Welsh Journals

THE WELSHWOMAN'S PAGE. By M.M." THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY INTO WALES. Two correspondents have very kindly enabled me to supply Caer Llyr with the information she required concerning the introduction of Christianity into Wales. An Oxford tutor wishes me to refer her to the first three chapters of Hugh Williams' Christianity in Early Britain," published by the Oxford Press in 1912. I am very grateful to him, and also to an Anglesea Reader for her letter, from which I quote the following "As far as I have been able to find out there is no historical basis for the suggestion that the Claudia mentioned by St. Paul was a Welshwoman, Gladys. As to your corres- pondent's enquiry if there was a Church at all before St. Augustine, that is established without any doubt. Gardiner, a very safe historian, states that bishops from Wales or Britain were present at a conference held at Arles in France about 320 A.D. There is a History of the Welsh Church," by the Rev. E. J. Newell, son of a Bishop of Llandaff (awarded Eisteddfod prize, 1892). He refers to St. Paul's Triads, which he states in a foot-note, are preserved in the works of lolo Morganwg, by now proved to be very questionable authority. Caer Llyr had better see a later work than Newell's, by Dr. Hugh Williams. It is fairly certain that there was no British Church before 176 A.D., though there may have been individual Christians even in Wales, for Irenaeus, enumerating then all the Churches, makes no mention of Britain, but by 208 A.D. it is pretty clear that some such Church existed, for Tertullian, in his work against the Jews, makes distinct mention of it." I hape that Caer Uyr will be able to make use of those letters. LIVE SUNDAY SCHOOLS. In the last number of the Outlook I discussed a letter dealing with the problem of the modern mother who has none but very old-fashioned Sunday Schools to which to send her children, and I was very much interested to receive at the beginning of the month a most encouraging letter from a young Sunday School superintendent. He sent me an account of a series of lectures and demonstration lessons arranged in the Diocese of St. Asaph by the Sunday School Union. These were held in various centres, such as Wrexham, Ruabon, etc., and seemed to me to have been conducted on the most sound and up-to-date educational principles. Groups of teachers attended the lectures, and after seeing the demonstration lessons, themselves carried out a few experiments. My correspondent seems to have been much struck by a suggestion made for training teachers by selecting quite young boys and girls of about fourteen, and giving them responsibility for part only of the afternoon's work- the actual Bible story. The work is thus arranged on kinder- garten lines, as small groups of five or six children hear their Bible story from the young teacher, while all assemble together under the head teacher's supervision for the remainder of the time. As the young teachers have only about fifteen minutes work to prepare, they can do it thoroughly, and in time be trained for teaching older children. Should any of my readers care for fuller details of this scheme I shall be glad to put them in touch with my correspondent. UNIVERSITY REPRESENTATION. We really are getting on I "Six Women Graduates send me a cutting from the Westminster Gazette dealing with the above subject. It appears that things have now come to a crisis in connection with the Parliamentary tepumtirion of the University of Wales. Mr. Herbert Lewis is an excellent and well-meaning man, but Welsh University opinion considers that he is more Coalition than Liberal it disliked his support ot the Government in the Greenwood Irish policy, and there have been other matters in which his fidelity to his colleagues has not impressed his constituents very favourably and there is every prospect that he will be opposed at the next election." This cutting is pinned to a letter begging me to draw the attention of Welsh women graduates to the advisa- bility of consulting together, and, if possible, finding a woman candidate who would be acceptable to the majority of the women electors to University representation. I appreciate the point of this appeal. At present there is no organ available for voicing the opinions of the women graduates as such, and the suggestion that this page should help to fill the gap is, 1 am sure, very kindly meant, but I fear that it is altogether out of my province to discuss party politics here, and the cutting sent me is rather too pre-war in its tone to please the majority of us, I think. Still, I agree with Six Women Graduates: that, in the event of a contested election, the University of Wales, as being amongst the most progressive of the younger Universities, emphatically ought to be able to bring forward a woman candidate. I gladly pass on their suggestion. THE AXE. It is good to see that the Women's Freedom League has taken up the question of the Geddes Axe as far as health and education go. As has been repeatedly said, it is so dreadfully easy to be penny wise and pound foolish in these attempts to save a little and to wreck much. Let us bear our share of the burdens, but let us not make the children pay for the war, and that we shall be certainly doing if all our schemes for improving the health and the education of the children are to go by the board. I was rather amused to read that the Geddes Committee apparently considered it unnecessary to call on any members of the Women Police for evidence before deciding to cut them down, and it would be interesting to know who gave the evidence on which is based the report that the very limited powers of the Women Police made their utility negligible from the police point of view. At all events, the finding is contrary to that of Sir John Baird's Committee some time ago, when various police authorities gave evidence of the value of the women's work to the police as well as to the public. After all, it is rather too much to be told that limited powers make the police woman a negligible quan- tity, when she herself is not responsible for the limitation, but would gladly be sworn in as a constable and receive power to arrest, too. SIR HENRY JONES. We are all proud of Sir Henry Jones, proud of his memory, and the readers of this page will allow me to voice for them our pride and our grief. To those of us who could not enter into his philosophy, or even into his luminous interpretation of the work of the greatest modern English poet, Henry Jones (we loved him as plain Henry Jones) was yet an inspiration. Other writers will dwell on his genius, his attractive and forceful personality, his whole- hearted love of Wales. We Welshwomen will remember him as the idealist who never tarnished his faith, and honour him in silence. (Contributions of general interest will be welcomed, and should be addressed to M.M. c/o The Welsh Outlook Offices, Broad Street, Newtown).