Welsh Journals

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Old Memories. By the late Sir Henry Jones C.H. CHAPTER VI. T|^HE weather in Scotland about Christmas time, 1882, was merciless; my wife was frozen out of her kitchen in Cambuslang. We found it sunny and kindly at Aberyst- wyth,-a place softened by sea air and, I believe, by the gulf stream. A few days after our arrival my wife and I took a walk into the country, and we found the red campion in full bloom in a wood. We adopted it on the spot as our family flower, and made it the symbol of our hopes. Since that time we have plucked it for one another more than once, when we were hard tried. A more cheerful beginning of a new life could hardly be desired. "I had arrived" for I had secured the two things which according to Hegel make life worth living namely the wife and the work which I loved. We took a house in Bryn- y-m6r Road, within a few doors of my friend, Mungo M 'Callum, then professor of English in the College. No outlook could be more auspici- ous. My class was small; but it was preparing for graduation in the University of London and one of its members was Mr, afterwards Sir, Owen M. Edwards, a distinguished fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and chief inspector of schools for Wales. Besides this class I gave once a week a popular lecture on philosophy, which was very well attended, and appreciated in a way that was most encouraging to me. But the halcyon weather did not last long. At the close of that term, my first, I found the post which I held advertised and candidates invited to apply for it; which meant, of course, that the College was dispensing finally with my services. I must explain the circumstances but I do not propose to enter into any details. Instead, I shall put down the few facts necessary to make the situation intelligible, and ask the reader to draw any conclusions he pleases. It does not matter to me, and it does not matter to the dead. 1. There were at this time 13 different towns competing for the University College to be founded somewhere in North Wales and aided by a Government grant of £ 4,000 a year, con- ditional, however, upon local subscriptions. 2. Mainly by the efforts of William Rathbone, M.P. for North Carnarvonshire, a meeting was held at Chester, a committee was formed con- sisting of representatives of North Wales in either of the two Houses of Parliament, and a resolu- tion was passed in which the question of site was postponed to that of the subscriptions, a move- ment to obtain which was then and there in- augurated. 3. I was asked by the unanimous committee to be the secretary in charge of that movement; and, for that purpose, to obtain the permission of the Principal of my College to be absent for some six weeks, including the Easter holidays; while Mr. Rathbone undertook "to pay hand- somely for a substitute," lest my students should suffer by my absence. 4. The Principal on my making the request placed before me the following option. If I accepted the invitation to be the secretary of the North Wales movement I ceased thereby to be a member of the College staff. In other words, I was dismissed. On the other hand, if I refused the invitation of Mr. Rathbone and the commit- tee, my Lectureship would be at once converted into a Professorship, on the usual terms of tenure. I tried hard to show that such an option need not be forced upon me. I believed that the Aber- ystwyth College would be moved into North Wales and gain by the movement. But my efforts, earnest as they were, failed altogether. 5. Bidden to approach the Principal for a second time, I was given the same option between what I thought my duty to my country and my means of making a livelihood. But before that interview was over a complete change came over the Principal's view. He gave me permission to accept the secretaryship, relieved Mr. Rathbone from the need of providing a substitute and under- took to do what was necessary himself. I had told him that I would let my countrymen know the option he had placed before me and all the circumstances. 6. My appointment as secretary was an- nounced at once. Lord Aberdare, the President of the College, saw the announcement, and can- celled the Principal's permission, on the ground that looked quite reasonable, namely, that the establishment of the North Wales College would be the deathblow of the College at Aberystwyth and that it was not "decent" that the death-blow should be delivered by a member of the staff. 7. The Parliamentary Committee gave way to Lord Aberdare and I took no part whatsoever in the movement for the North Wales College. Nevertheless, soon after the end of the term, I found that my post as lecturer at Aberystwyth was beine advertised. 8. I desire it to be understood clearly that I never resigned. And the authorities of the Col- lege instead of converting my lectureship into a chair turned me off. It was from the public advertisement that I first learnt of my dismissal. I was thus left, newly-married, without any visible means of earning a livelihood. But my wife and I were young, and cares did not bite. I cannot recall a single moment of monetary anxiety on the part of either of us. What I can recall is the drop in the temperature of the kindli- ness of my Aberystwyth neighbours-not that the closer friendships were in any way affected. I seemed then for the first time to find meaning in the Biblical phrases about "the pelican in the wilderness" and "the sparrow alone upon the housetop" (Psalms 102-6, 7). Suspicions of my orthodoxy also spread like a contagion and