of its district. Its teachers are selected for efficiency--they are
easily shifted to the classes which they can teach best; and, if not
successful, they go back willingly to the "teachers' class," where
all are equal. The reputation of a good Sunday School teacher is
still the highest degree that can be won in Wales. Plentiful text
books of high merit, and an elaborate system of oral and written
examinations, mark the last stage in its development.

The Literary Meeting is a kind of secular Sunday School. The rules
of alliterative poetry and the study of Welsh literature and history,
and sometimes of more general knowledge, take the place of the study
of Jewish history, and psalm, and gospel. The Literary Meetings feed
the Eisteddvod.

The Eisteddvod passed through the same phases as the nation. It was
an aspect of the court of the prince during the Middle Ages. In
Tudor times it was used partly to please the people, but chiefly to
regulate the bards by forcing them to qualify for a degree--a sure
method of moderating their patriotism and of diminishing their
number. In modern times the Eisteddvod is a great democratic
meeting, and it is the most characteristic of all Welsh institutions.
Its chairing of the bards is an ancient ceremony; its gorsedd of
bards is probably modern. But the people themselves still remain the
judges of poetry; they care very little whether a poet has won a
chair or not, while a gorsedd degree probably does him more harm than
good.

Elementary education, in its modern sense, began with the circulating
schools of Griffith Jones of Llanddowror in 1730. They were
exceedingly successful because the instruction was given in Welsh,