WALES BY SIR THOMAS PHILLIPS.'
WHEN the Commissioners of Inquiry into the state of Education in Wales published their depreciatory Reports on the moral, religious, edu- cational, and social condition of the Principality, much anger was excited among the genuine Taffies. Sir Thomas Phillips, like a preux chevalier of old, resolved to break a lance with the Commissioners in regard to the chastity of the women, and prepared a pamphlet on the question of mo- rality in Wales ; in which, it strikes us, he would have succeeded on the principle of pot and kettle rather than in establishing any absolute virtue. The statistics in the chapter of this volume on Moral Character, (which contains the substance of the intended pamphlet,) gives these results of the percentage proportion of illegitimate births, in 1846- • Wales : the Language, Social Condition, Moral Character, and Religious Opinions of the People, considered In their Relation to Education • with some Account of the, Provision made for Education In other parts (Atha Kingdom. By Sir Thomas Phillips.
Published by John W. Parker. All England 6.7 All Wales 6.7 Cumberland 10.8 Radnorshire 12.6 Herefordshire 10.6 Montgoshire... 11.1 Norfolk 10.9 Pembrokeshire 8.8
Sir Thomas Phillips, however, abandoned his idea of a partial and de- fensive exposition, on the suggestion of friends ; who urged that the English public would be more interested by a " description of Welshmen by one of themselves," than by the establishment of a negation as to charges brought against the Welsh. He therefore extended the plan of his work to a review of the national history, character, and language ; an account of the social condition and moral character of the people ; a survey of the past and present state of Dissent and the Established Church, with a very elaborate exposition of the history, statistics, and character of education in gene.-al and particularly in Wales. "In every work regard; the writer's end": measured by his own a- vowal, we doubt whether Sir Thomas is altogether to be congratulated on having accomplished his purpose. He certainly shows that these modern substitutes for statesmanship and makeshifts for do-nothings, Commissioners of Inquiry, are not very safe guides : that they come with preconceived opinions ; that they take onesided views, likely to fall in with the views of those who sent them ; that " for their theme they seldom write below it" ; while, for want of practical knowledge of life and affairs, they measure things by an abstract standard, and question little charity boys as they would a student of theology or natural phi- losophy. Beyond making plain these obvious defects of Commissioners, as well as their disposition to generalize from insufficient data and their incapacity to see more than one part, we do not think that Sir Thomas Phillips has taken much by his motion His own pages show a sad state of ignorance, vice, immorality, jobbing with educational and church funds, and a general indifference with regard to the purities of nature, which is now under modern manners called indecency, though it is perhaps more truly coarseness. To account for some of these things by the barren nature of the country, the poverty and scattered condition of the agri- cultural population, the sudden increase (mostly by immigration) of mining and manufacturing workmen, and the utter indifference to their social, moral, and spiritual wellbeing, displayed by the generality of their employers, does not do away with facts, though it may explain their causes.
The volume exhibits clear, scholarly, and reflective powers, both in the arrangement of the matter and the composition. It also proves the writer to possess considerable knowledge of his topics, not only as re- gards the questiones vexake between the Welsh and the Welsh Com- missioners, but the history and philosophy of several of his subjects. It was perhaps this knowledge, quite as much as "the request of friends," which induced Sir Thomas to undertake his work; for although %be mot Bern statistics tem doutttlestibeeh investigated for this special purpose, his familiarity with the history of Dissent in Wales, and the lives of, its founders, as well as with such questions as the history of Educa- tion and the Church, must have been the result of previous study and meditation. The work, however, is too bookish. With the exception of some passing incidental remarks, it might have been written by a person who had never set foot in the Principality, with no other aid, as regards matter, than what he could have drawn from blue books, pamphlets, his- torical or antiquarian works, and religious autobiographies. Hence, there is not only a want of life in the volume, but the topics are overlaid for the purpose in hand. The account of Dissent in Wales is prefaced by a history of its rise and progress, with notices of the lives, schemes, and characters of the leading Dissenters, very much longer than the account of the Dissent of the present day. In like manner, we have a history of Education in general, and that of Wales in particular, before we come to the true question, What are the existing means, character, and results of popular education, in the Principality? These extraneous sections are very ably executed, and give rise continually to just reflections and new views ; but they seem out of place in refuting charges that refer to the present time, to which they have no relation of cause and effect. Neither does that refutation itself consist of lifelike sketches or the results of living knowledge, bat is drawn from public statistics, or involves expla- nations of the statements of the Commissioners,—a thing, no doubt, very proper to be done, but hardly requiring a volume of six hundred pages to do it in.
Sir Thomas, however, treats both the past and the present in a manner to suggest new ideas, or to throw new lights upon old ones. Whatever Lis politics may be nominally, he is a firm but moderate Church-of- Englandman ; a thorough upholder of the old municipal or local govern- ment, in opposition to centralization; zealous advocate for the reform of all proved abuses in church and iftable foundations ; an opponent to the newfangled school of Manchester-and-money philosophy, and not an implicit believer in the extraordinary advancement of modern times. These opinions, and the remarks grounded upon them, will be found con- tinually throughout the volume; and they impart to it its salt, but re- quire an extensive examination to apprehend. As a specimen, we may quote a portion of one passage, where the author is combating the notion that popular education is purely the growth of our age. After showing that instruction in religion, at all events, was attempted in Romish times, by such means as the Church had at its disposal,—that is, pictures, and afterwards wood-cuts; and that strenuous efforts were made by the :first Reformers to find means to educate the people generally, but that they were defeated by the profligate rapacity of Crown and courtiers,— he proves by historical enumeration that popular schools are not of mo- dern date.
