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THE REMAINDER OF THE STORY MUST BE TREATED VERY BRIEFLY. Many important developments have occurred during the past forty years, but space will only allow reference to three. The first of these, in point of time, was the creation of the Welsh Department of the Board of Education. The "Board" itself had been created in 1899 with a President as its head, to take over the work first started by the Committee of the Privy Council on Education in 1839. In 1906 it had been proposed to create a National Council of Education for Wales, but the Education Bill containing this proposal was not passed, and, instead, a Welsh Department was set up within the Board in 1907. Its first head (or Permanent Secretary) was Mr. (later Sir) Alfred T. Davies, and its first Chief Inspector was O. M. Edwards. "O.M." was now in a better position than ever to encourage the use of Welsh and the teaching of the history, the geography and the literature of Wales in the schools.
A second interesting and important development has been the growth of Central and Senior Schools. Towards the end of the last century it was found that many children stayed in the primary school after passing through Standard Seven, the highest class. In many schools, special classes were formed for these children, and sometimes they were sent from several neighbouring schools to one central or Higher Grade School. This type of school, however, did not develop greatly until after the World War of 1914-18. In 1926 a Committee, with Sir Henry Hadow as its Chairman, published a Report on the type of education best suited for pupils between the ages of 11 and 15 who would not enter the Grammar or County Schools. This was the well-known "Hadow Report," and it urged that schools should be provided for these children which would be less academic in character and give more place to practical activity than the Grammar Schools. Since then, many Central Schools have been opened in Wales, and the first was opened by Sir Henry Hadow himself at Shotton in Flintshire in November, 1929. Though the Hadow Committee suggested that the schools should be known as Modern Schools, they have until recently been termed Central or Senior Schools, but as a result of the Education Act of 1944 they are now called Secondary Modern Schools, and are to enjoy the same status and importance as the old Intermediate (or as they are now called, Secondary Grammar) Schools. Finally, there is the Education Act of 1944. To do full justice to it would demand a whole book, but its main object can be summarised in one sentence: to provide in each area schools sufficient in number, character and equipment to afford for all pupils of school age the education best suited to their ages, abilities and aptitudes. How this object is to be achieved it is hardly within the province of this pamphlet to describe. This much, however, can be said: every child will
