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CHAPTER VI.
HENRY RICHARDS' LETTERS ON WALES — POWER OF TRADITION — INFLUENCE OF GENTRY,
WHY DECLINING — CONGRESS AT SWANSEA, 1879 — LACK OF A BOURGEOISIE IN THE PAST
— NECESSITY TO KNOW THE LANGUAGE TO KNOW WALES — CULTURE OF THE POORER CLASSES
— MONMOUTHSHIRE SHOEMAKER — POSSIBLE DETERIORATION UNDER DOMINANCE OF ENGLISH
LANGUAGE — "MORE WELSH READ THAN EVER" — REMARKS ON THE PRESENT
EDUCATIONAL STANDARD — FRENCH AND GERMAN — THE JAMES SHAW CONTROVERSY — WELSH
UNIVERSITY COLLEGES AND THEIR SCHOLARSHIPS.
In the three preceding Chapters, we have dealt with Welsh principally as
affected by school regulations. We will now endeavour to obtain a more
general view of its present status and future prospects. In spite of the
outcry in Wales, occasioned by the reports of the three Commissioners in
1847, English opinion, to a large extent, took its cue from them for several
years. It was not, in fact, till eighteen years afterwards that any important
portraiture of Wales calculated to reach English readers appeared.
In 1866, a series of fourteen letters was published in the Morning and
Evening Star, written by a comparatively unknown London Welshman, who held
the office of Secretary to the Peace Society, and whose father had been a
somewhat eminent Congregational preacher in Cardiganshire. Mainly in
consequence of these letters, Henry Richard became a household name in Wales,
mentioned with respect and affection; a seat in Parliament was open to him
till the day of his death, and his work distinctly modified English opinion
on the character of the Welsh people.
In his opening letter he alludes to the three young barristers, who, went
"groping about in the dark for some means of
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204 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
acquiring the information they were in search of, fell into the hands of one
class, who hoodwinked and misguided them in every possible way." Of
course, the "one class" was that of the "gwy^r mewn dillad duon." I quote his words, but perhaps they
were a little one-sided.
A considerable portion of the letters was taken up with matter bearing on the
religious, moral and political character of the people, the dereliction and
apathy of the Established Church in the past, the rise and popularity of
Nonconformity, the unwillingness of the early Nonconformists to engage
actively in politics, anomalies in political representations, evictions for
voting against the landlord's views, and a refutation of the Commissioners'
reports as regards the morality of the country.
In reference to the latter he said — "I believe I can shew that though
falling lamentably below the standard of the Divine law, it [Wales] has the
right to claim credit for superior purity as compared with most of the other
parts of the kingdom."
The two letters which principally require comment here are those on the
intellectual condition of the country, and the political influence of the
gentry.
In the former he expressed the belief that at no period had "the people
of Wales sunk into that utter mental torpidity which marks" some
portions of the English peasantry.
He speaks of national traditions being cherished with great tenacity, and
mentions that of Brâd y Cyllyll Hirion
being still current in his boyhood. This is somewhat remarkable, the event
happened somewhat near the Sixth century, and though it is perhaps impossible
to prove that the tradition existed, not by means of concurrent manuscript
testimony, but purely by the force of oral relation right down to the
Nineteenth century, I am personally inclined to believe that this may be the
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 205
case, and that the story would have been preserved much as we have it,
independently of any literary evidences.
People living in towns, which principally owe their existence to the
industrial developments of modern civilization, and which attract to
themselves varied and mixed populations from different districts and with
different antecedents, have, I believe, generally little idea of the force of
tradition in some Welsh country districts. I do not speak of legend (and
perhaps Brâd y Cyllyll Hirion is of
that class), but of what rests on reliable and historical foundations. We
need not, however, confine reliable and ancient traditions to Wales. Careful
observers doubtless come across it repeatedly, in England.
For instance, a descendant of a certain family named Prichard, which resided
for some time close to Offa's Dyke, in Herefordshire, related, not many years
ago, the family tradition that the Prichards had entertained the Black
Prince. Now, Hallam's Constitutional
History records the fact that a certain Picard did entertain that prince
in London. Other evidence exists that the family residing on this spot right
through the Norman and Plantagenet period was that of the Pritchards,
Picards, or Pytchards, and that one or more of their number represented the
county in Parliament. Hence, prima
facie it appears clearly to point to the identity of the family tradition
with the historical fact, and the former must have been continued in complete
ignorance of the existence of the latter. I have also heard that the motto of
this family was "Heb Dduw heb
ddim, a Duw a digon," [= Heb
Dduw heb ddim, â Duw â digon; [to be] without God [is to be] without
anything; [to be] with God [is to be] with abundance]rendering it
probable that though of Norman origin they became Welsh-speaking.
Adverting to the current literature of the country, the existence is noted of
five quarterlies, twenty-five monthlies, and eight weeklies, circulated among
an estimated Welsh reading and speaking population of 850,000. Concurrently
with this,
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206 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
there was a large circulation of English literature, which is still more the
case to-day, even in districts where little but Welsh is heard at home.
After saying that only for some twenty years had the Welsh begun to have
anything like a political literature, he records the early struggle of the Amserau, in the hands of Gwilym Hiraethog, who used to print it
at Douglas, Isle of Man, to escape newspaper-duty, but on the gentry and
clergy of North Wales, calling the attention of the Government to the fact,
it had to be removed thence. Contrary to the wish of its opponents it
survived and lives to-day, incorporated with the Baner in the well-known Baner
ac Amserau Cymru.
It is not surprising to find that Henry Richard devoted a letter to the
political influence of the gentry. Although there are points of similarity,
there are certain points of difference between the landed classes in Wales
and England, which no Englishman, who lives in the country, and becomes one
with the people, can fail to be struck with.
Few nations are more disposed to attach themselves to families than the
Welsh. Witness their almost servile following of the Tudors, their loyalty to
the unworthy Stuarts, and the prestige which several old houses in Wales
still enjoy, not on account of what their members are in themselves, but from
the consciousness that they have descended from ancient lords of the land.
Wales differs considerably from Ireland in this respect. There are very few
estates, if any, which have the tradition of being property confiscated from
native hands, and given into the hands of foreigners. Even the families with
Norman names generally have some claim to represent an old Welsh stock,
through intermarriage, and so far, there is a predisposition not to be
over-critical, of the disposition and acts of the large landlords towards
tenants.
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 207
Over-riding all this, however, there are opposing forces which in effect,
place a considerable distance between the two classes, and which prevent their
assimilation into an homogeneous whole, viz. — ,
I. The deprivation which members of most of the county families have suffered
through their early education, being wholly English, which prevents them from
being fully qualified to be leaders of the people. About this defect, Henry
Richard wrote as follows: —
Many of the former are ignorant of the language of the country, and are
rather proud of their ignorance, while others, who have acquired a little
smattering of colloquial Welsh, make no attempt to acquaint themselves with
the current periodical literature, through which, in Wales as everywhere
else, the national mind and heart and will, find expression. This is not a
sentimental, but a very real and serious grievance; for the people among whom
they dwell remain unknown to the upper classes, or rather, what is far worse,
they are misknown, the impressions of them which they receive being conveyed
through a false medium — the medium of minds coloured and distorted by
interest or prejudice.
II. The difference of religion between the landed class and the mass of the
people.
If the landowners are really conscientiously convinced that it is their duty
to be Conformist to the ritual of the State Church, and so long as they
believe that a Spiritual omnipresent Being requires such conformity, no one
would deny their liberty to carry out their belief. It would, however, be
doing them no injustice to say that a great many of their number could not
strictly confess as much.
It seems moreover passing strange, that intelligent men, not only in Wales,
but England, should so implicitly pin their faith to the doctrine and
ecclesiastical arrangements made in the middle of the sixteenth century by a
few men who had
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208 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
been mostly educated as Papists. Is it possible that they have never read the
lesson of histoiy, that the progress of error from the first century
downwards, was continual and slow; until, if it had not been ohecked by the
civil power, it would have culminated in the freehold of the country being
handed over to ecclesiastics by the dying possessors of uneasy consciences
and until the freeborn Briton himself would have had nothing left he cotfld
call his own?
