 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The year 1846 marks a turning point in the history of education in Wales. In that year William Williams (a native of Llanpumsaint) who was MP for Coventry obtained the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the state of education in Wales.
Three
young barristers named Lingen, Symons and Johnson were chosen for this
task and they in turn appointed ten assistants. They did their work
with great thoroughness and published an extraordinary report in the
following year known as the Lingen Report.
The picture they drew of education in Wales was of the darkest kind.
They reported that over 78,000 children were receiving some sort of
education in day schools but they severely criticised the general standard
of this education and commented on the incompetence of the teachers
and inadequacy of the school buildings and equipment.
The
report went further and said harsh things about the habits, manners
and morals of the welsh people. One of the commissioners thought that
the peasants (he included among them nearly all who spoke welsh) were
"almost universally" immoral. The commissioners
considered that the state of the people was due to the use of the welsh
language which kept them ignorant and prevented them from improving
themselves. So black did they paint the condition of the welsh people
that english periodicals declared that Wales "was fast settling
down into the most savage barbarism" and that the habits of its
people were "those of animals and do not bear description".
The report aroused great indignation throughout Wales and leading welshmen both in Wales and in England hastened to defend Wales and its people. It was pointed out that not one of the commissioners knew a word of welsh and also knew very little about schools. They were all Anglicans and had no sympathy with Nonconformity. They were accused of having emphasised the faults of the schools and entirely refused to recognize their merits. They also took their evidence almost entirely from clergymen of the Church of England, JPs and employers. However bad conditions may have been, there seems little doubt that this report was one-sided. The report came to be known as Brad y Llyfrau Gleision (The Treason of the Blue Books).
The immediate effect of the report was unfortunate. Out of disgust with the Lingen Report, Nonconformists were unwilling to accept state grants for schools and it increased the bitterness between Nonconformists and Anglicans. Gradually, however, this feeling passed and during the 1850s the British and Foreign Society and the National Society set up a number of schools in North and South Wales. Also, in 1848 Trinity College, Carmarthen was set up to train teachers for South Wales and a similar college for North Wales was set up at Bangor in 1862. The final steps in the provision of elementary schools in Wales were the same as for England. The passing of the Elementary Education Act (sometimes called the Forster Act after W.E.Forster who steered it through Parliament ) was the most important reform in the history of education.
