CHAPTER IX.

At this time we were living in what may be called a very respectable

style for people who made no pretence to ostentation. On the skirts of

a large village, stood a square red brick house, about the date of

Queen Anne. Upon the top of the house was a balustrade; why, heaven

knows--for nobody, except our great tom-cat Ralph, ever walked upon

the leads--but so it was, and so it often is in houses from the time

of Elizabeth, yea, even to that of Victoria. This balustrade was

divided by low piers, on each of which was placed a round ball. The

centre of the house was distinguishable by an architrave, in the

shape of a triangle, under which was a niche, probably meant for a

figure, but the figure was not forthcoming. Below this was the window

(encased with carved pilasters) of my dear mother's little

sitting-room; and lower still, raised on a flight of six steps, was a

very handsome-looking door. All the windows, with smallish panes and

largish frames, were relieved with stone copings;--so that the house

had an air of solidity and well-to-do-ness about it--nothing tricky on

the one hand, nothing decayed on the other. The house stood a little

back from the garden gates, which were large, and set between two

piers surmounted with vases. Many might object, that in wet weather

you had to walk some way to your carriage; but we obviated that

objection by not keeping a carriage. To the right of the house the

enclosure contained a little lawn, a laurel hermitage, a square pond,

a modest green-house, and half-a-dozen plots of mignionette,

heliotrope, roses, pinks, sweet-william, &c. To the left spread the

kitchen-garden, lying screened by espaliers yielding the finest apples

in the neighbourhood, and divided by three winding gravel-walks, of

which the extremest was backed by a wall, whereon, as it lay full

south, peaches, pears, and nectarines sunned themselves early into

well-remembered flavour. This walk was appropriated to my father. Book

in hand, he would, on fine days, pace to and fro, often stopping, dear

man, to jot down a pencil-note, gesticulate, or soliloquise. And

there, when not in his study, my mother would be sure to find him. In

these deambulations, as he called them, he had generally a companion

so extraordinary, that I expect to be met with a hillalu of

incredulous contempt when I specify it. Nevertheless I vow and protest

that it is strictly true, and no invention of an exaggerating

romancer. It happened one day that my mother had coaxed Mr Caxton to

walk with her to market. By the way they passed a sward of green, on

which sundry little boys were engaged upon the lapidation, or stoning,

of a lame duck. It seemed that the duck was to have been taken to

market, when it was discovered not only to be lame, but dyspeptic;

perhaps some weed had disagreed with its ganglionic apparatus, poor

thing. However that be, the good-wife had declared that the duck was

good for nothing; and upon the petition of her children, it had been

consigned to them for a little innocent amusement, and to keep them

out of harm's way. My mother declared that she never before saw her

lord and master roused to such animation. He dispersed the urchins,

released the duck, carried it home, kept it in a basket by the fire,

fed it and physicked it till it recovered; and then it was consigned

to the square pond. But lo! the duck knew its benefactor; and whenever

my father appeared outside his door, it would catch sight of him, flap

from the pond, gain the lawn, and hobble after him, (for it never

quite recovered the use of its left leg,) till it reached the walk by

the peaches; and there sometimes it would sit, gravely watching its

master's deambulations; sometimes stroll by his side, and, at all

events, never leave him, till, at his return home, he fed it with his

own hands; and, quacking her peaceful adieus, the nymph then retired

to her natural element.

With the exception of my mother's dining-room, the principal

sitting-rooms--that is, the study, the dining-room, and what was

emphatically called the "best drawing-room," which was only occupied

on great occasions--looked south. Tall beeches, firs, poplars, and a

few oaks, backed the house, and indeed surrounded it on all sides but

the south; so that it was well sheltered from the winter cold and the

summer heat. Our principal domestic, in dignity and station, was Mrs

Primmins, who was waiting gentlewoman, housekeeper, and tyrannical

dictatrix of the whole establishment. Two other maids, a gardener, and

a footman composed the rest of the serving household. Save a few

pasture-fields, which he let, my father was not troubled with land.

His income was derived from the interest of about £15,000, partly in

the three per cents, partly on mortgage; and what with my mother and

Mrs Primmins, this income always yielded enough to satisfy my

father's single hobby for books, pay for my education, and entertain

our neighbours, rarely, indeed, at dinner, but very often at tea. My

dear mother boasted that our society was very select. It consisted

chiefly of the clergyman and his family, two old maids who gave

themselves great airs, a gentleman who had been in the East India

service, and who lived in a large white house at the top of the hill;

some half-a-dozen squires and their wives and children; Mr Squills,

still a bachelor: And once a-year cards were exchanged--and dinners

too--with certain aristocrats, who inspired my mother with a great

deal of unnecessary awe; since she declared they were the most

good-natured easy people in the world, and always stuck their cards in

the most conspicuous part of the looking-glass frame over the

chimney-place of the best drawing-room. Thus you perceive that our

natural position was one highly creditable to us, proving the

soundness of our finances and the gentility of our pedigree, of

which--but more hereafter. At present I content myself with saying on

that head, that even the proudest of the neighbouring squirearchs

always spoke of us as a very ancient family. But all my father ever

said, to evince pride of ancestry, was in honour of William Caxton,

citizen and printer in the reign of Edward IV.--"Clarum et venerabile

nomen!" an ancestor a man of letters might be justly vain of.

"Heus," said my father, stopping short, and lifting his eyes from the

Colloquies of Erasmus, "salve multum, jucundissime."

Uncle Jack was not much of a scholar, but he knew enough Latin to

answer, "Salve tantundem, mi frater."

My father smiled approvingly. "I see you comprehend true urbanity, or

politeness, as we phrase it. There is an elegance in addressing the

husband of your sister as brother. Erasmus commends it in his opening

chapter, under the head of 'Salutandi formulæ.' And indeed," added my

father thoughtfully, "there is no great difference between politeness

and affection. My author here observes that it is polite to express

salutation in certain minor distresses of nature. One should salute a

gentleman in yawning, salute him in hiccuping, salute him in sneezing,

salute him in coughing;--and that evidently because of your interest

in his health; for he may dislocate his jaw in yawning, and the hiccup

is often a symptom of grave disorder, and sneezing is perilous to the

small blood-vessels of the head, and coughing is either a tracheal,

bronchial, pulmonary, or ganglionic affection."

"Very true. The Turks always salute in sneezing, and they are a

remarkably polite people," said Uncle Jack. "But, my dear brother, I

was just looking with admiration at these apple-trees of yours. I

never saw finer. I am a great judge of apples. I find, in talking with

my sister, that you make very little profit of them. That's a pity.

One might establish a cider orchard in this county. You can take your

own fields in hand; you can hire more, so as to make the whole, say a

hundred acres. You can plant a very extensive apple-orchard on a grand

scale. I have just run through the calculations; they are quite

startling. Take 40 trees per acre--that's the proper average--at 1s.

6d. per tree; 4000 trees for 100 acres £300;, labour of digging,

trenching, say £10 an acre--total for 100 acres, £1000. Pave the

bottoms of the holes, to prevent the tap-root striking down into the

bad soil--oh, I am very close and careful, you see, in all

minutiæ,!--always was--pave 'em with rubbish and stones, 6d. a hole;

that, for 4000 trees the 100 acres is £100. Add the rent of the land,

at 30s. an acre, £150. And how stands the total?" Here Uncle Jack

proceeded rapidly ticking off the items with his fingers:--

"Trees, £300

Labour, 1,000

Paving holes, 100

Rent, 150

------

Total, £1,550

That's your expense. Mark.--Now to the profit. Orchards in Kent

realise £100 an acre, some even £150; but let's be moderate, say only

£50 an acre, and your gross profit per year, from a capital of £1550,

will be £5000.--£5000 a year. Think of that, brother Caxton. Deduct

10 per cent, or £500 a-year, for gardeners' wages, manure, &c., and

the net product is £4500. Your fortune's made, man--it is made--I wish

you joy!" And Uncle Jack rubbed his hands.

"Bless me, father," said eagerly the young Pisistratus, who had

swallowed with ravished ears every syllable and figure of this

inviting calculation, "Why, we should be as rich as Squire Rollick;

and then, you know, sir, you could keep a pack of fox-hounds!"

"And buy a large library," added Uncle Jack, with more subtle

knowledge of human nature as to its appropriate temptations. "There's

my friend the archbishop's collection to be sold."

Slowly recovering his breath, my father gently turned his eyes from

one to the other; and then, laying his left hand on my head, while

with the right he held up Erasmus rebukingly to Uncle Jack, he said--

"See how easily you can sow covetousness and avidity in the youthful

mind! Ah, brother!"

"You are too severe, sir. See how the dear boy hangs his head!

Fie!--natural enthusiasm of his years--'gay hope by fancy fed,' as the

poet says. Why, for that fine boy's sake, you ought not to lose so

certain an occasion of wealth, I may say, untold. For, observe, you

will form a nursery of crabs; each year you go on grafting and

enlarging your plantation, renting, nay, why not buying, more land?

Gad, sir! in twenty years you might cover half the county; but say you

stop short at 2000 acres, why, the net profit is £90,000 a-year. A

duke's income--a duke's--and going a begging as I may say."

"But stop," said I modestly; "the trees don't grow in a year. I know

when our last apple tree was planted--it is five years ago--it was

then three years old, and it only bore one half bushel last autumn."

"What an intelligent lad it is!--Good head there. Oh, he'll do credit

to his great fortune, brother," said Uncle Jack approvingly. "True, my

boy. But in the meanwhile we could fill the ground, as they do in

Kent, with gooseberries and currants, or onions and cabbages.

Nevertheless, considering we are not great capitalists, I am afraid we

must give up a share of our profits to diminish our outlay. So,

harkye, Pisistratus--(look at him, brother--simple as he stands there,

I think he's born with a silver spoon in his mouth)--harkye, now to

the mysteries of speculation. Your father shall quietly buy the land,

and then, presto! we will issue a prospectus, and start a company.

