Papurau Newydd Cymru
Chwiliwch 15 miliwn o erthyglau papurau newydd Cymru
3 erthygl ar y dudalen hon
Cuddio Rhestr Erthyglau
3 erthygl ar y dudalen hon
WELSH UNIVERSITY.
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WELSH UNIVERSITY. Grave fears are entertained in some quar- ters that the Welsh University will not be truly national enough for Wales. What suits England does not suit Wales. There- fore an Educational institution which should meet the special requirements of Gwalia should be far more than a servile copy of any other older University. The ideal of all sincere Welsh Educationalists should be to aim at a high-class standard of education being generally attained almost amongst all the classes of the community. The peculiar educational aspirations of a nation ought to be specially studied and analysed in a man- ner similarly suggested by the successful efforts of national educational reformers in Germany and Scotland,-a step which has grandly resulted in the two named countries being the most educated ones in the world. In any new University the exclusive spirit displayed in prohibitive fees and qualifica- tions should be entirely done away with, so as to give an approximate equality of advan- tages as regards education to all young Welsh students, irrespective of wealth and family blood. No one denies that the education given in any of the older Universities is of the highest in the world, but the system under which it is given has made in the boasted society of to-day an ugly gulf, which separates very widely from one another the educated and uneducated sections of the community. All national institutions must to a certain extent receive a certain sanction from the people as a whole before expecting any general reception or support; and must at all times be the outcome of the inefface- able characteristics of the particular nation for which they are primarily intended. In the interests of Welsh nationalism and a greater love for Welsh literature, we ardently trust that no energy will be lacking on the part of the present governors of the Welsh University to give Welsh subjects a more prominent place and thereby perform a dutiful and noble service to Wales as a nation.
PARISH COUNCILS ACT AND ITS…
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PARISH COUNCILS ACT AND ITS EXPENSES. The working classes should be justly en- couraged to avail themselves more freely of the Parish Councils' Act, so as to prevent it from becoming a thoroughly dead letter. If the labourers were to put forth their claims more generally, there would be a slight chance of securing the plots without paying unjust and exorbitant expenses for supposed legal work in drawing up the necessary deeds ana to contend against unnecessary and selfish opposition on the part of landowners and farmers. This act will never be capable I of benefiting the working man unless some just means be adopted to acquire a piece of ground for at least the same rent that it is now let out to tenant farmers. Unhappily there were recently in certain Welsh districts incurred unreasonable expenses, which natur- ally prevent the benefits latent in the Act from being conferred upon the deserving manual toilers of our country.
ST. DAVID'S DAY.
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ST. DAVID'S DAY. By W. Llewelyn Williams, B.A. IT is a matter of small importance whether such a man as St. David ever lived or not, and whether, if he did, he was the son of Non, or, as the Chairman of the Cymru Fydd Society will have it, the son of Sant, the brother of King Arthur. It may be proved, for all we know or care, that his romantic history,-his miraculous preaching at Llan- ddewi-brefi, where a hill rose from under his feet to be his pulpit, and the stratagem by which he enabled his countrymen to defeat their Saxon foes,-is all pure myth, the devout creation of a poetic and imaginative people. The real importance of St. David lies in the fact that without him we should not have St. David's Day,—one of the all too few opportunities which Welshmen have of remembering that they are all of the same kith, and that though they have many differ- ences which keep them apart, they have still great aspirations, ancient traditions, and im- portant interests in common. In these days of party and sectarian differences, it is of no small value that once a year, at least, we should be reminded that the purest and noblest form of Nationalism is above party and above sect. We deplore therefore the audacious and ill-advised attempt of the Bishop of Swansea, in his eloquent sermon at St. Paul's Cathedral, to appropriate our Patron Saint as a hero of the Church of England. Dewi Sant, if he ever existed, was a strenuous upholder of the rights of the Ancient British Church, and he would have resented, as his successors in the see of Men- evia resented, the arrogant pretensions of the upstart see of Canterbury. If legend be true, David owed no allegiance to any foreign potentate, civil or ecclesiastical, and his sub- mission to the Bishop of Rome was of the most nominal kind. Certain it is that, many centuries after his death, he was canonised by the Pope, and that his shrine became the most celebrated haunt of pilgrims outside Rome itself. We have to thank the Catholic Church for this bond which united all Wales in the Middle Ages, which made the man of Powys, Gwent, and Gwynedd forget in pay- ing reverence to a priest of Dyfed, the narrow provincial boundaries which then as now formed such an obstinate barrier against the ideal of the true Nationalist of Cymru Gyfan." Dewi Sant, however, is the ex- clusive property of no church or sect, and his festival should be used, not as an occa- sion for proselytising or for advancing the claims of sect or party, but for drawing closer the real bonds which unite Welshmen together. We were glad to find that Mr. Lloyd George, in his short speech at the Cymru Fydd dinner, laid some emphasis on the fact that Cymru Gyfan should include Welshmen of a hundred generations and the strangers that are within our gates. Cymru Fydd will not consist wholly of Britons or of Saxons, of Gaels or of Scots; but every race will be merged in one common nation- ality, and be proud of the title of "W elsh- men." Thomas Davis, the Welshman who inspired the noblest ideals of the young Ire- land movement, and whose influence is still, after the lapse of half a century, unspent, addressed to the Ireland of his day an im- passioned appeal which we would do well to remember in our own times. What matter that at different times Our fathers won this sod ? What matter that at different shrines We worship the same God ? If the celebration of St. David's Day will help Welshmen to rise above the petty dis- tinctions and differences of sect, party, and race,-and the increasing popularity of the Festival would seem to afford good ground for the hope-it will perform a great and valuable service to our country. It should do one more thing. Wales has too long been isolated from the larger life of the world around it this exclusiveness is now break- ing down the spread of education, the opening up of the country by means of a net- work of railways: and the rapid industrial development have proved too much for it. But the very benefits, which have rescued Wales from provincial isolation, may if we be not wise in our day and generation, hand Wales over to an even deadlier and more terrible curse, of a cheap and uncultured "cosmopolitanism." Now, if ever, is the time when Welshmen, who wish their country well, should labour for the preservation of the best and most distinctive Welsh qualities, and should insist on the development of Wales on Welsh lines. We are, indeed, the inheritors of a noble and inspiring past; we have a literature, small in volume and limited in extent, but nevertheless priceless as a popular culture. We have institutions which not only Wales but the world would be poorer without. In an age which is given over to materialism in thought and money- making in business, the poetry and spiritu- ality which illuminate and glorify even the every-day life of a Welsh peasant or artisan are treasures which it would be criminal to cast heedlessly away. There are not wanting signs that the thinking men of our nation are alive to the deep responsibility which rests. upon this generation as the custodian of the heritage of the past and the trustees for generations yet to come. We know not whether the prophesy of Taliesin is destined to remain for ever true, and that Welshmen will always retain their language. Our busi- ness in these days is not to verify prophecies but to do what is best for our country and our people. No one but the veriest boor