they would find it necessary to employ Welsh-speaking assistants, and when their task was done, they would be able to form some estimate of the general state of intelligence and information of the poorer classes in Wales, "and of the influence which an improved education might be expected to produce on the general condition of society, and its moral and religious progress."
The Commissioners soon started on their work and in a remarkably short time they produced a Report which ran to 1,183 pages and which, as an official document, was published in the form of three Blue Books. The appearance of these Books caused a great outcry in Wales, and the Report has been known ever since to Welshmen as "The Blue Books." Before we can understand these Blue Books, however, we must first of all glance back a little at the condition of education in Wales before they were published in 1847, a century ago.
2
AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY THE PROVISION OF education for the children of Wales was very poor. There were, it is true, about a dozen old Grammar Schools which had been founded, in the main, in the days of Elizabeth and James I, but quite apart from the fact that they were so few in number and so small in size, they were thoroughly English in their atmosphere and catered chiefly for the sons of the middle classes. A few other Grammar Schools had been opened in the eighteenth century, some of which admitted the sons of the poorer folk; and there were a number of private schools here and there-more than is perhaps commonly realised-schools opened by private individuals, which gave some sort of education for a penny or two to those who could afford it. Broadly speaking, however, the peasants of Wales had only the Sunday Schools to which they could send their children, the few Circulating Schools which survived here and there, and the Nonconformist Academies. At the turn of the eighteenth century, moreover, not every church and chapel had its Sunday School, for only a dozen years had passed since Thomas Charles, the real founder of the institution as it is known today, had become convinced of its importance. All in all, therefore, very little provision existed for educating the majority of the children of Wales in 1800, and such provision as existed was usually very poor in quality.
It is true that some of the private schools (or private adventure schools, as they were often called) achieved some sort of a reputation outside their own immediate locality. Such were the schools of the Rev. Evan Richardson of Caernarvon (at which Sir Hugh Owen was educated), of the Rev. Robert Jones (Rhoslan) at Llangybi, of Eben Fardd at Clynnog, and of the Rev. Thomas Lloyd at Abergele. Lloyd's