Associations can wait five years for a return. Every year, meanwhile,

increases the value of the shares. Your father takes, we say, fifty

shares at £50 each, paying only an instalment of £2 a share. He sells

35 shares at cent per cent. He keeps the remaining 15, and his

fortune's made all the same; only it's not quite so large as if he had

kept the whole concern in his own hands. What say you now, brother

Caxton? 'Visne edere pomum?' as we used to say at school."

"I don't want a shilling more than I have got," said my father,

resolutely. "My wife would not love me better; my food would not

nourish me more; my boy would not, in all probability, be half so

hardy, or a tenth part so industrious; and----"

"But," interrupted Uncle Jack, pertinaciously, and reserving his grand

argument for the last, "the good you would confer on the

community--the progress given to the natural productions of your

country, the wholesome beverage of cider, brought within cheap reach

of the labouring classes. If it was only for your sake, should I have

urged this question? should I now? is it in my character? But for the

sake of the public! mankind! of our fellow-creatures! Why, sir,

England could not get on if gentlemen like you had not a little

philanthropy and speculation."

"Papæ!" exclaimed my father, "to think that England can't get on

without turning Augustine Caxton into an apple-merchant! My dear Jack,

listen. You remind me of a colloquy in this book; wait a bit--here it

is--_Pamphagus and Cocles_--'Cocles recognises his friend who had been

absent for many years, by his eminent and remarkable nose.--Pamphagus

says, rather irritably, that he is not ashamed of his nose. 'Ashamed

of it! no, indeed,' says Cocles: 'I never saw a nose that could be put

to so many uses!' 'Ha,' says Pamphagus, (whose curiosity is aroused,)

'uses! what uses?' Whereon (_lepidissime frater!_) Cocles, with

eloquence rapid as yours, runs on with a countless list of the uses to

which so vast a development of the organ can be applied. 'If the

cellar was deep, it could sniff up the wine like an elephant's

trunk,--if the bellows were missing, it could blow the fire,--if the

lamp was too glaring, it could suffice for a shade,--it would serve as

a speaking-trumpet to a herald,--it could sound a signal of battle in

the field,--it would do for a wedge in wood-cutting,--a spade for

digging,--a scythe for mowing,--an anchor in sailing; till Pamphagus

cries out, 'Lucky dog that I am! and I never knew before what a useful

piece of furniture I carried about with me.'" My father paused and

strove to whistle, but that effort at harmony failed him--and he

added, smiling, "So much for my apple trees, brother John. Leave them

to their natural destination of filling tarts and dumplings."

Uncle Jack looked a little discomposed for a moment; but he then

laughed with his usual heartiness, and saw that he had not yet got to

my father's blind side. I confess that my revered parent rose in my

estimation after that conference; and I began to see that a man may

not be quite without common-sense, though he is a scholar. Indeed,

whether it was that Uncle Jack's visit acted as a gentle stimulant to

his relaxed faculties, or that I, now grown older and wiser, began to

see his character more clearly, I date from those summer holidays the

commencement of that familiar and endearing intimacy which ever after

existed between my father and myself. Often I deserted the more

extensive rambles of Uncle Jack, or the greater allurements of a

cricket match in the village, or a day's fishing in Squire Rollick's

preserves, for a quiet stroll with my father by the old peach

wall;--sometimes silent, indeed, and already musing over the future,

while he was busy with the past, but amply rewarded when, suspending

his lecture, he would pour forth hoards of varied learning, rendered

amusing by his quaint comments, and that Socratic satire which only

fell short of wit because it never passed into malice. At some

moments, indeed, the vein ran into eloquence; and with some fine

heroic sentiment in his old books, his stooping form rose erect, his

eye flashed; and you saw that he had not been originally formed and

wholly meant for the obscure seclusion in which his harmless days now

wore contentedly away.

CHAPTER IX.

"Egad, sir, the county is going to the dogs! Our sentiments are not

represented in parliament or out of it. The County Mercury has ratted,

and be hanged to it! and now we have not one newspaper in the whole

shire to express the sentiments of the respectable part of the

community!"

This speech was made on the occasion of one of the rare dinners given

by Mr and Mrs Caxton to the grandees of the neighbourhood, and uttered

by no less a person than Squire Rollick, of Rollick Hall, chairman of

the quarter sessions.

I confess that I, (for I was permitted on that first occasion not only

to dine with the guests, but to outstay the ladies, in virtue of my

growing years, and my promise to abstain from the decanters)--I

confess, I say, that I, poor innocent, was puzzled to conjecture what

sudden interest in the county newspaper could cause Uncle Jack to

prick up his ears like a warhorse at the sound of the drum, and rush

so incontinently across the interval between Squire Rollick and

himself. But the mind of that deep and truly knowing man was not to be

plumbed by a chit of my age. You could not fish for the shy salmon in

that pool with a crooked pin and a bobbin, as you would for minnows;

or, to indulge in a more worthy illustration, you could not say of

him, as St Gregory saith of the streams of Jordan, "a lamb could wade

easily through that ford."

"Not a county newspaper to advocate the rights of--" here my uncle

stopped, as if at a loss, and whispered in my ear, "What are his

politics?" "Don't know," answered I. Uncle Jack intuitively took down

from his memory the phrase most readily at hand, and added, with a

nasal intonation, "the rights of our distressed fellow-creatures!"

My father scratched his eyebrow with his forefinger, as he was apt to

do when doubtful; the rest of the company--a silent set--looked up.

"Fellow-creatures!" said Mr Rollick--"fellow-fiddlesticks!"

Uncle Jack was clearly in the wrong box. He drew out of it

cautiously--"I mean," said he, "our _respectable_ fellow-creatures;"

and then suddenly it occurred to him that a "County Mercury" would

naturally represent the agricultural interest, and that if Mr Rollick

said that the "County Mercury ought to be hanged," he was one of those

politicians who had already begun to call the agricultural interest "a

Vampire." Flushed with that fancied discovery, Uncle Jack rushed on,

intending to bear along with the stream, thus fortunately directed,

all the "rubbish"[1] subsequently shot into Covent Garden and the Hall

of Commerce.

[1] "We talked sad rubbish when we first began," says Mr Cobden in one

of his speeches.

"Yes, respectable fellow-creatures, men of capital and enterprise! For

what are these country squires compared to our wealthy merchants? What

is this agricultural interest that professes to be the prop of the

land?"

"Professes!" cried Squire Rollick, "It is the prop of the land, and as

for those manufacturing fellows who have bought up the Mercury--"

"Bought up the Mercury, have they, the villains!" cried Uncle Jack,

interrupting the Squire, and now bursting into full scent--"Depend

upon it, sir, it is a part of a diabolical system of buying up, which

must be exposed manfully.--Yes, as I was saying, what is that

agricultural interest which they desire to ruin? which they declare to

be so bloated--which they call 'a vampire!' they the true

blood-suckers, the venomous millocrats! Fellow-creatures, sir! I may

well call distressed fellow-creatures, the members of that much

suffering class of which you yourself are an ornament. What can be

more deserving of our best efforts for relief, than a country

gentleman like yourself, we'll say--of a nominal £5000 a-year--compelled

to keep up an establishment, pay for his fox-hounds, support the whole

population by contributions to the poor rates, support the whole

church by tithes; all justice, jails, and prosecutions by the county

rates, all thoroughfares by the highway rates--ground down by

mortgages, Jews, or jointures; having to provide for younger children;

enormous expenses for cutting his woods, manuring his model farm, and

fattening huge oxen till every pound of flesh costs him five pounds

sterling in oil-cake; and then the lawsuits necessary to protect his

rights; plundered on all hands by poachers, sheep-stealers,

dog-stealers, church-wardens, overseers, gardeners, gamekeepers, and

that necessary rascal, his steward. If ever there was a distressed

fellow-creature in the world, it is a country gentleman with a great

estate."

My father evidently thought this an exquisite piece of banter; for by

the corner of his mouth I saw that he chuckled inly.

Squire Rollick, who had interrupted the speech by sundry approving

exclamations, particularly at the mention of poor rates, tithes,

county rates, mortgages, and poachers, here pushed the bottle to Uncle

Jack, and said civilly--"There's a great deal of truth in what you

say, Mr Tibbets. The agricultural interest is going to ruin; and when

it does, I would not give _that_ for Old England!" and Mr Rollick

snapped his finger and thumb. "But what is to be done--done for the

county? There's the rub."

"I was just coming to that," quoth Uncle Jack. "You say that you have

not a county paper that upholds your cause, and denounces your

enemies."

"Not since the Whigs bought the ----shire Mercury."

"Why, good heavens! Mr Rollick, how could you suppose that you will

have justice done you, if at this time of day you neglect the press?

The press, sir--there it is--air we breathe! What you want is a great

national--no, not a national--A PROVINCIAL proprietary weekly journal,

supported liberally and steadily by that mighty party whose very

existence is at stake. Without such a paper, you are gone, you are

dead, extinct, defunct, buried alive; _with_ such a paper, well

conducted, well edited by a man of the world, of education, of

practical experience in agriculture and human nature, mines, corn,

manure, insurances, acts of parliament, cattle shows, the state of

parties, and the best interests of society--with such a man and such a

paper, you will carry all before you. But it must be done by

subscription, by association, by co-operation, by a grand provincial

Benevolent Agricultural, Anti-innovating Society."

"Egad, sir, you are right!" said Mr Rollick, slapping his thigh; "and

I'll ride over to our Lord-Lieutenant to-morrow. His eldest son ought

to carry the county."

"And he will, if you encourage the press, and set up a journal," said

Uncle Jack, rubbing his hands, and then gently stretching them out,

and drawing them gradually together, as if he were already enclosing

in that airy circle the unsuspecting guineas of the unborn

association.

All happiness dwells more in the hope than the possession; and at that

moment, I dare be sworn that Uncle Jack felt a livelier rapture,

_circum præcordia_, warming his entrails, and diffusing throughout his

whole frame of five feet eight the prophetic glow of the Magna Diva

Moneta, than if he had enjoyed for ten years the actual possession of

King Crœsus's privy purse.

"I thought Uncle Jack was not a Tory," said I to my father the next

day.

