Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry Into the State of Education in Wales: Appointed by the Committee of Council on Education, in Pursuance of Proceedings in the House of Commons, on the Motion of Mr. Williams, of March 10, 1846, for an Address to the Queen, Praying Her Majesty to Direct an Inquiry to be Made Into the State of Education in the Principality of Wales, and Especially Into the Means Afforded to the Labouring Classes of Acquiring a Knowledge of the English Language

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Page 4 - Whether in the country, or among the furnaces, the Welsh element is never found at the top of the social scale, nor in its own body does it exhibit much variety of gradation.
Page 309 - It is not easy to over-estimate its evil effects, ft is the language of the Cymri, and anterior to that of the ancient Britons. It dissevers the people from intercourse which would greatly advance their civilization, and bars the access of improving knowledge to their minds. As a proof of this, there is no Welsh literature worthy of the name...
Page 292 - Johnson The Parliamentary Commission was set up after a motion was introduced in 1846 praying the Queen 'To direct an inquiry to be made into the State of Education in the Principality of Wales'. Kay-Shuttleworth's letter of instructions included a reference to the need to form an estimate 'of the influence which an improved education might be expected to produce on the general condition of society, and its moral and religious progress'.
Page 126 - render to Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and to God the things which are God's," seemed to him to be of universal application, and nowhere more so, than in the interpretation of Scripture.
Page 164 - I AM the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage.
Page 3 - My district exhibits the phenomenon of a peculiar language isolating the mass from the upper portion of society: and. as a further phenomenon, it exhibits this mass engaged upon the most opposite occupations at points not very distant from each other; being, on the one side, rude and primitive agriculturists, living poorly and thinly scattered ; on the other, smelters and miners, wantoning in plenty and congregated in the densest accumulations.
Page 536 - The boys and girls in farm houses are brought up from childhood with these filthy practices ever before their eyes and ears, and of course on the first temptation they fall into the same course themselves. In short, in this matter even in a greater degree than the other which I have noticed, the minds of our common people are become thoroughly and universally depraved and brutalised. To meet this appalling evil the present system of education in Wales is utterly powerless.
Page 309 - The Welsh language is a vast drawback to Wales, and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people.
Page 334 - It is said to be a customary matter for them to have intercourse together on condition that they should marry if the woman becomes pregnant; but the marriage by no means always takes place. Morals are generally at a low ebb, but want of chastity is the giant sin of Wales.
Page 26 - The floor was of the bare earth, very uneven and rather damp. There was a fire in an iron stove placed in the middle of the room. The steam which arose from it was quite insufferable, so much so that I was obliged to keep both door and window open to enable me to breathe. The master remarked that it was ' bad to a stranger, but nothing to those who were used to it.