Welsh Journals

NOTES ON RECONSTRUCTION Welsh in the Schools. There are one or two matters in the recent Report of the Board of Education on Intermediate Education in Wales which call for comment. In the first place it is gratifying to note that the external examinations are slowly being reduced to two, the senior at the age of 16, and the higher at the age of 18. That, as the Board rightly points out, is an improvement, for little educational progress is possible when the teaching as a whole is conditioned by a too rigid form of external examinations. Section VII. on "The position of Welsh" is also of interest. Here too the Board wisely refrains from laying down definite rules. The position of Welsh must vary greatly in different localities, and a too narrow insistance on its place in the curriculum would be fatal to real national development. It must be recognised that language is but one of the media of national expression, history and local customs are some, music and art are others. And, whilst Welsh should find a place in every school, what is almost equally important is the encouragement of Welsh life, the development of Welsh sympathies, and also of those characteristic features of Welsh individuality,, its native gentleness and courtesy, its fear of giving offence or causing pain, and its keen demo- cratic sense. The Board of Education Report. The most significant sections of the report deal with the new problem which has arisen under the Education Act, 1918. Under this Act, every Education Authority is required to submit a survey of the education within its area. This includes the secondary form of education now administered under the Intermediate Education Act of 1889. And as the report points out­ "It is now a question of great importance whether the Inter- mediate Schools whose constitution was framed before the "passing of the democratic Education Acts of 1902 and 1918, are in such close and vital connection with the County Councils "as the main source of Secondary Education within the areas of their administration should be." The Report concludes with the suggestion that the administration of the Welsh Intermediate Act might now well be considered in relation, among other matters to the Education Act, 1918. The announcement, following upon this Report, that an enquiry into the position of Secondary Education in Wales was to be set up, caused little surprise. Defects of the Secondary Education System. Secondary education in Wales at the present time has developed, as indeed most educational systems in the British Isles have developed, in a more or less haphazard form designed to meet the needs of the moment. Thus there aie still three types of schools existent, the pro- prietary schools, the county intermediate and the municipal secondary schools. Each of these schools caters for a very similar class of pupils, and in the case of the two last the curriculum and teaching are almost identical. Notwithstanding, there is still a serious lack of accommoda- tion for secondary education. Prior to the Intermediate Education Act, 1889, not more than about 4,100 pupils were receiving secondary education in Wales. To-day in Glamorgan alone 4,823 pupils are attending the intermediate schools, whilst the total for Wales amounts to 18,283. Yet the schools are overcrowded, and many able pupils are denied the benefits of further tuition. It is clear therefore that with the increased powers of the Local Authorities under the Education Act, 1918, a fresh survey of our secondary educational system has become advisable. We have before urged the necessity of regarding education as a unified whole dependent not upon class or other interests but upon the growing nature of the child. In the past an unfortunate and artificial gulf has yawned between the elementary, the intermediate and the municipal secondary schools, as though each existed to cater for various class interests in the community. The only differentiation which should exist is that between the primary stage of childhood- elementary because the child is still a child; and the secondary stage- secondary because the child has now developed into the young adoles- cent requiring different and therefore secondary treatment. It is of course true that economic conditions have a share in the shaping of the general organisation of the schools. The attendant aims of education change with the varying needs of a society which is always changing. But such influences should be strictly subordinated to the general wel- fare of the whole comunity. A More Generous Conception Needed. Our first duty then is to evolve a more comprehensive, a more generous conception of secondary education; our second -to ensure that full and adequate provision be made for this education. The answer to both these demands is contained in the Education Act of 1918. In principle if not in present practice, secondary education is to be made available to all young persons up to the age of 18. Thus the tripartite artificial division of education into elementary for the masses, secondary for the few and university for the chosen no longer holds. For, with each local authority drawing up schemes dependent not merely, we hope, upon the national but also upon the spiritual needs of the locality, we are at last within sight of a real national educational ideal, based upon local needs and inspired by national sentiment. Importance of Spiritual Values. Before we even get sight of this ideal, however, a new spirit almost a revolution is desirable. For secondary education in Wales has become largely the handmaiden of examination. The public have been taught to judge success by the counting of certificates or by the number of pupils who gain distinctions. And this applies as much to the municipal secondary as to the intermediate schools. Too much emphasis has been laid on efficiency, too little on the formation of a healthy public opinion which will lay stress on the spiritual values of life in a world already too material. In the past the curriculum of these schools has been drafted to ensure the success of the few, the majority having very largely to take their chance. Now however we have to cater for the secondary education of all children up to 16, and soon we hope, up to 18. There is thus unexampled opportunity for experiment, for a new tradition, a wider range of occupations and a deeper sense of com- munal responsibility. It can no longer be maintained that secondary education should be professional when only a few of those educated enter the professions. Indeed there is much to be said for the view that the type of secondary education which the Act makes possible cannot be reconciled with the present. Youths occupied partly in the works, partly ot school require possibilities of freedom, initiative, and of communal life at present not available. A Welsh Educational Parliament. These changes however, require the support of public opinion, and here one reform might well be established. At present Wales has no representative body which guides or even reflects educational opinion. It was the ideal of the late Viriamu Jones that the Univeristy Court, com- posed of the 100 best men in Wales for educational purposes," should form an educational Parliament where Welsh educational ideals might receive adequate expression. In 1895, largely through fear lest the schools of Wales should be governed by Whitehall, Wales was definitely committed to the plan of two educational parliaments, one for secondaiy the other for university education. This division of function has not tended to build up that sense of national unity in educational opinion which is at the present time of paramount importance. And it may well be asked whether it is not now advisable to establish once more a representative educational governing body. The way has already been shown. The Report of the Royal Commission on University Education in Wales suggests that the functions of the University Court as an educational Parliament should be revived, and recommends an increase in the numbers of the Court to make it more representative, and capable of acting as a national body in touch with national aspira- tions. Such a body might well become an advisory Court where the needs of Wales may be focussed and discussed, a body which would give that unity and definiteness of purpose to Welsh education which has hitherto been lacking. Commission on Secondary Education. Educationally, Wales his reached an interesting stage. The Uni- versity and indeed Intermediate education were founded by men trained outside Wales, who realised the need for further education in Wales they have been administered largely by men trained in the University. To-day, the elementary and secondary schools have pro- duced their own generation, and these men and women, the products of the complete system of Welsh education, envisage it with more critical if with equally tender regard. They have benefitted from its advan- tages, but they also realise its shortcomings. It is this younger genera- tion which is now knocking at the door of Welsh administration. For some time past some of the younger graduates of Wales have been