My father, who cared nothing for politics, opened his eyes.

"Are you a Tory or a Whig, papa?"

"Um," said my father--"there's a great deal to be said on both sides

of the question. You see, my boy, that Mrs Primmins has a great many

moulds for our butter-pats; sometimes they come up with a crown on

them, sometimes with the more popular impress of a cow. It is all very

well for those who dish up the butter to print it according to their

taste, or in proof of their abilities; it is enough for us to butter

our bread, say grace, and pay for the dairy. Do you understand?"

"Not a bit, sir."

"Your namesake Pisistratus was wiser than you, then," said my father.

"And now let us feed the duck. Where's your uncle?"

"He has borrowed Mr Squills's mare, sir, and gone with Squire Rollick

to the great lord they were talking of."

"Oho!" said my father, "brother Jack is going to print his butter!"

And indeed Uncle Jack played his cards so well on this occasion, and

set before the Lord-Lieutenant, with whom he had a personal interview,

so fine a prospectus, and so nice a calculation, that before my

holidays were over, he was installed in a very handsome office in the

county town, with private apartments over it, and a salary of £500

a-year--for advocating the cause of his distressed fellow-creatures,

including noblemen, squires, yeomanry, farmers, and all yearly

subscribers in the NEW PROPRIETARY AGRICULTURAL, ANTI-INNOVATING

----SHIRE WEEKLY GAZETTE. At the head of his newspaper Uncle Jack

caused to be engraved a crown supported by a flail and a crook, with

the motto "Pro rege et grege," and that was the way in which Uncle

Jack printed his pats of butter.

CHAPTER X.

I seemed to myself to have made a leap in life when I returned to

school. I no longer felt as a boy. Uncle Jack, out of his own purse,

had presented me with my first pair of Wellington boots; my mother had

been coaxed into allowing me a small tail to jackets hitherto

tailless; my collars, which had been wont, spaniel-like, to flap and

fall about my neck, now, terrier-wise, stood erect and rampant,

encompassed with a circumvallation of whalebone, buckram, and black

silk. I was, in truth, nearly seventeen, and I gave myself the airs of

a man. Now be it observed, that that crisis in adolescent existence

wherein we first pass from Master Sisty into Mr Pisistratus, or

Pisistratus Caxton, Esq.--wherein we arrogate, and with tacit

concession from our elders, the long envied title of "young

man"--always seems a sudden and imprompt up-shooting and elevation. We

do not mark the gradual preparations thereto; we remember only one

distinct period in which all the signs and symptoms burst and

effervesced together;--Wellington boots, tail, stiffener, down on the

upper lip, thoughts on razors, reveries on young ladies, and a new

kind of sense of poetry.

I began now to read steadily, to understand what I did read, and to

cast some anxious looks towards the future, with vague notions that I

had a place to win in the world, and that nothing is to be won without

perseverance and labour; and so I went on till I was seventeen, and at

the head of the school, when I received the two letters I subjoin.

1.--FROM AUGUSTINE CAXTON, ESQ.

"MY DEAR SON,--I have informed Dr Herman that you will not

return to him after the approaching holidays. You are old

enough now to look forward to the embraces of our beloved

Alma Mater, and I think studious enough to hope for the

honours she bestows on her worthier sons. You are already

entered at Trinity,--and in fancy I see my youth return to

me in your image. I see you wandering where the Cam steals

its way through those noble gardens; and, confusing you with

myself, I recall the old dreams that haunted me when the

chiming bells swung over the placid waters. 'Verum

secretumque _Mouseion_, quam multa dictatis, quam multa

invenitis!' There, at that illustrious college, unless the

race has indeed degenerated, you will measure yourself with

young giants. You will see those who, in the Law, the

Church, the State, or the still cloisters of Learning, are

destined to become the eminent leaders of your age. To rank

amongst them you are not forbidden to aspire; he who in

youth 'can scorn delight, and love laborious days,' should

pitch high his ambition.

"Your Uncle Jack says he has done wonders with his

newspaper,--though Mr Rollick grumbles, and declares it is

full of theories, and that it puzzles the farmers. Uncle

Jack, in reply, contends that he creates an audience, not

addresses one,--and sighs that his genius is thrown away in

a provincial town. In fact, he really is a very clever man,

and might do much in London, I dare say. He often comes over

to dine and sleep, returning the next morning. His energy is

wonderful, and--contagious. Can you imagine that he has

actually stirred up the flame of my vanity, by constantly

poking at the bars? Metaphor apart--I find myself collecting

all my notes and common-places, and wondering to see how

easily they fall into method, and take shape in chapters and

books. I cannot help smiling when I add, that I fancy I am

going to become an author; and smiling more when I think

that your Uncle Jack should have provoked me into so

egregious an ambition. However, I have read some passages of

my book to your mother, and she says "it is vastly fine,"

which is encouraging. Your mother has great good sense,

though I don't mean to say that she has much

learning,--which is a wonder, considering that Pic de la

Mirandola was nothing to her father. Yet he died, dear great

man, and never printed a line,--while I--positively I blush

to think of my temerity!

"Adieu, my son; make the best of the time that remains with

you at the Philhellenic. A full mind is the true Pantheism,

_plena Jovis_. Wherever there is knowledge, there is God. It

is only in some corner of the brain which we leave empty,

that Vice can obtain a lodging. When she knocks at your

door, my son, be able to say, 'No room for your

ladyship,--pass on.'--Your affectionate father,

"A. CAXTON."

* * * * *

2.--FROM MRS CAXTON.

"MY DEAREST SISTY,--You are coming home!--My heart is so

full of that thought that it seems to me as if I could not

write any thing else. Dear child, you are coming home;--you

have done with school, you have done with strangers,--you

are our own, all our own son again! You are mine again, as

you were in the cradle, the nursery, and the garden, Sisty,

when we used to throw daisies at each other! You will laugh

at me so, when I tell you, that as soon as I heard you were

coming home for good, I crept away from the room, and went

to my drawer where I keep, you know, all my treasures. There

was your little cap that I worked myself, and your poor

little nankeen jacket that you were so proud to throw

off--oh! and many other relics of you when you were little

Sisty, and I was not that cold formal 'Mother' you call me

now, but dear 'Mamma.' I kissed them, Sisty, and said 'My

little child is coming back to me again!' So foolish was I,

I forgot all the long years that have passed, and fancied I

could carry you again in my arms, and that I should again

coax you to say 'God bless papa.' Well, well! I write now

between laughing and crying. You cannot be what you were,

but you are still my own dear son--your father's son--dearer

to me than all the world--except that father.

"I am so glad, too, that you will come so soon: come while

your father is really warm with his book, and while you can

encourage and keep him to it. For why should he not be great

and famous? Why should not all admire him as we do? You know

how proud of him I always was; but I do so long to let the

world know _why_ I was so proud. And yet, after all, it is

not only because he is so wise and learned,--but because he

is so good, and has such a large noble heart. But the heart

must appear in the book too, as well as the learning. For

though it is full of things I don't understand, every now

and then there _is_ something I do understand--that seems as

if that heart spoke out to all the world.

"Your uncle has undertaken to get it published; and your

father is going up to town with him about it, as soon as the

first volume is finished.

"All are quite well except poor Mrs Jones, who has the ague

very bad indeed; Primmins has made her wear a charm for it,

and Mrs Jones actually declares she is already much better.

One can't deny that there may be a great deal in such

things, though it seems quite against the reason. Indeed

your father says, 'Why not? A charm must be accompanied by a

strong wish on the part of the charmer that it may

succeed,--and what is magnetism but a wish?' I don't quite

comprehend this; but, like all your father says, it has more

than meets the eye, I am quite sure.

"Only three weeks to the holidays, and then no more school,

Sisty--no more school! I shall have your room all done

freshly, and made so pretty; they are coming about it

to-morrow.

"The duck is quite well, and I really don't think it is

quite as lame as it was.

"God bless you, dear, dear child!--Your affectionate happy

mother,

"K. C."

The interval between these letters and the morning on which I was to

return home, seemed to me like one of those long, restless, yet half

dreamy days which in some infant malady I had passed in a sick-bed. I

went through my task-work mechanically, composed a Greek ode in

farewell to the Philhellenic, which Dr Herman pronounced a

_chef-d'œuvre_, and my father, to whom I sent it in triumph,

returned a letter of false English with it, that parodied all my

Hellenic barbarisms by imitating them in my mother tongue. However, I

swallowed the leek, and consoled myself with the pleasing recollection

that, after spending six years in learning to write bad Greek, I

should never have any further occasion to avail myself of so precious

an accomplishment.

And so came the last day. Then, alone, and in a kind of delighted

melancholy, I revisited each of the old haunts. The robbers' cave we

had dug one winter, and maintained, six of us, against all the police

of the little kingdom. The place near the pales where I had fought my

first battle. The old beech stump on which I sate to read letters from

home!

With my knife, rich in six blades, (besides a cork-screw, a

pen-picker, and a button-hook,) I carved my name in large capitals

over my desk. Then night came, and the bell rang, and we went to our

rooms. And I opened the window and looked out. I saw all the stars,

and wondered which was mine--which should light to fame and fortune

the manhood about to commence. Hope and Ambition were high within

me;--and yet, behind them, stood Melancholy. Ah! who amongst you,

readers, can now summon back all those thoughts, sweet and sad--all

that untold, half-conscious regret for the past--all those vague

longings for the future, which made a poet of the dullest amongst you

on the last night before leaving boyhood and school for ever!

EDUCATION IN WALES.[2]

[2] _Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of

Education in Wales, appointed by the Committee of Council on

Education._ Parts I. II. III. 1847.