If the progress of error has been slow, why should not the return from error
be slow too, and why stick fast by the framers of the Book of Common Prayer,
in the middle of the sixteenth century, and not entertain the idea that
possibly some who dissented from the use of that book, had juster and clearer
views of the relation of man to the Supreme Being than its authors?
All this is a propos, because there are a large number of the privileged
class who are not merely content with their own belief, but are very diligent
by means of their Primrose League meetings, National Schools, favours to
eglwysioyr, and slights to Nonconformists in endeavouring to prop up the now
tottering establishment, which retains more of the rags of Rome than any denomination
in the country. The time is coming, though not in the lifetime of the
generation now on the scene of action, when not only the present supremacy of
the reigning Sovereign {i.e. the Government), over a professedly religious
body will be abolished, but in which there will be such a wide spread and
conscientious acceptance of doctrines much more consistent with spiritual
religion, that the present will be looked back to as a time of ignorance and
darkness.
A third cause why the "gentry" command less influence than they
might otherwise do, is the fact that in a number of instances they marry
English women. This, combined with the sort of religious and secular
education they receive, gives
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 209
them somewhat the character of aliens, separated from the mass of the people
by a great gulf.
Witness the present P of R , although descended
from one of the fifteen Royal tribes, and his family has for hundreds of
years lived in one of the most Welshy parts of Wales, he cannot speak "
a word" of the language, whicli is not so nuich to be wondered at, as he
comes from a stock that has now and again frowned fiercely upon dissent from
the time of Richard Davies,* 1675, to the election of 1859. The
representative of the family having gone to England for a wife, she has had
the good sense to learn the language, and is credited with having moderated
her husband's homage to the doctrine of the Divine right of kings and
landlords to reign. Yet, the heir of the estate is monoglot English,
notwithstanding, or rather is ignorant of Welsh, whatever he may know of
foreign tongues.
It is, perhaps, justice to the class spoken of to say that to some extent the
Welsh revival has afi"ected them, and it is likely to affect them still
more, if a Welsh University is established on a really National basis. To
decide as to whether there is less intolerance now than a quarter of a
century ago, I will leave to others. Certainly there is more civil liberty,
and apparently a tendency to cultivate the Welsh language among some of the
old families which did not exist then.
If this is properly fostered, it ought to end in Welsh-speaking nurses being
engaged for their children, a policy which it is to be hoped many more
middle-class families in Glamorganshire will carry out, than has been the
case. Some years ago, a colliery proprietor at Brymbo, near Wrexham,
attempted this, but the maid engaged for his family was so
* Richard Davies says that Colonel P. was not in the main a persecutor, but
was put on by some " peevish clergymen, so called." — Philadelphia
Ed., p 125. DD
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10 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
anxious to learn English that she neglected teaching her charge Welsh. This
was, I suppose, about 1860; and though such cases would be less likely to
occur now, it would be safer to engage a duoglot person.
To endeavour to present an accurate and faithful portraiture of the social,
moral and mental forces which affect the use of the language in Wales, would
necessitate the writing of some 200,000 family monographs, and the weaving of
them into a complete whole. Perhaps a German specialist will in the dim
future direct his mental camera in this direction, and present to the
astonished world a complete delineation of the various shades of subjective
and objective phenomena which the co-existence of the Welsh and English
languages gives rise to. My work in this direction can hardly be otherwise
than patchy, but if patchy, and unworthy the name of a monograph, it occupies
ground to a large extent untraversed by Enghsh pens.
We will now examine another witness; this time it is neither a popular
favourite — an ex-Dissenting preacher, nor an obscure Newport tradesman — it
is an Offeiriad of the very mother Church that you of the wide-spreading
acres and the rent rolls delight to honour. D. Williams, in the 1 879
Episcopalian Congress, at Swansea, read a paper on the Welsh Church press, in
the course of which he said —
Bishops and barons leading the ran, with a motley crew of country squires and
clerical expectants officiating in the rear, have expelled the "Welsh
language from their drawing-rooms; and she, with the true instinct of womanly
reyenge, has shut the heart of the nation against them, that they shaU no
longer be rulers of her people. There are very few parishes in Wales without
a resident landlord, to whom the people look up with more or less
expectation. These natural leaders of the people, because uneducated, and
perversely ignorant of the language, have abdicated their proud
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CHAP. VI,] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE, 211
position, and allowed the people to be led by those who had no business to be
leaders of the people at all.*
This, my readers, is one side of the question given by the eloquent pen of a
writer to whom, notwithstanding his facility in it, English was a foreign
language; after describing how the nation is not led, he describes how it is
led: —
It is the Welsh-speaking portion of the community, under the speU of their weekly
and monthly periodicals, who wield the political power in the Principality;
and it is impossible to gain their confidence by ignoring their language.
There is one tenant-farmer in Welsh Wales, whom I know well, who wields a
mightier political influence than the four Bishops, four Deans, and ten
Archdeacons of Wales put together. The united forces of the hierarchy cannot
sway the will of the nation with the magic that this one Welsh tenant-farmer
can.
In inserting the following paragraph I am reminded of the rema»k made to me
by a young Lampeter man. "Welsh does not pay. The best livings are given
to English preachers," D. Williams, after alluding to the Welsh
EncycIop£edia,-f- which, he says, in point of fulness, research and learning,
need not shrink from comparison with similar works in England, says —
Our literature — our modern literature — is to a great extent peasant
literature; contributed and read by them; and that almost every clergyman who
was found guilty of any literary ability had to incur episcopal displeasure
with its demoralising results; I ask, is it a matter of wonder that the
Church suffers from a decadence of literary ability, and that the people have
become in the main a nation of Dissenters? The reading monoglot is a Dissenter.
There are clergy living amongst us at the. present moment, of European fame
as philologists, and of unimpeachable character, and most efficient as parish
priests, coldly left in poor and obscure country
* Extract from report in South Wales Daily News, 10 mo., Uth, 1879. t Y
Gwyddoniadw Gymraeg, published by Gee Denbigh.
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212 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] tCHAP. Vl.
parishes, who, if they had produced in the English language the learned works
they hare in Welsh, would long ago haye found a becoming recognition at the
hands of the rulers of the Church. Justice demands that the same
consideration should be shown to authors in the "Welsh language.
Another who took part in the Congress spoke in high contempt of the idea that
because English is generally understood, not much attention need be paid to
the vernacular; he calls this a terrible argument when applied to the "Welsh
Church," i.e. the Episcopalian body.
This is the policy which has thrust on us men, clever enough indeed to learn
our tongue, but never to feel it, or for the people who speak it. Our tongue
cannot be learned by a stranger, its fire burns only in the native breast.*
This is why the "Welsh, though a duoglot people, linger delightedly on
the accents of a speaker, however halting, who addresses them in their own
language, while the sublimest thoughts otherwise expressed fail to reach more
than the ear, and leave the audience unimpressed.
The above extracts will be of some assistance in elucidating the position of
what are called the upper classes towards the Welsh language. So far from
being themselves, as in former ages, the literateurs of the country, and
leaders in thought as well as in action, they are obliged, to a considerable
extent, to take a secondary position, which is in part the result of
democratic influences common to England and Wales, and, in part, the outcome
of the legislation of Henry VIII.
We should do well, moreover, to bear in mind that up to within recent years
Wales can scarcely be said to have had a middle class. The backbone of a
nation in such times as ours is the existence of an intelligent and
conscientious bourgeoisie. It was the bourgeoisie which enabled England to
shake off the
* But then the " native breast " is sometimes found the other side
Offa's Dyke.
