Welsh Journals

these are part of their degree course. Occasionally, however, students show a genuinely intellectual bent, and such students are the salt of the University but the smallness of the number of those who care to study philosophy to a fairly advanced stage, is some index to the fewness of these intellectuals in the colleges." And here is the depressing picture drawn by the same high authority of the average student at the most fermenting period of his life The subjects which chiefly interest a sceptic do not normally interest a diligent Welsh student at all, his life being already full of attendance at lectures, the performance of his daily tasks, and, when these are over, attendance at the meetings of college societies. On Sundays the average student is a fairly regular attendant at some place of worship, and a fair number of students attend a meeting of the College Christian Union after the evening service. The daily round of life does not give the average student much time for pondering over questions of metaphysics, of which, in nine cases out of ten, he has not even heard. This type of student's intense desire for success in his University examinations makes him inclined to turn his attention away from those extraneous interests which might appeal to a more leisured private reader, or to a student to whom University success was not so essential." Sir Edward Anwyl's intimate personal knowledge of the students of our schools and colleges cannot be questioned for a moment, and his description must be accepted as authoritative. That being so, the situation calls for immediate and searching inquiry by the best minds available. Is the University also the most perfect machine in the world ? Is this university education at all, or is it vocational schooling ? How does it com- pare with the village smithy and the tailor's workshop ? At what stage does the blight attack the growing plant ? Little Welsh children are full of wonder, curiosity, and speculation. The humblest child has put more questions than the wisest father ever answered. Is education the process of stifling free inquiry and starving the imagination in order to crown a Univer- sity career with a degree ? Metaphysics is the supreme endeavour of human intelligence to grasp the meaning of the world as a whole, to relate the sciences to each other, to penetrate the mystery of all Being. But our students are so busy that, in nine cases out of ten, they have not even heard of metaphysics. Presently, with their crowns upon their heads, they will not want to hear about so unprofitable a subject. Cannot Sir Henry Jones be called in? If he were given a week at Aberystwyth, we promise that the deafest student would hear of nothing but metaphysics for at least a month. And instead of information potted, tinned, and labelled, the sound and light and heat of a throbbing world would blaze and thunder through the classrooms, and the wonder and wild delight of creation burst upon the eyes and ears of these scribbling students, with their spectacled noses buried in their notebooks. And Greek, the most flexible and finely tempered linguistic implement ever fash- ioned-the language of a people with whom half our science started, with whom art attained its highest expression, with whom was displayed for one brief noonday hour the glory of the body and mind of man in most perfect poise. The student may miss his crown if he tarries with Plato and Pericles, with Pheidias and Euripides. Shade of Thomas Charles Edwards! And, lastly, Celtic studies. Where should these find a fonder nursing mother and be more dearly cherished for their own sake, heedless of their marketable value, if not in their own homeland, where these very students first learnt to lisp in Welsh. Shade of Thomas Edward Ellis The great majority of Welsh students are entirely indifferent to philosophy, and to Greek and Celtic studies, unless these are part of their degree course."