That it is the duty of a wise and foreseeing government to inquire

into the condition of whatever affects the well-being of the people,

is almost a political truism, and may certainly be received as a

political axiom. More especially, however, when the subject is one of

such vital importance as education, does such an inquiry become

necessary: and, in truth, the leaders of the state cannot be

considered as doing their duty, unless they make themselves acquainted

with the practical bearings and results of the system, whatever it may

be, that exists. Not that the government of this country, until very

recent periods at least, ever troubled themselves with such matters:

the more direct political business of the state, the clash of parties,

and the struggle for power, absorbed their whole attention; and

education was left, as a matter of private and local concern, to the

clergy and the gentry exclusively. The voluntary system, superinduced

upon the country by the indolence or neglect of those who held the

reins of authority, was allowed to remain in unaided operation as far

as education was concerned; and until the establishing of National

Schools, as they are commonly termed, and for some time after that

event, the governments that followed each other in the dingy recesses

of Downing Street cared no more for village schoolmasters, and knew no

more about them, than they did about village blacksmiths. It was

enough if the people went on tolerably well, and paid their taxes;

whether they learned any thing at school, or whether they had schools

in which any thing might be learned, was, at head-quarters, a matter

of no moment. Most of the upper classes of the nation were of the same

feeling--the middle classes, too, folded their arms and looked on.[3]

Had it not been for the force of events, and the efforts of a few

energetic men, education had been shelved, as a musty useless topic,

for an indefinite period.

[3] This, it will be understood, does not apply to Scotland,--where

education has been a very popular interest for nearly two centuries

back.

Now, however, in this forty-eighth year of the nineteenth century, it

is viewed in a far different light. The middle classes have begun to

take up the matter as they had never done before,--"purging and

unsealing their long abused sight" to the manifold advantages involved

in it for themselves; while the upper classes look more to how it

fares in this respect with the very poor or the profligate. And so

much pressed on this subject, from many quarters, is the government,

that neither Lord John Russell, as long as he remains on the Treasury

Bench, nor any body else, who may get there, can ever hope to avoid

doing something for the education of the people.

There has been a growing sense of the importance of this subject on

the part of the nation at large, which has acted on the nervous

sensibilities of all occupants of office in later years; and the very

force of events themselves, apart from all theoretic reasoning as to

expediency or the contrary, has compelled each successive government

to look after the schoolmaster, and even to send him abroad in the

world, though at the risk of making him the laughing-stock of his

scholars for want of due preparation.

We do not purpose to write the history of the educational movement of

this realm since the middle of the eighteenth century--volumes might

be compiled on the topic, and it would still remain unexhausted.

There are, however, two things which we would point out to the

attention of our readers. The first is, that the constituted

authorities of this country and the legislature, ever since the time

of the Reformation, have acted too much upon the principle that the

ecclesiastical establishments of the nation, aided by the Foundation

schools of the land, not only were sufficient to attend to the moral

and religious welfare of the community, but that they actually did

effect this end, and that they did bring up the people in the right

way; whereas we now know, that not only has the constitution of the

ecclesiastical revenues and administration been lamentably unequal and

ineffective, but that provisions for teaching, upon a general and

effective plan, could hardly be said to exist. At all events, when the

population began to increase rapidly--when the great movement of the

Methodists took place in England--and later, when religious dissent

not only reared its hydra head, but became encouraged in high

places--the nation seemed all at once to start from its lethargy, and

to inquire into what means it possessed for enlightening and

civilising the humblest classes of its children; and, when it did so

inquire, those means were found wanting.

Again, in these our own days, when crime is shown to be increasing in

a much faster ratio than either the enormous wealth or the already

great population of the country; and when legal inquirers have traced

back adult crime to puerile and even infantine neglect and ignorance;

when the brutality of the people shows itself at every man's door and

homestead, in the burning of farming-stock or the destruction of

machinery and dwelling-houses, and makes itself to be paid for in the

form of constantly increasing poor-rates,--in times such as these, it

behoves every man, who has any thing to dread from the insurrectionary

rising of the lower classes, to look sharply around him, and to see

how best the sources of the evil torrent may be dried up; where the

strongest dam may be thrown across its impetuous course, and into what

side-channels its blind strength may be diverted. It behoves every

thoughtful lover of his country to consider well how the innate

national energies of his fellow countrymen may be improved, humanised,

and directed to proper objects; and how the mass of the people,

instead of being dreaded as a mob of hungry, savage levellers, may

come to be looked on as the broad basis and support of the whole

national edifice. And this is to be effected by attending, not merely

to the physical and material well-being of the people, but by giving

well directed and unceasing diligence to the promotion of "true

religion and sound knowledge" among them. We maintain that hitherto,

and even at the present time, the public constituted means for

attaining this important end have been, and are, altogether

insufficient; and we further maintain, that the necessity of making

some adequate provision is increasing every day, and cannot long be

postponed without imminent danger to the community.

We would also beg our readers to observe that, in the case of these

commissions of inquiry into the existing state of education in any

given district, but especially in Wales, the commissioners had not got

to look into what the existing government, or previous governments,

had done, nor into how their systems acted--those governments had done

nothing, and they had no system; but they rather went to see what the

people, abandoned to their own resources by the state, which ought to

have aided them, had been able to effect out of their own means and

goodwill, and to witness the results of the voluntary and fortuitous

systems which were then in full and unaided operation. Whatever causes

of blame and offence the commissioners might meet with--whatever

imperfections, and shortcomings, and ill doings, they might

perceive--these could not so much be laid to the blame of the people,

as they might in fairness be attributed to the neglect and apathy of

the nation at large. It was entirely owing to the private efforts of

the people in their various localities, unconnected with each

other--to their desultory and varying efforts--that any thing had been

done at all. It was obviously better that something should have been

done rather than nothing; but the debt of gratitude for the

"something" was due to the people--the blame of the "nothing" lay

with the legislature and the nation at large.

It would, therefore, be highly unbecoming in such commissioners, to

show any flippant petulancy in their animadversions on the generally

defective results which the isolated operations of the several

parishes and districts might evince. It would behove them to look on

with rather a benevolent eye, and to speak with a guarded tongue

concerning the evils they might witness. We think they have not

altogether shown these qualifications in the Reports now before us;

and after perusing them, we rise with the feeling that the

commissioners seem to have thought themselves authorised to find out

how far the various teachers, &c., had neglected duties imposed on

them by the public, and that they had expected to find perfection

pervading the country; whereas they should have anticipated that

imperfection and neglect would prove to be the rule--perfection and

care the few and distant exceptions.

It is by no means so easy to inspect a school, or to find out the

knowledge and the modes of thinking of young people, as might be

supposed. It is not to be done by any one stalking stiffly into a

school-room, giving himself the airs of a Dr Busby, and putting

questions with the consequence of an examiner in the schools at

Oxford. The very idea of a stranger being in the room, and much more

of one authorised to examine, is enough to dislocate the thoughts of

children, older and riper than village boys and girls commonly are;

and the mere interruption of the usual formalities of class

arrangement and class work is sufficient to break up the discipline

which, in all parochial schools at least, rests upon a very precarious

and doubtful basis. Much less is it possible, by a flying visit of

one, or two, or three hours, to get at a true perception of what the

average knowledge of children may be fairly rated at: it is only by

repeated and patient inspection that the ordinary amount of work done,

and knowledge gained, can be discovered. The young mind, too, does not

commonly retain facts--it rather receives general impressions, and,

though this is not produceable knowledge, it is, nevertheless,

information, and cultivation of the mental powers, and formation of

the character, not without great value. But because a child cannot

answer certain questions at a certain time and place, it does not

therefore follow that it is ignorant of the subject. The thoughts

cannot be concentrated, the powers of the memory and of expression

have not been sufficiently cultivated; the faculty of reproduction,

and the method of arrangement and classification of ideas, do not

exist. It is impossible for such a child to pass through the ordeal.

And yet the common expression of young people, when the question they

could not answer is explained for them--"Oh yes! I knew that--only I

could not remember it," tells the whole truth, and reveals at once the

constitution and the weakness of their minds. Examinations, unless

they immediately follow the subject learnt, are not suited to young

children, and may tend to give a false idea of their real

acquirements. But, if to this dread of answering questions be added

the awe arising from an examiner's--a strange examiner's presence, the

physical impossibility of obtaining satisfactory replies is thereby

confirmed. We remember it in our own case at school; in the presence

of the university examiner, who periodically visited us, it was

"Obstupui, steteruntque comæ; vox faucibus hæsit;"

and even in the schools of adolescent life, the examiners put us many

a stiff question in Plato and Aristotle at which we hung our heads and

stammered out nonsense; but which, as soon as we got back to our rooms

in college, came to our memory in provoking vividness.

The commissioners seem to have hoped for unimpeachable

examinations--and in almost every case they were disappointed: they

could often hardly get a reply to the commonest questions. Much of

this arose from their examining chiefly in subjects that were taught

in a foreign language. But of this more anon.

The nature and object of this inspection of Welsh schools are

sufficiently explained in the instructions from Mr Kay Shuttleworth,

the secretary to the Committee of Council, which preface the first of

the three goodly volumes to which these Reports extend. These

instructions say:--

"Attention was called, during the last session of

parliament, to the state of education in Wales, by a motion

in the house of commons, for an address to the Queen,

praying her majesty 'to direct an inquiry to be made into

the state of education in the principality of Wales,

especially into the means afforded to the labouring classes

of acquiring a knowledge of the English language.'

"The secretary of state for the home department undertook on

that occasion, on behalf of her majesty's late government,

that such an inquiry should be instituted, and he intimated

that it should be conducted under the authority of the

committee of council on education.

"The object of your commission is, to ascertain, as

accurately as circumstances will permit, the existing number

of schools of all descriptions, for the education of the

children of the labouring classes, or of adults--the amount

of attendance--the ages of the scholars--and the character

of the instruction given in the schools; in order that her

majesty's government and parliament may be enabled, by

having these facts before them, in connexion with the wants

and circumstances of the population of the principality, to

consider what measures ought to be taken for the improvement

of the existing means of education in Wales."

It will be perceived from this portion of the instructions, that the

inquiries of the Commissioners were to be limited to the schools

intended for the lower classes only; and therefore that they would

have to look for the workings of the voluntary and the isolated system

in its fullest extent. The further definition of the object of the

Commission is thus specified:--

"The schools for the instruction of the poorer classes in

Wales have chiefly been erected by private beneficence, and

some have been endowed from the same source; such of them as

have no permanent endowment are supported by the small

payments of the poor, by collections in religious

congregations, and by voluntary subscriptions.