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CSAP, VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 213
yoke of the Stuarts, and it was just the absence of that class which placed
Wales in an antagonistic position to the Parliamentary powers in 1645. Even at
the present day we cannot go into some English towns without being reminded
that their burghers three or four centuries ago were capable of great things,
and that in point of material accommodations and social intelligence, they
must have been considerably in advance of the working country population.
The middle class in Wales, such as it is, has largely been created by the
industrial developments of the Nineteenth century. The fathers and
grandfathers of most of the well-to-do tradesmen, merchants, and professional
men, at least in South Wales, were to be found in very different spheres of
life. I believe that this is one of the factors, which accounts for the
undefinable social differences met with by a person who has lived in Bristol,
Gloucester, or Hereford, when he comes to make his home in Wales.
The absence of a middle class has operated in this way: socially and
intellectually, the people have been left very much to carve out their own
path. This has resulted in the establishment of a certain standard of native
culture, particularly in North Wales, but it has also had the effect of
throwing a very much larger proportion of influence into the hands of the
preachers of the various nonconforming denominations than they would
otherwise have possessed owing to the fact of their being almost the only
educated persons representing popular aspirations. I am speaking, of course,
of a state of things which is passing away, but one which for many years to
come, will leave its stamp on the character of Wales.
In South Wales, notwithstanding the spread of English, there is still far too
much isolation of the mining population from outside influences which
certainly would not be the case had these populations grown up for one or two
generations
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214 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP, VI.
surrounded by such a middle class as they would naturally look up to with
confidence. The new middle class in Wales represents two distinct lines of
influence, the one distinctly Welsh, the other Anglicized or entirely English;
I shall, however, illustrate my meaning better by saying that in Wales there
are in reality two social and intellectual worlds; the one is practically
unapproachable from the outside, except through a familiarity with the Welsh
language, either in its colloquial or literary forms, or both; the other is
simply a provincialized aspect of English life and thought.
The first class of persons move in both those spheres, the second move in the
latter only. There are Englishmen who have been living in Wales for years,
entering into the relations of every-day hfe with its people, following the
course of events as recorded in Enghsh papers published in Wales, who,
notwithstanding they may be on terms of familiarity with their neighbours,
are still foreigners. They may think they know Wales, but they do not, and
cannot in the same sense, as those who understand the national literature, or
the Dual character of a Duoglot people.
No doubt there are, notwithstanding what has been said, many Englishmen, as
well as many Welshmen, who feel that this is not satisfactory. The best
practical remedy, it appears to me, is not to attempt to hasten the decay and
death of Welsh, but to introduce it into the curriculum of middle class
schools. Until, however, a Welsh University is founded this will be
exceedingly difficult to any great extent, because middle class schools aim
at adapting their course to English University examinations, where Welsh is
not taken into account at all, and because the conventional ideas attached to
the word "education," in Wales, create a barrier in the way.
The University of London has had, I believe, at least two appeals to make
room for Welsh as an optional subject at their
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 215
matriculation, but hitherto without effect. I was indeed told, some years
ago, by no less an authority than the late D. I. Davies, that the Senate feared
a desire for Home Rule for Wales lay behind one of these appeals, but found
out their mistake when too late to alter their decision. Meanwhile time goes
on, and an increasing number of the well-to-do middle classes enter on the
battle of life unequipped by such a desirable addition to their acquirements,
as a moderate literary knowledge of the language, if not an efficient
colloquial one, would give them, and this remark need not be withdrawn, even
in some cases where English is the prevailing language.
There is no doubt that one important factor in lessening the influence of the
Welsh language on the middle classes is just that which has hastened the
decay of Manx,* viz., not only English in the concerns of every-day life, and
the flood of English literature, which necessarily biasses the mental action,
but also what we call "respectability," and perhaps I might say a
false standard of it. This is what a vernacular paper (F Goleuad) says on the
subject —
There is not a word in the Welsh language corresponding with the English word
" respectability," — Neither does Wales require it whilst it
retains its native characteristics. It is a foreign term, representing
foreign habits; but the misfortune is that there are many among us who try to
imitate the foreigner. There is no class of persons whom we despise and hate
more than the " respectables." There is too much of it in religious
circles. Persons are appointed deacons because they are respectable, and
others are turned aside because of their poverty. Nonconformity stands in
serious danger on account of the spread of respectability.
* I once asked Professor Ehys if he could account for this decay of Manx ■
like nearly every one who is asked a similar question about Wales in
districts where English gains ground, he was somewhat at a loss to reply, but
narrated how, when a friend of his, who is a competent Manx scholar, was
about preaching in that tongue on a certain occasion, one of the better-to-do
of the congregation got up and walked out,
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216 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
Be careful about "despising and hating," otherwise we will say — Da iawn, Goleuad goleuedig!
The middle class, however, is every day growing larger and more wealthy in
Wales, in fact the very Methodism of the 18th Century has tended to create a
middle class, though very much handicapped till recently, through the
scarcity of any means of obtaining more than a very elementary education.
As to the Third class, constituting the mass of the population, and who make
up Wales in a more complete sense than the corresponding class make up
England: I would include in it for the present purpose, all persons whose
secular education has been principally or wholly derived from the Elementary
Schools. The word education must of course be understood in a popular, rather
than in a precise sense.
In Welsh Wales few things strike a stranger more than the literary activity
manifested by those who would be called " uneducated people " in
England, and not merely that, but we find also originality of mind, though
taking a different turn from that we generally meet with in the poor. Take
for instance Die Aberdaron, in station little better than a labourer, but the
compiler of a Welsh-Greek-Hebrew Dictionary, whose character was, however,
more eccentric than useful.
Then again, lolo Morganwg, the son of a stone-cutter, in Glamorganshire, one
of the men who assisted in bringing to light portions of Welsh literature of
the middle ages, till then lying in manuscript, and which publication gave an
impetus to the study of Welsh literature, that has never quite spent its
force. lolo was a man of ideas, and a man of principles, too; he refused a
" windfall " several years before his death because it had been
acquired by means of slavery.
An English memoir of him by Elijah Waring is long since
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 217
out of print. In the appendix is given a strikingly fine elegy on the
occasion of his death, by Gwallter Mechain, beginning —
O Gweddw ddawn, ei ddawn a ddwg, Mawr gwynion bro Morganwg.
I know personally a (Monmouthshire) Welshman, of quite humble birth, who was
brought up in a village where the language was nearly extinct, but was taught
Welsh by his mother, and has since acquired a literary knowledge of nearly
every important European tongue, including modern Greek and Russian, besides
the classical and one or two Semitic ones, while he is reported to speak
Italian " like a native." All this is without ever going to any
school beyond the village one, without any apparent aim or ambition to
"rise in Ufe," and with scarcely travelling outside the limits of
his native county. Anglo Saxon he leaves out of his list, telling me he
cannot bring his mind to tackle it — the language of Hengist, and of the
holders of the Cyllyll hirion.
Such persons have frequently a strong sense of racial affinity. "I
have," said he "visited Bristol, Exeter, and Oxford, but I could
not live at either place. I have only to cross the Bristol Channel and I am
among foreigners." Last summer he visited County Down, in the North of
Ireland, there, said he, " I feel at home at once. I could live there,
if necessary, the population is mixed, but much like that we have at home,
and what we see come into Newport from the Western Valleys." His remark
probably implied that he found himself in the presence of a Celtic, mixed
with a partly Celticized Teutonic population.
From Anglicized-Wales we will go to Welsh-Wales, to another acquaintance of
the author's, in quite unpretentious circumstances in the world, living in a
village where little English is spoken, and where I presume he received his
education. His
EB
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218 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
English is good, and not satisfied with that, he is also a French reader, and
possesses a number of books, including several volumes of La R4vue Gdtiqm,
and one or two philosophical works, besides beiiig a contributor to the Welsh
Press. If he had been an Oxfordshire villager in similar circumstances, what
would his library have contained? Perhaps a Veterinary Handbook, an English
Dictionary, and a few Dissenting or Episcopalian publications, as the case
may be.
