Cylchgronau Cymru

Chwiliwch trwy dros 450 o deitlau a 1.2 miliwn o dudalennau

in Wales and England in neither country has the action of public authorities produced anything which is really characteristic of the temperament of either people, and so the similarity is not sur- prising. After all, dry bones do not as a rule reflect psychological differences. The essential thing therefore seems to be to make up our minds as to the exact limitations of State action. The State can set up schools: the State can pay for them the State can provide a machinery for appointing teachers, and it can provide the money for training them. All this is mechanical. It can even appoint inspectors, provided that every- one realises that their success depends entirely on their worth as individuals, not on their position as transmitters from Whitehall to the schools. But as for the rest, prescription of syllabuses, examin- ing, prescription of methods, everything where the human element enters, however much a priori reasoning would suggest that these factors are best organised and co-ordinated by authority, experience all points the other way. When once this comes to be recognised by "practical people, i.e., non- teachers who are not practically acquainted with this particular work, and who would probably object to a similar State organisation of their own work, whatever it may be, the means will be easily found to rectify it. Conferences will gradually take the place of regulations, syllabuses and exami- nations will come to be more and more determined by teachers themselves, inspectors will be more and more regarded as useful advisers rather than as official overlookers, most of the existing returns and forms will be scrapped, and, having once reached the climax of official interference in the attempt to reduce moral training to a prescribed syllabus whereby a boy or girl was to be taught to A GREAT ARTIST Je ne connais pas la fatigue," was Sarah Bern- hardt's characteristic assurance to the representative of the Welsh Outlook and myself when she graciously received us at her hotel after her appearance in the beautiful playlet Du Theatre au Champ ctHormettr" Her kindly Secretary told us that an interview while Madame was still over her tea-cup was an excep- tional favour. The scene was graceful and intime. The great tragedienne, to whose wonderful voice we had listened but an hour before, now rose to greet us with much gentillesse. Her alert and expressive be honest on Friday afternoon one week, thrifty the next, kind to animals the next, and so on, we shall gradually descend to the plains of common-sense and dare, as Mr. Holmes puts it, to have some faith in human nature, and not to believe that no one will do anything except under the eye of a govern- ment official. We have for thirty years been trying to be efficient in the German sense. We have not succeeded. We now see to what extent State-engendered efficiency has led the German character. Do not let us cease to strive to be efficient in all that concerns things, but let us remember that men are not things, and that children grow up to be men and not things; and let us cease to strive for mechanical efficiency as regards what are not machines. Of the two mistakes the latter is the worse. Has it ever struck the reader that we never hear the British Empire described as a "system?" Why? Because the bonds which unite it are impalpable; "the ties which, though light as air, are strong as links of iron," the ties which Germany could not see and in which she therefore did not believe. It is so as regards everything which is concerned with human beings. It is since we began to think of education mainly in terms of the educational system that the danger of deadness has grown. Now it is time to cry for reform everywhere. The motive power which can sweep away obstacles, and especially the obstacle of inertia, is stronger than it will ever be again. It is hard for a State department to scrap its regulations, to divest itself gradually of its powers, to circumscribe its activity, to give more and more self-government to those whom it has once ruled as an autocrat. But the British Empire has done it, why not a Board ? A. face denies all birthday-book records which would make her out to be quite an old lady. She spoke softly and musically, standing the whole time, while two attendants arranged the roses of her bouquets to send to wounded soldiers. No, this super-woman is rarely tired she is endowed with boundless vitality, due as much to her noble, zealous nature as to perfect control of the nerves. She can command sleep and snatch forty winks between the acts while the mechanics change the scenes! She is interested in the Welsh Drama, and spoke of