"Their lordships cannot confer on you any absolute authority

to enter into and examine schools, nor to require from any

persons information respecting them which they may be

unwilling to communicate.

"If no objection is made to your visit, you will personally

examine, where practicable, the condition of the school,

keeping in view the following particulars, as those on which

it will be important to obtain correct information:--The

tenure of the school, whether held under a mere temporary

occupation, or secured by deed for ever, or for a term of

years--the capacity of the school-room--the state of the

school furniture and apparatus--the number of the children

on the books--the average attendance--the organisation of

the school, and the methods used--the subjects professed to

be taught--the time allotted to each--the books

used--whether the children are instructed in the Welsh

language, or in the English, or in both--whether in each

case in the grammar or not--the actual condition of their

instruction on all subjects professed to be taught. You will

ascertain the amount and sources of the annual income

available for the necessary expenses; the number of

teachers--their ages--whether trained at a normal school or

at a model school--for what period, and when. At what age

they commenced their vocation as teachers; their previous

occupation--the salaries of each teacher--their income from

school pence, and other emoluments. Whether they follow any

trade, or hold any other office. Whether they have a house

rent-free, a garden rent-free, fuel, or other emoluments.

"Numerous Sunday-schools have been established in Wales, and

their character and tendencies should not be overlooked, in

an attempt to estimate the provision for the instruction of

the poor. The Sunday-school must be regarded as the most

remarkable, because the most general, spontaneous effort of

the zeal of Christian congregations for education. Its

origin, organisation, and tendencies, are purely religious."

So far so good; the spirit of these instructions is wise and humane;

we can only regret that such a commission had not been issued a

century earlier. But shortly after, there follows a sentence which, to

any one tolerably well acquainted with Wales, must appear at first

sight absolutely trivial, and then highly extraordinary:--

"In some parts of the country it will probably be necessary that you

should avail yourselves of the services of persons possessing a

knowledge of the Welsh language."

Why, of course, when Welsh is the living spoken language of

three-fourths of the whole district to be examined, and when English

is essentially a foreign language, imperfectly understood in those

portions,--in some parts, indeed, hardly at all known,--the very least

of the qualifications that we should suppose a commissioner or school

inspector ought to possess, would be a good knowledge of the Welsh

language. Did, then, the lords of the privy council, composing the

committee of education, know so little of the country they wished to

have inspected, that they thought it only "probable" that in "some

parts" of the country a knowledge of Welsh would be necessary? If they

had been sending travelling commissioners to the Continent to inquire

into the state of public education in France or Germany, would they

then have sent to the former country those who knew no other foreign

language than German, and to the latter those who knew none but

French? This is a regular piece of official oversight, betraying

one-sided and crude views of the subject to be treated; and showing

that the examination of it was begun in a hasty and somewhat

inconsiderate manner. It might have been predicted that any one not

thoroughly conversant with Welsh could never obtain original

information for himself, but would have to speak through other

people's mouths, hear with their ears, and even see with their eyes.

He would never gain the confidence of the people, but would return

with an imperfect, and all but a second-hand report. He would resemble

the honest tar who, on his return from Cherbourg, gave it as his

opinion that the French were the dullest nation on the face of the

earth, since they could not speak common English. And so it has

actually proved to be the case with these very Commissioners. Not only

do we find the main grievance in their reports to be the ignorance of

the children in the English language, but the prevalent feeling, all

over Wales, is, that these gentlemen have gone out of it nearly as

wise, concerning the actual knowledge of the people, as they came into

it: and that, could the examinations have been conducted by them in

the Welsh tongue, their reports would have assumed a very different

character. What? complain of children not twelve years of age for not

comprehending questions addressed to them in a foreign language? Bring

a French Government inspector of schools from Paris, and set him to

examine all the boarding-schools round London in the French tongue, he

himself using it all the while for his questions; and then let him go

home and declare that not one child in ten knew any thing about what

he said to them,--and he would come near the truth;--and very like

this is the result of this inspection of Welsh schools by English

examiners. The Government, however, do not seem to have learnt wisdom

in this respect, for they have very recently appointed, as permanent

inspectors for Wales, a gentleman named Morell, and one of the authors

of this very report, Mr Symons; neither of whom, we will bet a leek to

a potato, can hold a conversation in Welsh.

One of the main difficulties in the way of education in Wales, if not

the principal difficulty of all, results from the circumstance that

the language of the principality is not that of the rest of the

kingdom. To understand this difficulty fully, it must be remembered

that the Welsh belong to a race of men essentially and altogether

distinct from those that inhabit the lands eastward of Offa's dyke;

that the peculiarities of national character which subsist among them

have been only in a very small part removed by amalgamation of the two

races; and that these differences are so wide, and so deeply seated,

that here, as elsewhere--wherever, indeed, the Celtic and Teutonic

races have been brought into contact,--a struggle and an opposition, a

repulsive tendency, more or less open and active, have ever existed,

and have brought about the subjugation, the inferiority, and, to a

certain degree, the degradation of the former. The Saxons produced few

or no results of importance by their attacks on the Welsh; the hardy

mountaineers generally gave them as much as they brought; and, had

they been doomed to meet with no men of sterner stuff, they would

still have held their own in unbroken integrity. But the energy of the

Normans, their fire and gallantry, animating and directing the slower

impulses of their Teutonic vassals, made the monarch of England at

length the conquering sovereign of Wales; and, from that moment, with

the transient exception of Owen Glyndwr's bright resistance, Wales not

only became the conquered and suffering country, but showed all the

symptoms of it, and brought forth all its fruits. The higher classes

either became replaced by Anglo-Norman nobles, or imitated both their

customs and their language;--many of the largest landed proprietors no

longer resided in the principality; and those who did, held themselves

far above their Celtic vassals in proud and domineering exclusiveness.

The common people--the mass of the nation, including the petty

free-holders and the remains of the conquered native nobles--formed a

national party, ever opposed to their haughty masters; adhered to

their national language with the greater devotion, as it was to them

the only relic of their former independence; retained their ancient

national customs and superstitions; and were content to turn their

backs upon the progress of that nation whose power they could not

throw off, though the desire to do so remained, and is not, even at

the present day, extinguished. The Welsh still call themselves "the

Cymry," and the English "the Saeson." They still look on the English

as foreigners; and this fact alone speaks volumes as to the antagonism

that still subsists between the two races. It is not our intention to

go into any discussion upon the political bearings of this state of

things: we will only observe, that the gentry and clergy of Wales

having mainly carried on their studies in the English language, and

having been anxious to do so as a mark of distinction from their

humbler neighbours, not only has the Welsh language remained almost

stationary since the time of the conquest, but the national mind, the

intelligence of the common people, has never kept pace with that of

England. Nearly all the literature and science, all the poetry,

history, and belles-lettres of the English nation, have been to the

Welsh totally unknown. They have never been translated; and, for that

very reason, the middle classes of the country, and of course all the

lower ones, are, it may be said, almost totally ignorant of them.

Another circumstance tending to this comparative isolation, is the

physical formation of the country, which, by keeping the people, down

to the present time, fixed to their bleak hills and extensive

moorlands, and by discouraging the growth of large towns, has retained

the people in a state of primitive agricultural simplicity, which,

while it may make them enjoy a certain amount of happiness not

inferior to that of their trade-enslaved neighbours, retards them in

what we suppose to be the _summum bonum_--the march of civilisation.

The language, the feelings, the aspirations of the Welsh are different

from those of the English--altogether different: and the million of

inhabitants, who are of Celtic race--just like the two millions of

Celts in France who retain the name of Britons; and the seven millions

of the Erse in Ireland, who also differ altogether in sympathies, and

to a great extent in language, from their conquerors--never will unite

with the Saxon race so far as to keep pace with them in what is called

"improvement" and "knowledge." This fundamental difference is alone

sufficient to account for the different degrees of education in the

two countries, even supposing that, after all, this difference should

turn out to be less than it is actually supposed to be by her

Majesty's inspectors; and it will also account for the immense

preponderance of dissent in Wales, and for the pining state of the

church. Ever since the time of Henry VIII., the English church has

been the church of the conqueror. The conquered have been left to form

their own religious creed; and, at the present moment, the Welsh

adhere with all the warmth of national enthusiasm, and with all the

devotion of a conquered people, to any form of worship but that which

they see adopted by the upper classes--by their Anglo-Norman lords

and masters. The limits of a review do not allow of our pursuing this

portion of the subject to the extent we might wish; but we know that

what we have here asserted is at the bottom of some of the main

differences between the Welsh and the English characters; and we do

not know of any means whereby these causes can be removed, except

through the soothing and permuting influence of time. We appeal to the

knowledge and experience of the more intelligent of the Welsh gentry

for a confirmation of these views; we find ample evidence in support

of them in the pages of these very reports. All through these

volumes--in almost every page--there is the same complaint that the

difference of language impedes the communication of knowledge; and,

indeed, we very much doubt whether any _English_ parent or

schoolmaster, who wished to convey all ideas of religious and secular

knowledge to his children through the medium of the _Welsh_

language,--to be taught them by an _Englishman_,--from the age of

eight years old and upwards, would not arrive at the same negative

result as the _Welshman_ who makes the same experiment by means of the

_English_ tongue.

We may here quote the following important observations from the report

of Mr Lingen--by far the most able, and the best digested of the

three. And we take the opportunity of pointing out this gentleman's

introductory remarks, as conveying the most valuable information which

we have met with concerning the actual state of Wales,--as well as for

the highly enlightened and philosophic spirit in which they are

conceived.

