WALES.

General Report on the Schools inspected in part of Wales, comprising the Counties of Brecon, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Glamorgan, Merioneth, Montgomery, Pembroke, and Radnor; in the Year 1849. By Her Majesty's Inspector of Schools, the Rev. H. LONGUEVILLE JONES.

SIR, I HAVE the honor of forwarding to you, for the information of their Lordships of the Committee of Council on Education, the following Report on the condition of schools, in connexion with the Church of England, in those counties of Wales which have been inspected by me under their Lordships' orders, during that portion of the year 1849, which was com prised between the 1st of February and the 1st of November. These counties are eight in number, being as follows, viz. :

and they contain, in the aggregate, 131 schools under inspection, in 47 of which, examinations of pupil-teachers have been conducted, and in 14 of which there are teachers who have received augmentation of salary in consequence of their holding certificates of merit, obtained after examination before Her Majesty's Inspectors.

During the above period I have also held the five following general examinations, viz., two of masters, at Swansea and Welshpool, during the month of April; two of mistresses, at Carmarthen and Ruthin, during the months of September and October; and one of the students in the Training School at Carmarthen, during the month of April. These examinations, with the time subsequently required for revising the papers worked by candidates, occupied eleven weeks. During the remainder of this portion of the year, with the exception of one week's leave of absence, I have carried on my inspection of schools without intermission.

The remainder of my district, comprising four counties, with many schools, and the Christmas examination of training schools, will occupy my time incessantly, until the end of March 1850. With regard to the state of education in these counties generally as evinced by the schools which have come under

my inspection, I do not know that it would be safe to say anything upon it as a whole; for I have found such wide differences existing between various counties, and even districts of the same county, that no general opinion can be formed upon data that will universally hold good. I may be allowed, however, to say thus much, that my previously-formed expectation of finding the state of education better in many places than it was commonly believed to be, has been fully confirmed; though, on the other hand, the disproportion of the means employed to the result obtained has often been to me a subject of agreeable surprise. If there be any general circumstance observable throughout these counties it is the following, which however, I presume, must exist in most other parts of the island, viz., that the state of education in any given district is commonly proportioned to the interest felt in it, and the aid given, by the upper classes of society there resident. Some exceptions exist even to this, and they are worthy subjects of congratulation wherever they occur. I shall have the pleasing task to perform of signalizing them by-and-by to their Lordships' notice.

It would, however, be contrary to the duty which I owe to Her Majesty and to their Lordships, if I did not point out two circumstances which, whether they are exclusively characteristic of my own district or not, have an immediate influence on the state of education in the principality. One might be concealed, from a fear of giving offence to many whose notice it might meet; the other might be suppressed, from an apprehension of causing pain to the modesty of those to whom it referred. They are, however, so intimately connected with the future welfare of the people of the principality, that they cannot avoid obtruding themselves on the attention of whoever studies to promote the educational advancement of his fellow-countrymen. The first is, that the landowners of the counties I have inspected, do not, as a general body of men, contribute that amount of pecuniary support to the local schools, which their property and their interests, if properly understood, would lead the country to expect. There are numerous exceptions to this general fact; but the correctness of the assertion can be proved by a comparison of the local subscriptions, in various parishes of these counties, with the rent-rolls or the income-tax returns of the inhabitants. The other circumstance is, that the clergy, as a body, though with several exceptions to the contrary, do contribute towards the support of schools to an extent, and in a manner, far beyond what the country has any right to demand from gentlemen of such small incomes. The value of ecclesiastical benefices in some of these counties is below the ordinary average of those in other parts of the kingdom; and yet it is hardly exaggerating the state of things to say,

that in many of the country parishes, the local schools could barely exist, were it not for the pecuniary assistance given by the incumbent clergymen, who, out of revenues of less than 2001. per annum, often contribute as much as landowners of ten times the same income. At the same time it is found that the small freeholders are much less accessible to any appeals for the support of schools than are the gentlemen of the same districts; and it is also very commonly the case, that the farmers are inclined to plead poverty and refuse assistance, when their means do not warrant such ill-placed parsimony. It is to be hoped, that this insensibility to some of the dearest and highest interests of the nation, on which the present tranquillity and the future stability of the realm so much depend, will give way to a truer perception of what is the duty of the community in matters of education. There are, indeed, symptoms of a better feeling already springing up: those who are now receiving the benefits of education will, in succeeding years, diffuse a wider perception of its great importance; and it may perhaps be anticipated, that ere another fifty years shall have passed away, there will not be a single child within these counties who shall not be educated in a public or a private school. At the present moment, however, as I observed above, the burthen of public education presses heavily on the clergy of Wales: not on their time nor their persons, because the devotion of these to the instruction of their flocks is one of the first duties of the Christian ministry; but on their purses, which are almost always taxed to an undue extent.