" The schools established at and after the Reformation were not confined exclu- sively to foundations for teaching the learned languages. Thus, as early as 1532 a free school was founded at Horsham, for poor children, who were to be at no charge for their school-hire. In 1559, Lady Pakington gave lands to the Cloth- workers' Company towards finding school and learning for poor men's children of St. Dunstan's; and for a learned man in the Scriptures of God to preach a sermon yearly in the parish-church. Queen Elizabeth granted lands to the Corporation of Canterbury, to be applied in bringing up and educating twenty Blue-coat boys, who should be taught reading, writing, and accounts, and put out apprentices; Archbishop Whitgift, in 1584, made an ordinance for the government of the Hos- pital of Eastbridge in Canterbury, by which the Master was required to appoint a schoolmaster, freely to instruct twenty poor children, between the ages of seven and sixteen, to write, read, and cast accounts. Early in the seventeenth century,schools were established in different parts of the kingdom for educating the poor; the learning to be given them being in some instances limited to reading, and il others extended to writing well, casting of accounts, the English accidence, the arts of grammar and singing the ordinary psalm-tunes ; whilst provision was made for catechizing the scholars, and instructing them in good manners and their duty to God and man. These foundations commonly originated in the Christian benevolence of individuals; but some owed their existence to voluntary associa- tions, such as St. Margaret's Hospital, or the Green-coat School, Westminster, established by Royal charter in 1633. Although the Reformers of the English Church were fully sensible of the benefits which would accrue to religion from the presence in every diocese of a body of clergymen released from parochial duties, possessed of learned leisure, and peculiarly fitted for conducting themselves and superintending in others the work of education and religious exhortation, yet that Important provision of our ecclesiastical system was never made properly available for the objects it was so well calculated to serve. The Chapter-statutes imposed on their members the duty of residence; and in those of the new foundation it was required that the members " Should be careful to preach In season and out of season, and to sow the seed of the Word of God abroad, and especially in the cathedral church, and to have youth profit- ably taught there in good learning ; and to the end that all might serve God as well at meals as at church, a common table was to be provided in the common hall of the ca- thedral, where the canons, choristers, and under-officers should eat together.'
" The frequent insufficiency of the provision for the parochial clergy contributed with other causes to the neglect of the Chapter-statutes, and to the annexation of prebends and cathedral offices to parochial and other preferments ; and thus the good which might have resultedfrom those foundations was very imperfectly ac- complished. By an ordinance passed in 1649, soon after the execution of the King,
The Commons of England, having seriously weighed the necessity of raising a pre. sent supply of monies for the safety of the Commonwealth, and finding that their other securities arc not satisfactory to lenders, nor sufficient to raise so considerable a sum of money as will be necessary for the said service, are necessitated to sell the lands of the Deans and Chapters for the paying of the public debts, and for the raising of money for the present supply of the pressing necessities of the Commonwealth, and to that end utterly abolish the several Deans and Chapters.'
" With the restoration of the King, and of Episcopacy, Deans and Chapters re- sumed their farmer possessions; but nowhere did they perform the functions for which they were so admirably qualified by their position ; and in the recent reform of our ecclesiastical system, it was thought necessary to divert a large portion of their revenues for the augmentation of poor benefices, and for an increase in the number of the parochial clergy. These were objects certainly of the very highest importance ; but it may be doubted whether the intentions of the founders would not have been more effectually accomplished, had the constitution of those bodies been so reformed as to provide an efficient education for all classes, rich and poor, within the diocese, suitable to the condition of each, and to supply able ministers to teach and catechize, in those portions of the diocese where their aid might be most needed, not confined to one place, but going wherever their diocesan might order,—ministrations which might be accomplished far more effectually- by reli- gious men, voluntarily living together is communities, and itinerating throughout the diocese, than by lay Readers, or Deacons engaged in secular occupations, or any of those numerous agencies by which it is sought to dispel the moral dark- ness which shadows and well nigh obscures so many parts of .our land. Besides the instruction given in the foundation and other schools, the canons of the Church commanded every parson, vicar, or curate, to examine and instruct the youth and ignorant persons of his parish in the Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and diligently to instruct them in the Church Catechism, on pain of being reproved by the Bishop for the first offence and of suspension for the second. In 1663, it was proposed by Mr. Needham, that all parish-clerks should have an allowance for teaching (under the superintendence of the ministers) all the children of the poor, and. preparing them on Saturdays for examination in the Church on the Lord's Day; and the Address published by him contains the following passages- " "Not to mention those of quality, take notice only of the rabble we meet In the streets: it must needs pity any Christian heart to see the little dirty infantry which swarms up and down the alleys and lanes, with curses and ribaldry in their mouths, and other rude behaviour, as if they were intended to i.ut off their humanity and de- generate into brutes.'
"No immediate endeavour was made to realize Mr. Needham's suggestion for establishing parochial schools, and it was in Wales that a systematic attempt NW first made to provide schools for the poor by the voluntary subscriptions of indi- viduals" Besides the full and elaborate account of' Wales on the subjects and in the way we have stated, Sir Thomas Phillips takes a review of the Edu- cational question as regards the other Celtic races, in the Isle of Man, Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and Brittany ; but it is rather to be mentioned as completing the subject of the Celtic race than as dis- tinguished for fulness or peculiar feature.
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