Mr Lingen observes:--

"My district exhibits the phenomenon of a peculiar language

isolating the mass from the upper portion of society; and,

as a further phenomenon, it exhibits this mass engaged upon

the most opposite occupations at points not very distant

from each other; being, on the one side, rude and primitive

agriculturists, living poorly, and thinly scattered; on the

other, smelters and miners, wantoning in plenty, and

congregated in the densest accumulations. An incessant tide

of immigration sets in from the former extreme to the

latter, and, by perpetuating a common character in each,

admits of their being contemplated under a single point of

view. Whether in the country, or among the furnaces, the

Welsh element is never found at the top of the social scale,

nor in its own body does it exhibit much variety of

gradation. In the country, the farmers are very small

holders, in intelligence and capital nowise distinguished

from labourers. In the works, the Welsh workman never finds

his way into the office. He never becomes either clerk or

agent. He may become an overseer or sub-contractor, but this

does not take him out of the labouring and put him into the

administering class. Equally in his new, as in his old,

home, his language keeps him under the hatches, being one in

which he can neither acquire nor communicate the necessary

information. It is a language of old-fashioned agriculture,

of theology, and of simple rustic life, while all the world

about him is English.

"Thus his social sphere becomes one of complete isolation

from all influences, save such as arise within his own

order. He jealously shrinks from holding any communication

with classes either superior to, or different from, himself.

His superiors are content, for the most part, simply to

ignore his existence in all its moral relations. He is left

to live in an under world of his own, and the march of

society goes so completely over his head that he is never

heard of, excepting when the strange and abnormal features

of a revival, or a Rebecca or Chartist outbreak, call

attention to a phase of society which could produce any

thing so contrary to all that we elsewhere experience.

"Cut off from, or limited to a purely material agency in,

the practical world, his mental faculties, so far as they

are not engrossed by the hardships of rustic, or the

intemperance of manufacturing, life, have hitherto been

exerted almost exclusively upon theological ideas. In this

direction too, from causes which it is out of my province to

particularise, he has moved under the same isolating

destiny, and his worship, like his life, has grown different

from that of the classes over him. Nor has he failed of

tangible results in his chosen province of independent

exertion. He has raised the buildings, and maintains the

ministry of his worship over the whole face of his country,

to an extent adequate to his accommodation."

"On the manifold evils inseparable from an ignorance of

English, I found but one opinion expressed on all hands.

They are too palpable, and too universally admitted, to need

particularising. Yet, if interest pleads for English,

affection leans to Welsh. The one is regarded as a new

friend to be acquired for profit's sake; the other as an old

one, to be cherished for himself, and especially not to be

deserted in his decline. Probably you could not find in the

most purely Welsh parts a single parent, in whatever class,

who would not have his child taught English in school; yet

every characteristic development of the social life into

which that same child is born--preaching--prayer-meetings--

Sunday-schools--clubs--biddings--funerals--the denominational

magazine (his only press), all these exhibit themselves to

him in Welsh as their natural exponent, partly, it may be,

from necessity, but, in some degree also, from choice. 'In

the Cymreigyddion (benefit societies) it is _a rule_ that no

English shall be spoken.' It is true that the necessities of

the world more and more force English upon the Welshman; but,

whether he can speak no English, or whether he speaks it

imperfectly, he finds it alike painful to be reminded of his

utter, or to struggle against his partial, inability of

expression. His feelings are impetuous; his imagination

vivid; his ideas (on such topics as he entertains) succeed

each other rapidly. Hence he is naturally voluble, often

eloquent. He possesses a mastery over his own language far

beyond that which the Englishman of the same degree possesses

over his. A certain power of elocution (viz., to pray

'doniol,' as it is called, _i. e._, in a gifted manner), is

so universal in his class that to be without it is a sort of

stigma. Hence, in speaking English, he has at once to forego

the conscious power of displaying certain talents whereon he

piques himself, and to exhibit himself under that peculiar

form of inability which most offends his self-esteem. From

all those favourite scenes of his life, therefore, which can

still be transacted without English, he somewhat eagerly

banishes it as an irksome imposition.

"Through no other medium than a common language can ideas

become common. It is impossible to open formal sluice-gates

for them from one language into another. Their circulation

requires a net-work of pores too minute for analysis, too

numerous for special provision. Without this net-work, the

ideas come into an alien atmosphere in which they are

lifeless. Direct education finds no place, when indirect

education is excluded by the popular language, as it were by

a wall of brass. Nor can an old and cherished language be

_taught down_ in schools; for so long as the children are

familiar with none other, they must be educated to a

considerable extent through the medium of it, even though to

supersede it be the most important part of their education.

Still less, out of school, can the language of lessons make

head against the language of life. But schools are every day

standing less alone in this contest. Along the chief lines

of road, from the border counties, from the influx of

English, or English-speaking labourers, into the iron and

coal-fields--in short from every point of contact with

modern activity, the English tongue keeps spreading, in some

places rapidly, but sensibly in all. Railroads, and the

fuller development of the great mineral beds, are on the eve

of multiplying these points of contact. Hence the

encouragement vigorously to press forward the cause of

popular education in its most advanced form. Schools are not

called upon to impart in a foreign, or engraft upon the

ancient tongue a factitious education conceived under

another set of circumstances (in either of which cases the

task would be as hopeless as the end unprofitable), but to

convey in a language, which is already in process of

becoming the mother tongue of the country, such instruction

as may put the people on a level with that position which is

offered to them by the course of events. If such instruction

contrasts in any points with the tendency of old ideas, such

contrast will have its reflex and its justification in the

visible change of surrounding circumstances."

We find the same statements amply corroborated by the evidence of Mr

Symons, another of her Majesty's inspectors. He observes:--

"The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales, and a

manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial

prosperity of the people. It is not easy to overestimate its

evil effects. It is the language of the Cymri, and anterior

to that of the ancient Britons. It dissevers the people from

intercourse which would greatly advance their civilisation,

and bars the access of improving knowledge to their minds.

As a proof of this, there is no Welsh literature worthy of

the name. The only works generally read in the Welsh

language are the Welsh monthly magazines, of which a list

and description are given in the Appendix lettered H. They

are much more talented than any other Welsh works extant,

but convey, to a very limited extent, a knowledge of passing

events, and are chiefly polemical and full of bitter

sectarianism, and indulge a great deal in highly-coloured

caricatures and personality. Nevertheless they have

partially lifted the people from that perfect ignorance and

utter vacuity of thought which otherwise would possess at

least two-thirds of them. At the same time, these

periodicals have used their monopoly as public instructors

in moulding the popular mind, and confirming a natural

partiality for polemics, which impedes the cultivation of a

higher and more comprehensive taste and desire for general

information. This has been conclusively proved by Mr Rees,

the enterprising publisher at Llandovery. He commenced the

publication of a periodical similar to the Penny Magazine,

in the Welsh language, but lost L.200 by it in a year. This

was probably too short a trial of the experiment; but it

sufficiently evinces the difficulty of supplanting an

established taste, by means however inoffensive.

"The evil of the Welsh language, as I have above stated, is

obviously and fearfully great in courts of justice. The

evidence given by Mr Hall (No. 37) is borne out by every

account I have heard on the subject; it distorts the truth,

favours fraud, and abets perjury, which is frequently

practised in courts, and escapes detection through the

loop-holes of interpretation. This public exhibition of

successful falsehood has a disastrous effect on public

morals and regard for truth. The mockery of an English trial

of a Welsh criminal by a Welsh jury, addressed by counsel

and judge in English, is too gross and shocking to need

comment. It is nevertheless a mockery which must continue

until the people are taught the English language; and that

will not be done until there are efficient schools for the

purpose."

The Reverend Mr Griffiths, of the Dissenting college, Brecknock,

says:--

"It (the English language) is gaining ground in the border

counties, but not so fast as Englishmen are apt to suppose.

Very few pulpits or Sunday-schools have changed languages

within the memory of man. Until that is done, the English,

however employed in ordinary matters of business, can have

little effect on the formation of character. As to the

desirableness of its being better taught, without entering

on considerations of commerce or general literature,

confessedly important as they are, perhaps you will forgive

my taking an extract from the address published by the

Llandovery conference" [from which the following passage may

be cited]:--"'Hallowed by religion and rich with the magic

of genius and associations of home, it (the Welsh language)

cannot be otherwise than dear to our hearts. It has done

good service in its day, and the sooner that service is

acknowledged, the better for all parties concerned. If die

it must, let it die fairly, peacefully, and reputably.

Attached to it as we are, few would wish to postpone its

euthanasy. But no sacrifice would be deemed too great to

prevent its being murdered. At the best, the vanishing for

ever of a language which has been spoken for thousands of

years is a deeply touching event. There is a melancholy

grandeur in the very idea, to which even its bitterest

enemies cannot be wholly insensible. What, then, must the

actual fact be to those who have worshipped and loved in its

accents from the earliest hours of childhood, and all whose

fondest recollections and hopes are bound up in its

existence?'"

Mr Johnson, the third inspector, publishes a most curious list of all

the books now circulating in the Welsh language. They are only 405 in

number, and out of these 309 relate to religion or poetry, 50 to

scientific subjects, and only the remaining 46 to general subjects.

What can be done for the education of a people with such a literature?

Evidently nothing, until one of these two contingencies shall take

place: either that the people forsake their own language, and adopt

English exclusively, or that a very considerable number of the best

elementary and educational books in the English language be translated

into Welsh, and the people taught in them. Neither of which

contingencies are likely to fall out for many generations yet to come;

though the latter is clearly possible and desirable; and the former

not only impossible except in the lapse of ages, but also, for reasons

that we shall advert to hereafter, highly to be deprecated even if it

lay within the limits of feasibility.

We now address ourselves to the main features of the reports

themselves; and shall begin by observing that each volume consists of

an introductory report, followed and supported by an immense mass of

detailed evidence, accounts of the examination of each school, and

elaborate tables, enough to confound the diligence of the most

indefatigable reader, and amply sufficient to satisfy the statistical

appetites of Mr Kay Shuttleworth, the secretary of the committee, and

Mr Williams, late M.P. for Coventry, in whose motion these volumes

originated.

The first volume (Mr Lingen's) contains 62 pages of introductory

report, and 492 of evidence and tables. The second volume, (Mr

Symons's,) 68 of report, and 266 of evidence, &c.; and the third, (Mr

Johnson's,) which is the volume devoted to North Wales, has also 68 of

report, and 358 of evidence.

