Welsh Journals

of the said Thomas Lucas and other information of irregular conduct of the said master having been given he was dismissed". How far this case was the result of local vendetta is difficult to estimate. On the whole it seems true to say that although wages remained low, as the century progressed the quality of school teachers at Usk seems to have improved. Changes in the curriculum which had been prompted by local demands for a more practical education, certainly led to the construction of a more balanced and interesting syllabus. For example, at Monmouth the curriculum in 1889 consisted of "reading, writing and arithmetic, geo- graphy and history, English grammar, composition and literature, mathe- matics, at least two branches of natural science, at least one modem European language, Latin, Greek, drawing, drill and vocal music". It is interesting to note that grammar schools were not inflexible, but were willing to effect changes in both school government and educational practice. Such changes were imposed by local intiatives, not dictated by central government, although it would be foolish to argue that central government policy did not play an important part in the organisation of the grammar schools of England and Wales. The Taunton Report, for example, had alerted the government to the valuable resources which the grammar schools had and to the valuable part they could play in the education of children throughout Britain. As a result of the report in 1869, Parliament passed the Endowed Schools Act which provided an essential framework in which reform of the schools could take place. One of the main results of the 1869 Act was the setting up of the Endowed School Commission "a body with unprecedented power to reform and modernise the country's grammar schools, by drafting new schemes of government where necessary, and to drastically reorganise local charity to provide the requisite funds. After 1874 the work of the Endowed School's Commission passed into the hands of the Charity Commissioners John Lawson's description of the effects of the Endowed Schools Act seems slightly exaggerated and from the Mon- mouthshire evidence, I would suggest that, whilst the act and the com- mission provided for structural changes in the number of the trustees etc., the main effect of the Act was simply to place on a legal footing the changes which had been initiated in the local community, changes which had been initiated over half a century earlier. What was also very important about the act was that the interference and weight of central government in tne local activities of the grammar school preven- ted the sort of obstruction in the efficient running of the grammar school which we have witnessed in some of the Monmouthshire schools during the nineteenth century. Safeguards were inserted into the new schemes protecting free boys, whilst allowing boarders to take up residence and protecting religious minorities. The Charity Commission schemes promoted in Monmouthshire during the 1880's certainly gave new life to the grammar schools of the county. For example, the numbers of boys attending the schools rose steadily and entrants to the universities increased (especially after the foundation of the University colleges at Lampeter and Aberystwyth). Perhaps the most important indication of the renewed vigour of grammar school