Let Englishmen who sigh for the day when the echoes of the last word of
native Welsh will expire amid the craggy heights of Snowdon, and let half
ignorant Welshmen, who profess to believe that Welsh culture is an incubus,
listen to the testimony of Anna Thomas, an Englishwoman, living at Bethesda
vicarage, near Bangor —
There is no English in church or chapel for miles round. We are, however, in
full communication by rail with the outer world, and our people are in no way
behind in civilisation, being exceptionally refined and intelligent. More
English there certainly is within my knowledge of the district during
fourteen years, much more English, but not one whit less Welsh. Both English
and Welsh newspapers are largely bought, and EngUsh literature is studied to
an extent that would put to shame many an educated Englishman. The two
languages flourish side by side, doing each other no wrong, but much good to
their duoglott possessors. We have a large class for the study of English
literature, and the masterly way in which English is there turned into Welsh
and vice versa would convince the greatest enemy of Welsh that the two
languages are better than one, if only for the intellectual training in exactness
of expression and grasp of idea.*
Once again — this time it is George Borrow making comparison between "a
Welshman and an Englishman of the lower class." He had been talking to a
country miller's man,
* WesternlMail, 1885.
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 219
who understood and translated verses from Taliesin, repeated by G. B., and
informed him of the whereabouts of the place (Pont y meibion) where Huw
Morris had lived. This called forth the remark: " What would a Suffolk
miller's swain have said, if I had repeated to him verses out of Beowulf or
even Chaucer, and had asked him about the residence of Skelton?"'*
I have on two or three occasions heard working men or small tradesmen lament
the fact that they were ignorant of Welsh. During a journey, in the course of
which some of the information given in this book was collected, I called at
Knighton (Tref y Clawdd), situate on OfFa's Dyke, and where for perhaps one
hundred years, no indigenous Welsh has been spoken. At the Railway Station,
on leaving, I entered into conversation with an intelligent man (keeper of a
coffee-house in the town) who came from the central part of Radnorshire (at
or near Llanbadarn Fynydd). He lamented being cut off from a knowledge of
Welsh, and spoke of it, while praising the language, as a "great
intellectual loss." I have also an acquaintance, a shoemaker, in a small
town in the Eastern Valleys of Monmouthshire, whose circle of reading includes
Charles Lamb and Coleridge. The latter he expressed great admiration for, and
gave me a commission to procure him, second hand, George Fox's Journal, for
which he was prepared to go to double the sum I first suggested.
How had he come to hear of George Fox? He had read about him, and was there
not a description of a Quaker's meeting in Charles Lamb's writings^-I- a
volume of which was produced.
Canst thou speak Welsh? 1 said.
No, I vdsh I could.
* John Skelton, a Fifteenth century English poet, t See "Essays of
Elia."
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220 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VL
How is that; wast thou not taught it when thou wast young?
No, I was brought up an Episcopalian, and my father was quite under the parson,
who brought pressure to bear, and told him that he should not teach his
children to learn Welsh, and now I am the sufferer. I would give fifty pounds
to know it. My mother is a Welsh woman, and can speak it well.
I remarked that such writers as Coleridge had culture of thought, but they
had not such a complete power of expression as the Welsh language affords.
To this he agreed, adding, "sometimes a word in Welsh has an
indescribable meaning, and it makes me elated — the very thought of it."
I am strongly inclined to suspect that the parson above alluded to was one of
the heroes of 1847, and belonged to that class of Episcopalians who appear to
have regarded the extirpation of the Welsh language as one of thteir peculiar
missions, and who are even now represented in the.,fiountry. In the district
where my friend the shoemaker lives, success has nearly crowned their efforts
or their wishes, or both.
Not long ago I was travelling near Ebbw Vale in a compartment with some
working men, on the day of the flower-show. One of them, a strong powerfully
built man, of middle age, was talking with equal facility in Welsh and
English, and spoke the latter, if I recollect right, much more free from the
local accent than is usual. On enquiry I found he was of English parentage,
one parent being from Wiltshire and one from Bristol. English was his mother
tongue. He preferred Welsh to English, but his physique was English, not
Welsh.
Now under the present so-called enlightened system of education in Monmouthshire,
an English child, such as this man was some thirty years ago, would not have
the chance of
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CHAP. VI.] HEK LANGUAGE. 221
becoming bilingual, that is, the Welsh element in the district of Aberbeeg is
not now sufficiently strong to spread in English families which it might do
to some extent, were Welsh introduced into all standards by means of
Bilingual reading books. This would give many such children indirectly a
wider range of ideas, and a greater comn^and even over their own language
without much extra labour on the part of the teachers, especially if the
character of the text books obviated the necessity of trying to get a dull
English boy to read Welsh,
This man is, I believe, only a sample of many more either in this county or
Glamorgan, where a large amount of English blood exists in persons speaking
the Welsh language, from parents who have come to Wales in the last 60 or 70
years. I was struck with this lately at Mountain Ash, on one of the colliers'
idle days, when little but Welsh was heard in their conversation, but the
signs of English descent, if I mistake not, were numerous. It is important
for the welfare of Wales that the children of the foreign settlers who have
arrived more recently, should be engrafted into the national life, for which
purpose the day schools must be brought into requisition, and now there are
so many facilities for travelling and cheap reading, bilingualism should not
be left to the chances of learning by the ear only.
The English immigration between 1830 and 1850 has probably Anglicized the
country far less than that between 1870 and 1890, for the following reasons:
In 1830 — 1850, the new comers were absorbed with greater readiness into the
Welsh speaking population, because the influence of daily contact with the
latter was not so much neutralized by a one-sided system of education which
was at that period extremely loose and ineffective, and sufficient time had
not elapsed to build many English meeting houses; consequently in many cases
the children of English people attended Welsh Bible classes; they
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222 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
learned there to read the language, and to some extent this process is going
on to-day. Lastly, the English Press had not learned to cater for the masses,
and pour forth such a flood of penny weeklies, good, bad, and indifferent, as
now seek admittance in the homes of working people, as well as others.
I hope to show before this work is finished, that all that does not
necessarily imply the extinction of Welsh, or of its cultivation as a
literary language, if only school facilities for bilingualism are created,
but I think we have evidence that where such facilities are denied in
districts such as I have described, not only does the power to read and write
Welsh cease, but the English reading of the population is of a lower tone,
and denotes lower culture than it otherwise might, and that it becomes more
difiicult for them to rise in the social scale.
A short time since I called on the publisher of the leading Welsh paper in
the colliery districts of East Glamorgan, and asked him what was his
experience as to its circulation. " To give you my humble opinion,"
said he, "the old generation who have learnt Welsh in the Sunday school
is dying out, and their places are not being filled up."
It may not be fair to bring this -forward as a test case: if the aforesaid
paper was in the hands of a man of literary ability, who not merely knew
Wales, but had known how to make use of the literary power to be found in his
district, and printed his paper well, I believe the circulation would soon
rise, and permeate a higher stratum than before, with a correspondingly
increased value in the advertisements, and that, in spite of its socialistic
and democratic tendencies. If his observation implied that there were fewer
Welsh readers in the district than twenty years ago, I think he was wrong, as
in the Rhondda Valleys the Welsh Independents alone, in 1890, numbered eleven
more edifices than in 1877, the numbers being sixteen for 1877, and
twenty-seven for 1890,
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 223
while the edifices of the English section increased by six; the amounts
collected from Welsh congregations amounted for the total period to £84,470, from
the English to £12,720.
From the above it appears that, taking the Independents' statistics as
samples of others, that there has been a very considerable increase in the
number of persons commg under Welsh influences, accompanied with indications
that a considerable proportion of the younger part of such population is not
sufficiently familiar with the language to read its secular literature
freely, although members of Welsh Bible classes, which would in part account
for the falhng off the publisher of the complained of.