The reports of nearly all the schools, with very few and

widely-scattered exceptions, run all on the same themes; the inability

of the children to answer the examiner's questions, and their

ignorance, bad pronunciation, bad syntax, &c., of the English

language. We know for a fact, on the other hand, that the returns of

the inspectors are disputed in a great number of cases by competent

judges residing in or near the parishes where the examinations took

place; and that the inspectors are accused of having conducted their

examinations not only in an off-hand flippant manner, with much

precipitancy, but with a method so decidedly English, and therefore

foreign, as at once to unnerve both the children and the

schoolmasters, and thus to have produced the most negative and

unfavourable results possible. In a great many instances, too, the

inspectors are accused of having made erroneous returns. We have been

ourselves at the pains to make inquiries into these points, but for

the very obvious reason of not wishing to involve ourselves in

controversy, we abstain from discussing the evidence, especially with

three lawyers for our antagonists: we leave this task to the Welsh

local press, which has been for some time past running a-muck at them,

and is disposed to devour them--reports, pens, ink, wigs, gowns, and

all. We shall content ourselves with stating, that we know of one

instance in which the inspector has sent in a very unfavourable report

of a considerable school, which had been thoroughly and patiently

examined only a few weeks before by one of the Welsh bishops, aided by

some local clergymen, in the presence of a large concourse of the

laity, and when the result had turned out to be highly creditable both

to the teachers and the scholars. In the latter case, the children had

been questioned both in Welsh and English by Welsh people, and by

people whom they knew and were not afraid of. In the former, they had

been examined by one of her Majesty's inspectors, learned in the law,

but not in the Welsh language, nor in the art of conciliating the

Welsh people. We shall take instances from each of the three reports,

diving into these parliamentary folios quite at hazard, and fishing up

the first returns that meet our eye: they will give some idea of the

inspectors' skill, and of the condition of the schools.

Mr Lingen reports as follows of a school in the parish of Llangwnnor,

Carmarthenshire.

"I visited this school on the 24th of November; it is held

in a ruinous hovel of the most squalid and miserable

character, which was originally erected by the parish, but

apparently by encroachment. On Sunday the Calvinistic

Methodists hold a school in it; the floor is of bare earth,

full of deep holes; the windows are all broken; a tattered

partition of lath and plaster divides it into two unequal

portions; in the larger were a few wretched benches, and a

small desk for the master in one corner; in the lesser was

an old door with the hasp still upon it, laid crossways upon

two benches, about half a yard high, to serve for a

writing-desk! Such of the scholars as write retire in pairs

to this part of the room, and kneel on the ground while they

write. On the floor was a heap of loose coal, and a litter

of straw, paper, and all kinds of rubbish. The vicar's son

informed me that he had seen eighty children in this hut. In

summer the heat of it is said to be suffocating; and no

wonder.

"The master appeared a pains-taking and amiable man, and had

a very good character given of him. He had been disabled

from following his trade (that of a carpenter) by an

accident. He was but indifferently acquainted with English;

one of the copies set by him was 'The Jews slain Christ.' I

stood by while he heard two classes--one of two little

girls, and another of three little boys and a girl--read.

The two first read an account of our Lord's temptation; the

master asked them to spell a few words, which they did, and

then to give the Welsh equivalents for several English

words, which they also did; he asked no other questions. The

other class read small sentences containing a repetition of

the same word, _e. g._, 'The bad do sin--wo to the bad--the

bad do lie,' &c. They were utterly unable to turn such

sentences into Welsh; they knew the letters (for they could

point to particular words when required,) and they knew to

some extent the English sound of them; they knew also the

meaning of the single words (for they could give the Welsh

equivalents,) but they had no idea of the sentence. With

them, therefore, English reading must be (at best) a mere

string of words, connected only by juxtaposition."

Mr. Symons gives the following report of a school at Llanfihangel

Creiddyn, in Cardiganshire.

"This parish contains a very good modern school-room, but it

is not finished inside. There is no floor of any sort. The

school, nevertheless, is of the most inferior description,

devoid of method in the instruction, and of capacity in the

master. During the whole of last summer the school was shut,

and the room was used by the carpenters who were repairing

the church. One of their benches is now used as a writing

table. Few of the children remain a year; they come for a

quarter or half-a-year, and then leave the school. Fourteen

children were present, together with two young men who were

there to learn writing. Four of the children only could read

in the Testament, and the master selected the 1st chapter of

Revelation for them to read in. They stammered through

several verses, mispronouncing nearly every word, and which

the master took some pains to correct. None of them knew the

meaning, or could give the Welsh words for 'show,' 'gave,'

or 'faith.' One or two only knew that of 'grace,' 'woman,'

'nurse.' Their knowledge of spelling was very limited. Of

Scripture they knew next to nothing. Jesus was said to be

the son of Joseph; one child only said the Son of God;

another thought he was on earth now; and another said he

would come again 'to increase grace,' grace meaning

godliness. Three out of the five could not tell why Christ

came to the earth, a penny having been offered for a correct

answer. Two could not tell any one thing that Christ did,

and a third said he drew water from a rock in the land of

Canaan. None knew the number of the Apostles; one never

heard of them, and two could not name any of them. Christ

died in Calvary, which one said was in England, and the

others did not know where it was. Four could not tell the

day Christ was born, or what it was called. The days of a

week were guessed to be five, six, four, and seven. The days

in the month twenty and fifteen, and nine could name the

months. None knew the number of days in the year; and all

thought the sun moved round the world. This country was said

to be Cardiganshire, not Wales. Ireland one thought a town,

and another a parish. England was a town, and London a

country. A king was a reasonable being (creadwr rhesymnol.)

Victoria is the Queen, and it is our duty to do every thing

for her. In arithmetic they could do next to nothing, and

failed to answer the simplest questions. I then examined the

young men, promising two-pence to those who answered most

correctly. They had a notion of the elements of Scripture

truths. Two of them had no notion of arithmetic. The third

answered easy questions, and could do sums in the simple

rules. On general subjects their information was very little

superior to that of the children."

And Mr Vaughan Johnson, in examining the church school of Holyhead, in

the Isle of Anglesey, reports as follows:--

"_Holyhead Church School._--A school for boys and girls,

taught by a master and mistress, in separate rooms of a

large building set apart for that purpose. Number of boys,

96; of girls, 47; 10 monitors are employed. Subjects taught,

reading, writing, and arithmetic, the Holy Scriptures and

Church catechism. Fees, 1d. per week.

"This school was examined November 9. Total number present,

117. Of these, 20 could write well on paper; 40 were able to

read with ease; and 22 could repeat the Church catechism, 15

of them with accuracy. In knowledge of Holy Scripture and in

arithmetic, the boys were very deficient. Scholars in the

first class said that there were 18 gospels, that

Bartholomew wrote one and Simon another; that Moses was the

son of David. These answers were not corrected by the rest.

By a lower class it was said, that Jerusalem is in heaven,

and that St Paul wrote the gospel according to St Matthew;

another believed it was written by Jesus Christ. The oldest

boy in a large class said, that Joseph was the son of

Abraham. A child about 10 years old said, that Jesus Christ

was the Saviour of men; but, upon being asked 'From what did

he save mankind?' replied, 'from God.'

"Having heard from the patrons that the scholars were

particularly expert in arithmetic, I requested the master to

exhibit his best scholars. Thirteen boys accordingly

multiplied a given sum of £ _s. d._ by (25 + ½.) The

process was neatly and accurately performed by every boy. I

then examined the same class in arithmetic, and set each boy

a distinct sum in multiplication of money. Instead of (25 +

½) I gave 5 as the number by which the several sums were

to be multiplied. I allowed each boy for this simple process

twice as much time as he had required for the preceding,

which was far more complicated; but only two of the 13

could bring me a correct answer. This is well worthy of

remark. The original sum appears to be one which they are in

the habit of performing before strangers; many had copied

the whole process from those next them, without

understanding a single step.

"The girls were further advanced in arithmetic and in Holy

Scripture. But the 2d class asserted that St Matthew was one

of the prophets; that Jesus Christ is in the grave to this

day; and two stated that Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary

were the same person. Although these questions were put in

English and in Welsh, few of the children could understand

what they heard or read in the English language. The

questions were therefore interpreted."

We should here observe that a considerable number of the examinations

were conducted not by the inspectors themselves, but by persons hired

by them, more or less on account of their knowledge of the Welsh

language. To these we attach little or no weight, because they have

not the sanction of a Government commission, nor do the persons

themselves hold any official or private rank by which their capacities

for conducting such examinations can be ascertained.

As a specimen of the state in which some of the peasantry are, we find

Mr Lingen, while in Pembrokeshire, remarking thus:--

"I entered two cottages, where the children were said not to

be attending school. In the first I found an extremely

well-spoken and intelligent girl of twelve or thirteen years

old, and her brother somewhat younger. They had been to

Yerbeston day-school for about a quarter, and to Molleston

Sunday-school for about two years, though not for the last

month. It was closed during the bad weather and short days.

She read about Jesus in the Testament; but could tell me

_nothing_ about him except that he was called the Son of

Man. She said, 'They only teach us to read; they don't tell

us any of these things at the Sunday-school.'

"In the other cottage I found two little children, a boy and

girl, going, and having been, to no school of any kind. The

girl was nursing an infant: there were two other children

from home. The mother of four of them was a widow, the fifth

child was apparently a pauper, billeted upon her in

consideration of 5s. per week from the parish. At the time

of my visit the mother was out at farm-work (winnowing), and

had to be called; I could get no answer from the two

children. The girl, who was the eldest, and in her ninth

year, only replied to my questions by a cunning, unpleasant

grin, though her face was intelligent and not ill-looking.

The boy had a most villainous expression of sullen

stolidity; he was mixing culm with his hands. They knew no

prayers, nor who to pray to--and of course never prayed. The

mother could not read nor write--'worse luck,' as she said;

her only chance of educating these children was a

free-school. The entire 5s. went in food at the present high

prices, and 'not enough then.'

