Cylchgronau Cymru

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1895, had planned educational policy and administration to bolster the voluntary Anglican schools at the expense of their flourishing com- petitors. The 1902 Act consolidated county council control of education and led to the dismemberment of the locally accountable Boards so close to Stanley's heart. As Lord Stanley he inherited Penrhos in Anglesey, started to learn Welsh, addressed the National Eisteddfod and became chairman of the newly established Anglesey Education Committee. The author is less sure of his ground here since this episode needs to be set surely in its nineteenth-century Welsh background and grounded in a wider range of primary and secondary sources. Mr. Jones is not sufficiently acquainted with the early uniqueness of the Welsh secondary system and particularly its links with the elementary schools. More detailed treatment of this phase may have been eschewed due to lack of space, but to the Welsh reader it does detract somewhat from the merits of an otherwise balanced, clear and thoroughly researched book. Originating in a Master of Edu- cation thesis, it serves to remind us of the quantity of valuable material- among much dross-which has been produced recently for such degrees on a variety of aspects of Welsh educational history. May some of it, like this study, reach a wider public. GARETH E. JONES. Swansea. EMRYS AP IWAN. By D. Myrddin Lloyd. Writers of Wales Series. University of Wales Press, Cardiff, 1979. Pp. 61. £ 1.50. Few Welshmen in Victorian times stirred up as many hornets' nests as Emrys ap Iwan. His penchant for generating active controversies and violent passions made him a unique figure in Welsh life. It also earned him many enemies. Middle-of-the-road politicians believed him to be an intransigent rebel. The self-seeking bourgeoisie were disturbed by his hostility to the values of the age and by his unabashed candour. Noncon- formists, hamleted by their consciences, their mediocrity and fondness for things English, were shocked by his frank indictments of Welsh provincialism, religion and y dwymyn Seisnig. Mr. Myrddin Lloyd has already performed a notable service in pub- lishing and elucidating a series of letters and articles written by Emrys ap Iwan, and this thoughtful essay will provide non-Welsh readers with a guide to the career and achievements of a supremely-gifted literary craftsman. Emrys ap Iwan was a truly European figure, as much at home in the fertile valleys of France as on the bleak moors of his native Denbighshire. Educated in Switzerland and Germany, he soon became recognized in Welsh literary circles as a man of formidable erudition and hard-hitting views. His sermons, essays, articles and letters were all couched in prose of sparkling purity, and no other Welsh writer of his day could match him for literary artistry, critical acumen and mordant wit. Quick-fire journalism was abhorrent to him, and he deliberately included classical epithets and biblical nuances in analysing the world about him. A firm believer in purity of language and idiom, he was much