From North Wales, however, we learn a different tale.
In 1890 I conversed with one of the leading Welsh publishers, who assured me
" we sell more Welsh books now than ever we did," and in 1876 with
another well known publisher, who made a similar remark. Similar evidence as
regards his own paper was collected from the mouth of a leading North Welsh
newspaper proprietor in 1890.
The rationale of this undoubtedly appears to be, that, though Welsh is spoken
over a slightly decreasing area, and, notwithstanding the partial disuse of
the literary language in some industrial districts of South Wales, the actual
amount of current Welsh literature has rather increased within the last
twenty years.
This last phenomenon is partly accounted for by the more general spread of
education, but I think there can be no doubt that in South Wales the presence
of a large foreign element in the population, whose children are denied the
opportunity in the day sfchools of becoming Welshmen, exercises a paralyzing
influence on the development of Welsh literature. This will come under notice
later on.
The most formidable resistance ofliered to the culture and
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224 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
use of the Welsh springs from the widely current idea, not confined to the
ex-Lampeter cleric, that "Welsh does not pay." How far this is so,
in regard to persons of his class,* others are more competent to judge than
myself, but I would say, (1) that this difficulty is much exaggerated in the
minds of many people; (2) the residuum of truth there is in the saying is
accounted for partly by arbitrary and artificial causes, which are removable,
and partly by natural causes (if we may call them so), which are unremovable,
except by a very unlikely sequence of events. That is to say, that if Welsh
does not pay, to a certain extent this is accounted for by social and
educational influences which are within the power of the people to alter or
modify, so as to make it "pay," while there will be continually, on
the other hand, a counter influence arising from the power of association and
close intimacy with England, commercially if in no other direction, tending
to the use of English; yet to regard this exclusively would be folly.
Not merely are the linguistic and mental problems which the existence of two
languages in Wales presents somewhat intricate, but when intelligently
considered they yield no little interest — to myself both interest and astonishment.
The ordinary Welshman takes the existing state of things to which his father
and his grandfather has been more or less used all their lives, as a matter
of course, and sees little peculiar about the circumstances and vitality,
either of the colloquial or literary language.
The ordinary Englishman in Wales also sees nothing peculiar about the present
use of the language, which he complacently believes to be quietly dying out,
and which in the interim must be patiently suffered, as a temporary anomaly.
* How sordid and repugnant to Christianity is the idea of studying to preach
with a view of its "paying."
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CHAP. VI.J [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 225
I cannot, however, help believing that an intelligent stranger, were it
possible for him to enter the scene free from previous associations or
knowledge of Wales from any source, would find much here to call forth his
wonder.
In the first place he could not fail to be struck by the contradictions
inherent in the Celtic nature, and he would have to face apparent
contradictions at almost every turn of the road, whether he looks back to the
Fifteenth century and recalls the bitter hatred of England then existing, and
the uprising which, had it been successful, would have ended (so
contemporaries thought) in the extinction of the English language, and then
remembers the tendency in the Sixteenth, to forget everything distinctly
Welsh, or whether, on the other hand, he regards the zealous resentment with
which every apparent slight rendered their language is visited by the
natives, who then turn round, and give the slight themselves, or neglect to
provide for its preservation; he will recollect, too, the vast amount of
pabulum for national pride, supplied by the Eisteddfod, the loud pretensions
of its supporters as to its encouraging the literature of the country, and
yet with scarce a murmuring voice the same persons will allow their
birthright to be steadily, stealthily and surely stolen from their children
without any approach to a practical protest; he will see bardic daggers drawn
about trivialities, and then when Time has ended all, for one of the
combatants there will be the glowing Cwynau coll Enwogion (Elegies for the
illustrious dead).
All this is a matter of course to — I was going to say, the naturalized
Welshmen.
It is in itself a strange thing to see one of the nations making up the
British nation, speaking a language what has ceased to be the officially
recognized for three centuries and a half; while not merely has such
recognition been wanting in matters of civil
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226 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP, VI.
administration which may be said to concern every householder if not every
individual, but the education of rich and poor, with unimportant exceptions,
has been conducted on a basis which simply treats the Welsh language as
non-existing, although, as we have seen, its use as a medium of verbal
conversation between teacher and scholar is occasionally absolutely
necessary.
Again, leaving out of sight students at theological colleges, it would not be
far from the mark to draw the corollary from the above, and say that every
scrap of literary knowledge of Welsh possessed for centuries by high and low,
as well as the ability to communicate their ideas through its medium in
writing has been obtained, quite outside what school* or College training
they may have had. It has indeed, I believe, not unfrequently been the case
that ambitious parents, wishing a professional career for their children,
have studiously barred their way from becoming proficient in Welsh, so that
they might the more readily satisfy a board of examiners, or obtain
appointments; or, perhaps, if a youth is intended to appear as an
Episcopalian preacher, he comes forth as a half-fledged Welshman, with just
sufficient of Rowland's grammar in his brain to take a "cure" and
disarm opposition, but with nothing like a colloquial or literary mastery of
the language.
So long as the syllabus of subjects in public examinations excludes Welsh,
this state of things must continuej for Welshmen come out apparently inferior
to others, whom they might otherwise excel (if judged by some mental-strength
testing-machine), because they have had to learn in the course of their lives
one more language than their competitors, which the arbitrary standard of the
examiner does not give them credit for.
* The term school is used in reference to recognized secular education.
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 227
Long custom has so thoroughly ingrained into the minds of the people the idea
that education implies casting
Welsh to the winds, and to rise in life they must not only learn English, but English must also
be, if possible, the sole medium of instruction, as well as of legal
administration, that the net result has undoubtedly been a dwarfing of their
ability as accurate thinkers and speakers.
Such an education bears resemblance to the antiquated and monkish education
of the middle ages, when, as we have seen, English boys were taught to
construe into French — the language of the barons, of Parliament and the law
courts, i.e., they were not simply taught French, but were taught it in a way
involving a great waste of mental labour, English being apparently excluded
from the schoolroom.
In a similar way Latin was taught later on — Latin, the lingua franca of the learned of Europe, and the base of a large
portion of our language, taught if I mistake not, by means of books which
excluded the home language from the view of the scholar. Perhaps
circumstances rendered it defensible then, but who would dream of teaching it
thus now.
It is somewhat striking that Forster's Education Act, passed under the rigid
scrutiny of Parliament, in 1870, and framed, no doubt, under the cognizance
of men specially conversant with Elementary Education in the British Isles,
should have entirely ignored the existence of the Welsh language. This seems
to indicate a hope at headquarters that the teaching of English to every
Welsh child, and fostering the old mediaeval idea of excluding the mother
tongue, either as a subject of instruction, or as a written medium of instrnction,
would soon be the means of sounding its death-knell.
Now the real aim of a National Education Department should be primarily
neither to compass the extension of a
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228 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
language nor to introduce another as a medium of social Intercourse.
It should be rather to educate — draw out — expand the mental powers of the
children under its care, and to store their memories with useful facts, by
the simplest, most economical and effective means within their reach, partly
with reference to the exterior conditions of life in which the children are
placed, and in which the large majority are likely to pass their hves, and
partly without such a reference, to strengthen their command of thought and
language, their faculties of observation and reasoning, ever consistently
with the exercise of the moral sense and judgment.
There is a great want of appreciation of what education really is among some
teachers, who, like the parents, think of it too much as a mechanical
implement for earning so much hard cash; in the first place, as it affects
their own pockets; in the next, as it affects their scholars in after life. I
am satisfied that too narrow and contracted a view on their part prevails in
Wales. Much is said about the advantages of technical education, and rightly
so; but if the public imagine that it is the duty or in the power of day
schools to teach boys and girls handicrafts whereby they may earn their
living in after life, they are much mistaken. Even in this technical
education cry, there is too little of the educational and too much of the
hai'd cash idea.
