Welsh Journals

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they are products of a departmental machine tuned to accurate, but, in the main, quite lifeless examinational work. Unfortunately, however, the professional training which these young students have to undergo is far from fitted to the importance of their task. It is both too short and too academic. It includes courses of an academic psychology, which is, fortunately, rapidly changing its outlook, of method based often on insufficient local knowledge and of history dealing with conditions far different from and inapplicable to those of modern Welsh life. Thus the students spend their all too short period of training in cramming fact and precept. There is but little attempt to lay bare the larger and vital issues of the problem. For education is socialisation. It is the process of making the unsocial individual a citizen." But the process needs men and women alive to the duties of citizenship, and to fulfil this duty the education departments of the Colleges must become much more than places merely for the training of teachers. They should help their students to link their stores of untried knowledge with the experience of those who live on the sharp peaks and edges of reality by the judicious choice of frequent lectures by scientist and humanist, artist and worker and by close and sym- pathetic study of the community. For the training of the teacher is not only a matter of instruction or of dis- cipline, but of the clash of ideas and the true direction of the communal mind. In short the education department of each College should be the centre of the community which it ought to guide and interpret before it can in any real sense prepare or train its future leaders. Whilst, however, the training of teachers, if properly carried out, may prepare for a wide and comprehensive outlook upon life, much more is ultimately required. Most I would I were a crystal stream And spend my life as in a dream Among the heather, bush, and brake, Close by Killarney's lovely lake. 'Tween boulders I would boldly glide And over precipices slide, Then somersault from pool to pool, 'And linger where the day is cool. And would I not with mind alert With ardent sunbeams coyly flirt? To please them dress in silver sheen, A pretty match with Nature's green ? The little shamrock, modest gem, And mountain ling would be my hem, And o'er my head a lovely shade Of greenest leaves within the glade. THE TORC OR SILVER CASCADE IN KILLARNEY. teachers find that the atmosphere of the brightest classroom becomes, in time, somewhat lifeless. The continual contact with the developing mind requires an equally continual replenishment of social inspiration and energy. The same is true of the official administrator, and even more of the inspector. Each tends to become stale. Each requires, therefore, periodical excursions into other realms of thought and scene. We are to-day busily engaged in planning War Memorials. One of the most fitting of National Memorials which the Local Educational Authori- ties could organise would be the establishment of a large number of ample travelling scholarships which would allow educationists of all grades (teachers, administrators and inspectors) at intervals of 5 years or less, to travel for periods of 3, 6, or 12 months. No conditions should hamper this periodic holiday. It would obviously be arranged in conjunction with the Bureau which would put the travellers in touch with responsible people. But apart from that, there should be no writing of reports, that is the work of skilled investigators, no scrutiny of the work accomplished, or of the journeys done. The only result the Authorities should expect and get would be a teaching and administrative staff refreshed in body and mind bringing ever to its task fresh points of view, new en- thusiasms and new experiences. Whilst the nation would benefit by generations of children trained not in the narrow limited purview of town or parish, of text-book or news- paper leader, but in that sympathetic international outlook born of the results of immediate international experience. Only in an increasing international initiative amongst teachers and a corresponding increasing co-operation between nations can we hope finally to sweep away the ignorance which breeds both local, national and inter- national animosities. Or watch gay lovers-bashful both, In secret bowers pledge their troth, Or with clasped hands beneath the flow Their eyes afire and cheeks aglow. Who has not heard of the Tore cascade So snug within the shady glade? What charm in nature e'er can beat That of this polished silver sheet? I would not be a placid lake To sleep in peace and never wake, But near the Reeks, a lively rill, To scamper daily down the hill. Oft I would journey to the Lake And help the hands of Nature make This spot the loveliest ever seen- Killarney-Erin's matchless queen. DEFYNNOG. August 12th, 1919.