibnitz, Chaucer, and the particle, but an analogous tangle from yesterday- the French subjunctive, let us say, the economic aspects of the partition of Poland, and Plutarch s influence upon Shakespeare. Amid this welter, what becomes of the man, his individuality, his pursuit of sound learning ? If he has at the outset scholarly instincts, can they be thus fostered? If he is not scholarly, but a youth of raw mind, un- developed powers, the case is far worse. We who ought to train him as an athlete merely cram him like a Strasburg goose. One absolutely vital change must