What is wanted, and what will shortly be accomplished, is greater attention
to the simultaneous* training of the eye and hand with the intellect. It is
doubtful if any system of Government grants and trained teachers will do much
towards teaching a competent practice of any particular handicraft or
* Simultaneous refers to such training being combined in making up part of
the school course; not necessarily to the combination taking place at a given
moment of instruction.
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 229
profession. What they can do is to prepare the minds of pupils the more
readily, thoroughly, and quickly to master their work when it comes on them
in the future, by the intelligent application of general principles.
In some branches, however, of technical or semi-techinical work, day schools,
apart from evening classes, may be of considerable service to the nation, for
instance, by teaching chemistry and botany, as applied to the theory of
agriculture; or by teaching the use of carpenter's tools, on such a system as
the Swedish sloyd, which means, doubtless, work spread over EXTRA HOURS, if
efficiency in other respects is maintained. But extra houi's will well pay
for themselves, without much danger of overstrain, in so far as they are
spent over manual rather than brain work.
Much is said also about the great desirability of learning French and German
to prepare for commercial life, and to compete with foreign clerks. What I am
about to say has reference rather to intermediate than elementary education,
though French is pressed into service now in "technical" evening
classes. The outcry about French and German brings us in contact with the hard
cash idea. As a matter of fact German is not of much use to Englishmen as a
commercial language; an employer could probably procure a German clerk by
advertising in the Daily Telegraph cheaper than an English, one, and even if
he prefers the latter there are very few openings in South Wales for the
commercial use of German. If an importer, for instance, wishes to write to a
German firm, probably they would be glad to write back in English. Then, as
to French, there are a few vacancies in South Wales now and then for French
correspondents, but very few in comparison with the number of middle-class
youths every year let loose from the trammels of school. The language which
is commercially used in South Wales next frequently to French,
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230 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
and which affords far more prospect than German of possible use in the
future, either at home or abroad, as a commercial language, is Spanish, and
yet this is generally acquired by self study, or aided by tuition to only a
small extent.
Do I advocate dropping French and German out of the middle-class curriculums?
No, because the effort to acquire them is itself educative; because it
broadens the sympathies and widens the mental horizon; and because their
literature in any one branch of Science is a mine of wealth. It is a
favourite idea with some schoolmasters that French and German are to be
studied on account of the remains of their classical writers. Practically
that comes to little, beyond, I fear, a perusal of writers who had better be
left unread.
With reference, however, to French as a subject of " technical"
instruction, we may believe that if the young men who wish to learn it, had
first a year's drilling in Welsh grammar and composition (where Welsh is
spoken) before tackling French at all, that they would ultimately make better
progress: consequently such a course would pay better than the present,
notwithstanding the contemptuous cry of " waste of time " which
would probably be raised.
In the town in which I write, a Young Men's Friendly Society has been formed,
with evening classes. I was informed by the teacher connected with it, that
when it was left to the option of the youths offering themselves, which
language they would be taught, each of them with a Welsh patronymic, without
exception, chose Welsh. None of them, so far as is known, could speak it.
So far as I have been able to read Welsh life, those who really stand the
best chance of taking a lead in Wales, are the sons of small farmers or
shopkeepers in the thoroughly Welsh parts of Wales, where little else is
heard round the fireside, and who think during their early years entirely in
Welsh,
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CHAP. VI.] HER LAJSGUAGE. 231
although later on they may have to think in English, and undergo some
humiliations in surmounting the difficulties of acquiring it.
Not unfrequently the doctor or the lawyer are Welsh in sympathy, but unused
to Welsh as a literary weapon, while the class above alluded to, produce some
of the writers whose names are known up and down the country to a larger
extent than is the case with their compeers in England, than whom not only
are they of more literary habits, but often able to command a greater range
of ideas, in spite of all that is said about the narrowness of a Welshman's
vision. The real truth is that in attempting to analyze the phenomena of
Welsh life we are continually confronted with paradoxes, and with
contradictory assertions, both of which have some element of truth in them,
whether we make enquiries either into the national character, the use of the
language colloquially, the extent of the literature, or even the attitude of
the people towards such an institution as the Established Church.
The following will serve as a partial illustration of my meaning, and in any
case it may be taken as a fairly typical illustration of the conflicting
linguistic and social elements in Wales at the present day, although it is
now twelve years since the incident happened.
In the autumn of 1879, a person named James Shaw, whether English or Scotch
is not quite clear, wrote to the Times newspapers, from Taibach, near
Swansea, bitterly complaining of what he called the bilingual misfortune of
Wales, and giving that as a reason why " Welsh industry is scarcely
keeping abreast of the day, and culture and learning seem to have no home here."
Oh what a hornet's nest that letter stirred up; what correspondence in the
Western Mail and South Wales Daily News extending over some eight weeks. I
query much
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232 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
whether anything of the sort has created an equal sensation in South Wales
since the days of the famous "Brad
y llyfrau gleision," of 1847, affecting, as it did, the moral
character of the people.
I will give some extracts from writers who took part in this controversy: the
first is from the letter of James Shaw himself, to the London Times: —
In this valley from which I write there are about 7,000 people. Let me at
once say that we have no bards, no curious antiquarian lovers of Welsh
traditions, no learned enthusiasts seeking to preserve the continuity of
Welsh legends or Cymric philology; and I have never heard of or seen these
worthies except at Eisteddfods, where they generally managed to be
conspicuous by their eccentricity. Our people here have to earn their daily
bread, and in this matter of language are the mere creatures of a custom
which they are not encouraged to throw off, but which they feel to be a
constant disadvantage. The whole population of this valley speaks Welsh; but
the curious thing is that, although we have 1,600 children at school, not a
word of Welsh is taught there. The children speak Welsh at home, the little
which they do read is in Welsh, and they attend Welsh services on Sunday,
They are doing only what their fathers and grandfathers before them have done
in this valley. Not one of them can speak Welsh grammatically, because they
have never been taught it. You may imagine the difficulties under which such
children labour in acquiring the English education which we give them; in
nine cases out of ten it ends in complete failure. Our children leave the
schools at 13 or 14 years of age with the elementary smattering of English
which they have with difficulty been taught, they go into the collieries or
the ironworks, and in four or five years you would never believe that one of
them had ever entered an English school. A few who are made pupil teachers or
clerks in the offices are the only exceptions. Welshmen are deploring the low
state of intermediate and higher education in Wales; but there can be no
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 233
love of education in a people placed so disadvantageously. A people educated
in this way are neither able to enjoy the language they speak nor the
language they acquire; and until Wales has made its choice it will remain,
what I believe it now is, the worst educated nation in Europe. The great mass
of the people are at present losing the advantage which a good and sound
knowledge of even one language would give them. The result is that they read
no literature and devote themselves to music, which is universal, and in which
they excel.
Now Shaw overlooked two questions which materially affect a practical
judgment on the linguistic state of Wales: —
First — Is the genius of the Welsh people, independently of language, likely
to present to the world the Faradays, the Watts, and the Arkwrights, whose
absence he called upon them, in his reply to his critics, to mourn? If not,
he was making a bugbear that would not stand the strain of careful
examination.
Second — Supposing the Welsh are badly educated, whatever proof is there that
their language is the cause? I am, however, inclined to think that if the
managers of Elementary Schools and their teachers were really well educated
(where no Party or Ecclesiastical prejudice came in the way), they would
frequently see the importance of introducing Welsh into their classes, and
try to do away with at least some part of the reproach thrown out by Jas.
Shaw, "A people educated in this way are neither able to enjoy the
language they speak nor the language they acquire." There is really far
more truth in this statement as applied to many districts in South Wales than
has been generally supposed, and so far, we must credit him with good sound sense.
He speaks of it being a "curious thing" that there were 1,600
children at school, but not one word of Welsh was taught there, yet appeared
scarcely willing to directly admit
that this was an irrational and harmful thing.