"In this same neighbourhood I asked some questions of a

little boy, nearly seven, whom I met on the road. It was in

vain that I tempted him with half-pence to answer; he knew

nothing of Sunday--of God--of the devil--'had heard of Jesus

Christ from Jemmy Wilson,' but could give no account

whatever about him; he knew neither the then day of the

week, nor how many days in a week, nor months in a year; he

had never been in any school; his brother and sister were

going to St Issell's school. I had to repeat my questions

two or three times over before they seemed to impress any

thing more than his ears. The first answer _invariably_ was,

and it was, often repeated half a dozen times--'_What ee'

say?_' and the next '_Do' know_.'"

The condition of the buildings in which the schools are commonly held

in the country parishes is wretched in the extreme. Take the following

brief accounts, some of which might furnish admirable sketches to a

Cattermole or a Maclise:--

"(1.) The school was held in a miserable room over the

stable; it was lighted by two small glazed windows, and was

very low; in one corner was a broken bench, some sacks, and

a worn-out basket; another corner was boarded off for

storing tiles and mortar belonging to the chapel. The

furniture consisted of one small square table for the

master, two larger ones for the children, and a few benches,

all in a wretched state of repair. There were several panes

of glass broken in the windows; in one place paper served

the place of glass, and in another a slate, to keep out wind

and rain; the door was also in a very dilapidated condition.

On the beams which crossed the room were a ladder and two

larch poles.

"(2.) The school was held in a room built in a corner of the

churchyard; it was an open-roofed room; the floor was of the

bare earth, and very uneven; the room was lighted by two

small glazed windows, one-third of each of which was patched

up with boards. The furniture consisted of a small square

table for the master, one square table for the pupils, and

seven or eight benches, some of which were in good repair,

and others very bad. The biers belonging to the church were

placed on the beams which ran across the room. At one end of

the room was a heap of coal and some rubbish, and a worn-out

basket, and on one side was a new door leaning against the

wall, and intended for the stable belonging to the church.

The door of the schoolroom was in a very bad condition,

there being large holes in it, through which cold currents

of air were continually flowing."

If, however, the condition of the school-buildings is thus unsuitable,

the previous education and training of the teachers is not less

faulty. The subjoined extract from Mr Lingen's report is borne out by

precisely similar statements from those of his coadjutors:--

"The present average age of teachers is upwards of 40 years;

that at which they commenced their vocation upwards of 30;

the number trained is 12·5 per cent of the whole ascertained

number; the average period of training is 7·30 months; the

average income is L.22, 10s. 9d. per annum; besides which,

16·1 per cent have a house rent-free. Before adopting their

present profession, 6 had been assistants in schools, 3

attorneys' clerks, 1 attorney's clerk and sheriff's officer,

1 apprentice to an ironmonger, 1 assistant to a draper, 1

agent, 1 artilleryman, 1 articled clerk, 2 accountants, 1

auctioneer's clerk, 1 actuary in a savings' bank, 3

bookbinders, 1 butler, 1 barber, 1 blacksmith, 4

bonnet-makers, 2 booksellers, 1 bookkeeper, 15 commercial

clerks, 3 colliers, 1 cordwainer, 7 carpenters, 1

compositor, 1 copyist, 3 cabinet-makers, 3 cooks, 1

corn-dealer, 3 druggists, 42 milliners, 20 domestic

servants, 10 drapers, 4 excise-men, 61 farmers, 25

farm-servants, 1 farm-bailiff, 1 fisherman, 2 governesses, 7

grocers, 1 glover, 1 gardener, 177 at home or in school, 1

herald-chaser, 4 housekeepers, 2 hatters, 1 helper in a

stable, 8 hucksters or shopkeepers, 1 iron-roller, 6

joiners, 1 knitter, 13 labourers, 4 laundresses, 1

lime-burner, 1 lay-vicar, 5 ladies'-maids, 1 lieutenant R.

N., 2 land-surveyors, 22 mariners, 1 mill-wright, 108

married women, 7 ministers, 1 mechanic, 1 miner, 2 mineral

agents, 5 masons, 1 mate, 1 maltster, 1 militia-man, 1

musician, 1 musical-wire-drawer, 2 nursery-maids, 1

night-schoolmaster, 1 publican's wife (separated from her

husband,) 2 preparing for the church, 1 policeman, 1 pedlar,

1 publican, 1 potter, 1 purser's steward, 1 planter, 2

private tutors, 1 quarryman, 1 reed-thatcher, 28

sempstresses, 1 second master R. N., 4 soldiers, 14

shoemakers, 2 machine-weighers, 1 stonecutter, 1 serjeant of

marines, 1 sawyer, 1 surgeon, 1 ship's cook, 7 tailors, 1

tailor and marine, 1 tiler, 17 widows, 4 weavers, and 60

unascertained, or having had no previous occupation.

"In connexion with the vocation of teacher, 2 follow that of

assistant-overseer of roads, 6 are assistant overseers of

the poor, 1 accountant, 1 assistant parish clerk, 1

bookbinder, 1 broom and clog-maker, 4 bonnet-makers, 1 sells

Berlin wool, 2 are cow-keepers, 3 collectors of taxes, 1

drover (in summer,) 12 dressmakers, 1 druggist, 1 farmer, 4

grocers, 3 hucksters or shopkeepers, 1 inspector of weights

and measures, 1 knitter, 2 land-surveyors (one of them is

also a stonecutter,) 2 lodging-house keepers, 1 librarian to

a mechanics' institute, 16 ministers, 1 master of a

workhouse, 1 matron of a lying-in hospital, 3 mat-makers, 13

preachers, 18 parish or vestry clerks (uniting in some

instances the office of sexton), 1 printer and engraver, 1

porter, barber, and layer-out of the dead in a workhouse, 4

publicans, 1 registrar of marriages, 11 sempstresses, 1

shopman (on Saturdays,) 8 secretaries to benefit societies,

1 sexton, 2 shoemakers, 1 tailor, 1 teacher of modern

languages, 1 turnpike man, 1 tobacconist, 1 writing-master

in a grammar-school, and 9 are in receipt of parochial

relief."

Upon this the inspector observes with great good sense--

"No observations of mine could heighten the contrast which

facts like the above exhibit, between the actual and the

proper position of a teacher. I found this office almost

every where one of the least esteemed and worst remunerated;

one of those vocations which serve as the sinks of all

others, and which might be described as guilds of refuge;

for to what other grade can the office of teacher be

referred after the foregoing analysis? Is it credible that,

if we took 784 shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, or any other

skilled workmen, we should find them (one with another) not

to have commenced their calling before 30 years of age? nor

more than 47·3 per cent of them who had not previously

followed some other calling nor more than 1 in every 8 who

had served any apprenticeship to it, nor even this 8th man

for a period much longer than half a year? The miserable

pittance which they get is irregularly paid."

The pecuniary part of the question, the ways and means for supporting

an efficient system of education in Wales, may be very fairly inferred

from the following extract of the report on three of the most

prosperous counties in the principality, corroborated as it is by

similar statements and returns in other districts:--

"There is a great and general deficiency of voluntary funds

for the maintenance of schools for the poor in the rural

parts of South Wales. By far the most liberal contributors

to such schools in England are the clergy. The following

table exhibits the clerical income of the beneficed clergy

in my district. I would beg to call particular attention to

the average area and population of the parishes in

Carmarthenshire, and to the income of the clergy in the

remote hundreds of Dewisland and Kemess:--

+----------------+---------+----------+------------+----------+--------------+

| | | | | | |

| |Number of| |Vicarages or|Number of | Total Income |

| Counties. |Parishes.|Rectories.| Perpetual | Glebe |of Clergy from|

| | | | Curacies. | Houses. | Benefices. |

| | | | | | |

+----------------+---------+----------+------------+----------+--------------+

| | | | | | £ |

|Carmarthenshire,| 77 | 16 | 72 | 26 | 9,974 |

|Glamorganshire, | 125 | 53 | 83 | 33 | 18,101 |

|Pembrokeshire, | 140 | 58 | 85 | 34 | 17,418 |

+----------------+---------+----------+------------+----------+--------------+

|The three | 342 | 127 | 240 | 93 | 45,493 |

|Counties, | | | | | |

+----------------+---------+----------+------------+----------+--------------+

+----------------+------------------+--------------+-----------+------------+

| | Average | Number of | |Average area|

| | Income of | Parishes on | Average | of square |

| Counties. | Clergy per | which the |population | miles |

| | Parish. |average Income|per Parish.|per Parish. |

| | | is taken. | | |

+----------------+------------------+--------------+-----------+------------+

| | £ _s._ _d._| | | |

|Carmarthenshire,| 119 13 0 | 75 | 1,380 | 12 |

|Glamorganshire, | 153 7 11 | 118 | 1,364 | 6 |

|Pembrokeshire, | 129 0 5 | 135 | 255 | 4 |

+----------------+---------+----------+------------+----------+-------------+

|The three | 133 0 4 | 328 | 1,068 | 6 |

|Counties, | | | | |

+----------------+------------------+--------------+-----------+------------+

"The poor provision which the church offers to an educated

man, and the necessity of ordaining those only, for the

great majority of parishes, who understand the Welsh

language, are facts which bear powerfully upon the education

of the country. A large portion of the Welsh clergy complete

their education exclusively in Wales. The licensed grammar

schools, from which they were formerly ordained, have been

superseded for St David's College, Lampeter.

"Still, so far as daily education has hitherto been

supported by voluntary payments, this has been mostly in

connexion with the church. For, putting aside 31·1 per cent

of the day-scholars as belonging to private adventure

schools, and 10·9 percent for children in union workhouse

and workmen's schools, there remains 39·9 per cent of the

day-scholars in connexion, and 18·1 per cent not in

connexion, with the church."

Whatever deficiencies there may be in the system of daily and secular

education, much more zeal and energy is shown in the Sunday schools;

the causes and objects of which are so graphically and accurately

described by Mr Lingen, that we must again quote his own

words:--observing that the two other reports tell the same tale

exactly, only in different language--