To give an instance of how far this may be carried, but without particularizing names in an invidious manner, I will allude to the case of a parish in one of the wildest, but by no means one of the poorest parts of these counties. It extends nearly fifteen miles in length over hill and dale, and is divided among two or three gentlemen, the heads of some of the oldest and most honourable houses in the principality, as well as a considerable number of small freeholders. There is no dissenting school in the whole parish, because, as the clergyman observes, the ministers of the various denominations could never persuade the farmers of their congregations to part with their money for such a purpose. for such a purpose. A small church school does, however, exist in the village that forms the centre of this district, which is supported partly by weekly payments from the children of those, who acknowledge that they can afford to make them, amounting however to only 131. in the course of the year, and principally by the clergyman who, out of his income, which is under 3007. per annum, pays 157. yearly for the gratuitous instruction of thirty of the poorer children. Finding this to come rather heavily upon his resources, he made the most strenuous appeals to his neighbours, and also to the

gentlemen and landowners of his parish; and out of thirty such applications, he realized a donation of one pound. He has assured me that the religious and political feeling of the district is such as may be justly expected to tally with such a state of things. The great proprietors have never resided in the district: there is in fact no gentleman living in it except himself; there is very little communication kept up with any town except the small metropolis of the county, twelve miles distant, and the ignorance and prejudices of the small freeholders and farmers are great almost beyond precedent. The picture of this parish, which indeed is one of the worst cases of the kind I have met with, will suit, with a few alleviations, the features of many others all throughout these counties; and there is hardly a country incumbent anywhere in my district but who, on reading this statement will be ready to back it by corresponding illustrations drawn from his own knowledge.

On the other hand, I can quote more than one instance in which when, in the course of my duties as Her Majesty's Inspector, I had to examine the accounts of a school, and could not avoid remarking the immense disproportion between the sums received and expended, the latter being in an excess of 401. or 50l. per annum, out of a total of 701. or 804., I made the pleasing discovery that this annual deficiency was made up in a private and unostentatious manner by the regular contributions of two or three, and several times of one munificent person. And I am glad of having an opportunity of testifying that in general the more elevated in rank, and the more distinguished for intellectual culture and eminence the gentlemen of a district may be, so, in almost an invariable proportion, the more generous are their contributions to schools and other local public purposes. Nevertheless, the main observation I have made above still holds good, that the gentry and landowners of these counties do not contribute as they should and could; and, in my humble opinion, until the contrary can be proved, the representations which have been often made of the necessity that Her Majesty's Government should make some special grant of public funds for the support of schools in the agricultural districts of Wales have a very narrow basis to rest upon. Until a numerously-signed subscription list can be produced by any parish, I do not see the justice of that parish coming forward and pleading inability to support a school.

In some portions of my district I have found the notion subsisting that education ought to be entirely gratuitous, and that, at all events, it was impossible to extract from the poorer and labouring classes of the community any funds for supporting school expenses: in other and more familiar terms, that the parents of the children were totally unable to pay schoolpence for their education. My own conviction is, that such an

idea is almost always erroneous; and I am further fully persuaded that any given parish throughout my district might maintain an efficient school, without any direct aid from Her Majesty's Government, if the inhabitants would only consent to a proper method of self-assessment and weekly payment. In cases where it was objected that the poverty of the labouring families disqualified them from paying school-pence, a very trifling refutation was required. These objections I have found started in places where wages ranged at 12s. a-week with as much pertinacity as in others where they never reached 9s.; and the mere fact of numerous parishes where wages do not exceed the last-named sum, taking the year round, having schools in which the weekly pence are paid without difficulty, is a sufficient proof that such ideas have no solid foundation. Except in cases of severe sickness, or some other unforeseen calamity, there is always the possibility of a labouring man paying weekly such a small contribution as one penny, and frequently twopence, for the education of each of his children. To give a practical instance of how such a system of local payment may be made efficacious in a purely agricultural and even a remote district, I am glad to have this opportunity of bringing under their Lordships' notice the plan adopted in the parish of Llanfairynghornwy, in the isle of Anglesey, where it has been found to work well, and has now been for some time in operation. It should be observed, that the incumbent clergyman of that parish possesses courage and experience not to be overcome by slight difficulties, and that, having the interest of his country and his flock most thoroughly at heart, he has never allowed himself to be daunted by obstacles, from which others might have recoiled.

Mode of Paying National and other Schoolmasters in Rural Districts, as adopted by the Rev. James Williams, Llanfairynghornwy, Anglesey.

Parents Assessed to the Poor-Rates at 501. and upwards to pay-

For one child

58. per quarter.

2s. 6d. each.