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234 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
Of course several of the correspondents who replied to his communication
recognised the fact that he did not really know Wales, after only two years
residence, though it seems very difficult to convince intelligent hard-headed
Englishmen, who have only seen one side of the medal, that they haven't seen
the obverse. No doubt J. S., after such a short time, had not had time or
opportunity to become acquainted with the literaiy history of Wales and its
self-taught men, or to form a fair estimate of the amount of general
intelligence and literary ability displayed even in remote parts of the
country.
Let the reader note the remark about the mass of the people " losing the
advantage which a good and sound knowledge of even one language would give
them:" we find this illustrated in South Wales, where a good and sound
knowledge of Welsh is more lacking than in North Wales, and where, at the
same time, there is a deficiency in attaining a good and sound knowledge of
English, which, as mentioned elsewhere, is difficult even to an English
working man. If Jas. Shaw really believed what he said, why did he not
advocate teaching Welsh?
There is, also, some residuum of truth in the accusation that they read no
literature, and devote themselves to music, because if elementary education
were conducted on more rational principles, instructive English literature
would be better appreciated, as well as Welsh, and less time would be wasted
on music. How far the remark that they " read no literature" can be
accepted as applying generally to Wales, the reader will be able to judge,
after reading the subsequent chapter on the Welsh language and literature.
Extracts from the correspondence which ensued, follow here: — "
Gwyliedydd " says — It is a recognized fact that no person can carry on
business in
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 235
Wales with any success unless he can speak, read, and write English. All the
business men in Wales are keen enough to see that, and all those self-made
men that are to be seen in every locality are doing their utmost to give
English education to their children. But who can convince them that the old
language is not worth maintaining, and that it is losing ground? Nobody;
therefore it would be wise on our part to wait patiently until time wiU
proclaim the fate of the beautiful old language that has lived over two
thousand years. In connection with Mr. Shaw's remarks about the children, the
truth is that there are few workmen working under Mr. Shaw that are not able
to read, write, and speak the English language quite as well as many clerks
or the officials, and who were kept in school only until they reached twelve
or thirteen years old. As to the statement " That they read no
literature," the English and Welsh publishers will vouch to the
contrary. Mr Shaw doesn't know that there is an encyclopaedia published in
Welsh, worth £5 to ^6, and that the Welsh people have a " Gazetteer of
the World," another of Wales, that the " Travels of Dr.
Livingstone" has been published in Welsh in two editions (one a pocket
edition and the other a large one), with thousands of volumes, and no trash
scarcely.
"Abergwilian," in the service of the G.W.R. Co., says he hardly
understood one word of English when he went to the day school, challenges
James Shaw to read a few verses in the Greek Testament with him, and adds: —
I cannot conceive why Englishmen should persist in weighing a Welshman's
general knowledge by the amount of English he may understand, more than a
Welshman, Frenchman, or German should test his by their languages. Is it not
a fact that a Frenchman can be as efficient in general knowledge as the
Englishman that can only speak one language? Then, if so, neither the English
nor any other one language is a test.
"Bilinguist" says —
Out with such notions as to expect a whole nation to speak
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236 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. Vl.
grammatically. It is sheer nonsense to think of it, at the present time
whatever. Greater nonsense still to think one of a nation whom Mr. Dickens says
are so very guilty of " exasperating their h's and murdering their g's
" should take the liberty of teaching another nation their duties, when
most likely he has not taken the trouble of learning the "Welsh alphabet
yet.
D. E. Lewis says —
That a knowledge of the Welsh language is not only unattended with any
embarrassment in the training of the intellect, but that it forms a
substantial aid — though it be an adventitious one — to its highest
development. » * * * ^
language is mightier • far than any number of books which may have been
written in it;* for such productions, great though they be, at best embody
what was in the hearts and minds of individual men; but language, on the
other hand, is the impress and life of a nation. " The Iliad is great,
yet not so great in strength, or power, or bsauty as the Greek language.''
Beriah G. Evans says —
Mr Shaw is evidently either totally ignorant of, or wilfully ignores, the
fact that there are abundant materials for a work on ■' Self-made
"Welshmen," materials for a work which, in the hands of a skilful
artist, could rival in interest with, and illustrate as wonderful turns in
fortune's wheel, as Smiles's " Self Help."
Herefordiensis [the author of this] —
I will not now enter into details, but express the opinion that an
unprejudiced observer will see that the phenomena presented in connection
with the use of the "Welsh language and its deep hold on the people are
not to be explained by reference to love of the past, however much of that
there may be co-existing. The reason
* This is a remark worth remembering, the power of the English language is
not measured by the genius of Milton, but by its adaptability to express the
thoughts and feelings of the people who use it; so with Welsh. In fact such a
sentiment is the key note of much that the author of this book has written
about the latter.
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 237
for these facts lies far deeper, and it will not be elucidated by men who do
not take the trouble to assure themselves of the truth of their statements,
or to view the question beyond the region of their own limited horizon.
It is singular that none of these answers discussed the education question,
but they did show that there was a much larger amount of intellectual
culture, and more instances of men who had risen among tlie Welsh-speaking
people than James Shaw knew of, though they did not admit what I have called
the residuum of truth in some of the facts which he erroneously supposed to
be caused by the language rather than by a defective system of education,
which ignored it. There is no hint at any remedy to increase the ability of
the people to "enjoy," as well as write the language they acquire.
Again it may be said, that if this bilingualisni was really a drawback, we
should not find Welshmen who have become proficient in reading or writing
their language after they have settled in England, and so often ready to keep
it up. For instance, some years ago I knew a Monmouthshire Welshman who told
me that there was more Welsh spoken at Witton Park, near Stockton-on-Tees,
than at Tredegar, and his brother's family, though born in England, were yet
brought up to speak Welsh. Another Monmouthshire Welshman, who cannot speak
Welsh well, has been some years in London, but when I saw him last he
habitually attended Welsh preaching in that city. So that speaking Welsh, Or
listening to Welsh, is sometimes a matter of choice, in the face of
difficulties, and not, as frequently implied, necessitated by circumstances.
In a long letter, replying to his critics, published in the Western Mail,
11th mo. (Nov.) 11, 1879, Jas. Shaw gave back a little of his ground, and
said, " It is the deficiency of a higher intellectual standard above and
beyond this [the
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238 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
culture of the working classes], without disparaging the intelligence of the
Welsh masses, which I, in common with others, deplore."
Now here he much more nearly hit the nail on the head, but, as elsewhere
stated, Wales is only just begining to have an important "
middle-class," and consequently any considerable call for "higher
education;" yet even now, when the future professional men of the
principality are brought up in middle-class schools, in ignorance of the
grammatical structure or power of the language, which many of them are
familiar with colloquially, is it to be wondered at that a large proportion
of them should either grow up wanting in habits of precision and exact
thought, or else separated by an impassable chasm of language from freely
participating in the intellectual life of the nation.
The main point lies not in the existence of the language, but in an
educational system conducted generation after generation after English
models, to satisfy an artificial standard not really adapted to national
requirements.
So long as Wales is without a national University this is likely more or less
to continue, and so long as it does, Education, in the mind of an average
Welshman, will too much mean, not simply mental cultivation abreast of the
civilization of the Nineteenth century, but ability to compete with
Englishmen on the ground chosen by English judges, to wit, directly or
indirectly the governing bodies of English or Scotch Universities.
For instance, if thirteen Englishmen compete with thirteen Welshmen for
prizes or scholarships at Aberystwith College, and each of the former is
ahead of each of the latter (i.e. Welsh-speaking youths) it does not
necessarily follow that either of the English are better educated, or possess
more ability than any one of the Welshmen, though there is a cer-
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 239
tain amount of presumption, even considering the present state of
intermediate education, that it would be so. But if there were thrown into the
scales a paper testing ability in Welsh composition, or translation from
English into Welsh, and the Englishmen still excelled, there would be little
room to doubt that they were both more highly educated and were mentally more
capable than their competitors.
No one really desirous of the welfare of Wales will cry "Wales for the
Welsh," but it is quite another thing to materially modify the
curriculum of Colleges, so as to make room for what would be found a good
mental exercise, though it might be of no more direct benefit than the making
of "hexers " and "pens," so much in vogue not many years
ago, and doubtless still practised in various classical schools or colleges.
Few persons will be found who would wish generally to exclude those of
English birth from the benefit of the scholarships offered at Welsh
University Colleges, but let the test of merit for the possession of the
scholarship stand on a broader and more liberal basis, and provide in a much
larger number of such examinations than is the case at present for the
exercise of ability, both in translating from Welsh into good, pure and
idiomatic English, and from English into good, pure idiomatic Welsh.
Let us see for a moment, from their Syllabus for Scholarships, what Welsh
Colleges are doing with the funds at their disposal.
Abekystwith, in Sessions 1891-92, offers ten Open and five Closed
Scholarships or Exhibitions to new comers. In competing for these a candidate
must choose three elementary subjects (out of fourteen), and two advanced
subjects — one of the latter may be Welsh.
The Cynddelw Scholarship is not included in the above list,
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240 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
and will be competed for in the Autumn of 1 892: it necessitates, among other
things, the production of a Welsh Essay, a knowledge of systematic Welsh
Grammar, and of the History of Welsh literature. This is a scholarship
provided for by the Cynddelw Memorial Fund.
Bangor offers nine General Scholarships and Exhibitions, besides special ones
for Technical and Agricultural candidates, Teachers, and girls. For all the
Entrance Scholarship examinations candidates may chose Welsh as one out of a
maximum of five subjects.
Cardiff offers twenty-three Entrance Scholarships and Exhibitions, besides
five Exhibitions for intending Teachers. In these Welsh is an optioned
subject in the more elementary part of the examinations, but an English Essay
paper is necessary. The D. I. Davies Scholarship for proficiency in Welsh is
in reality a prize of £12 offered annually on the results of the Sessional
Examination.
Now a little reflection will show that these scholarships and examinations
may be tests ofthe preparedness of the candidates to enter on the prescribed
courses of study for the dififerent examinations preparatory to London
degrees, but they are not tests either of education in the abstract or of
comparative ability, i.e., they are not tests of units of intellectual
development or of intellectual strength. It is impossible, in fact, they
should be absolutely so, but if a knowledge of both Welsh and EngHsh were
presupposed in all candidates as the basis of examination, they would be
efficient in that direction to a larger extent than at present.
The optional use of Welsh probably counts for little in the case of
Welsh-speaking candidates, because the course of their previous education at
school has left them unacquainted with its use in those phrases and turns of
expression which help to make up a successful examination, and their memory
on the
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CHAP. VI.] HEK LANGUAGE. 241
subjects chosen has been chiefly exercised in English, while in addition to
this they have had to spend a certain number of hours of their short life in
acquiring the English which they thus practically need as a medium of
communication in the course of the examination, as well as in that very
important subject — "English" itself, which is provided for in most
preparatory courses.
Now it may be unpracticable to put the English and Welsh candidates for
exhibitions at these Welsh Colleges on equal terms; there must be a slight
advantage given to the foreigner, or the monoglot Anglo-Welshman, but it can
be minimized by requiring from aU candidates a knowledge both of English
grammar and composition, also of Welsh grammar and composition. At present
both subjects are nominally optional, and in reality English grammar and
composition are needed, as I have just remarked, for the execution of an
answer; but Welsh grammar and composition are not needed, and probably only a
few even of the very Welshy candidates come prepared to face an examination
in the latter. What is required is not to make them both wanted equally, but
to make Welsh wanted a LITTLE BY ALL, and much by some if they choose. Were
this system carried out, there should be no grumbling if all the scholarships
fell to Englishmen; no cry of Wales for the Welsh; no " exclusive
patriotism,"* rather let the strangers take away all our scholarships if
they can, but in the act of allowing this, let us by an act of
"inclusive patriotism" brand them as, in some small degree at
least, naturalized, and able to play their part as men of Wales, understanding
the country, and forming a part of the Welsh unity.
It is very easy to say, "require from aU candidates for
* The Western Mail recently said of the South Wales Star that it was more in
touch with the exclusiTe patriotism of the Welsh people than the ordinary
English papers.
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242 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [CHAP. VI.
exhibitions at Welsh Colleges a knowledge of &c., &c.," but
every one who knows the A B C of these things is quite well aware such an
independent course would be in a high degree both impractical and impossible
for either of these Colleges now to adopt.
But the future, what of that? It largely depends upon the constitution of the
new Welsh University, which will probably be shortly an accomplished fact,
and upon the temper of its governing body.
If that governing body were to say: We think it expedient that a slight
knowledge of the grammatical structure of the Welsh language, its idioms and
its vocabulary should be the common property of all persons receiving an
advanced national education, irrespective both of sect or party, and with
that view we require all candidates at our matriculation examinations to be
prepared with an elementary knowledge of Welsh — even if nothing further was
said on the subject in the legal, medical, or science courses, such a
resolution would go further to revolutionize education in Wales from tip to
toe as regards its attitude to the language than years of agitation or yards
of speeches could do in the ordinary way.
What would be the effect of such an apparently trifling measure? In the first
place, probably, a good deal of grumbling, snorting, and growling in the
newspapers and other mediums of publicity; in the second place, middle-class
schools and County Council Intermediate schools (if in existence) would turn
right-about-face, call for Welsh grammars and reading books, and coach up
their pupils to sufficient proficiency in Welsh to meet the standard; besides
which Normal Colleges would find it suit their purpose to introduce Welsh in
the education of would-be teachers preparing for University examinations.
What would be the ultimate results? Simply this, that no
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CHAP. VI.] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. 243
professional man with a Welsh University degree would be quite ignorant of
the language, and inferentially such would in general be more in sympathy
with the people that speak it; many more elementary teachers would have had
systematic training in it, and be consequently prepared to frame the
education of their more advanced pupils for the intermediate schools. There
would be these results and many more besides. The whole nation would then be
unified as never before in the last three hundred years.
Be it observed that I do not advocate any very large expenditure of time to
be spent by youths of average intelligence in attaining the Welsh standard
for their entrance examination, tests of superior efficiency might be made
optional further on, but I am sure that many in after life, even if they went
no further in the study, would be glad they had an initiation in it. Another
point of supposed advantage which has been insisted on by a late writer to
the Baner, is that Welsh would specialize the University training, and thus
indirectly give a greater value to a degree.
The following is a specimen of the kind of opposition called forth by this
movement for a Welsh University. It is a " Welsh Rector" pouring
his grief into the ear of the Editor of the Western Mail, who had enough
worldly wisdom to drop no comments: —
Dissenting youths of the lower and lower-middle classes would be attracted
thitherwards, as is the case at present with Aberystwith and Cardiff, while
the upper middle and more cultured would seek their degrees elsewhere, from
centres free from the taint of vulgarity and political sectarianism. Call it
what you like, it wiU soon drift into the most sectarian Dissenting seminary.
As he is entrusted with the "cure" of souls, or rather beheves he
is, we could advise him, and such as he, if at any
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244 WALES AND [HER LANGUAGE] [WALES AND] HER LANGUAGE. [CHAP. VI.
time they feel disposed to sniffle about the precincts of the Colleges in search
of the "taint of vulgarity/' to fortify themselves with the quintessence
of Eau de Cologne, or Eau de Lampeter, lest they should unconsciously carry
any infection home to the flock.
Having thus disposed of the subject of Welsh in relation to the social and
educational life of the country, we will now enter on some consideration of
the study of the language itself, and the character of its literature.
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Statistics for
Welsh Texts Section / Ystadegau’r Adran Destunau Cymraeg