The Cambrian News and Merionethshire Standard

WAITING FOR VISITORS ALL up and down the coast visitors are being waited for with varying- degrees of impatience. As usual, it is asserted that this is the worst season, as far as it has gone, that has been known for many years, but we do not think that it is either much better or much worse, but probably competition in every direction is keener than before, and there is less for each although there may be quite as much, or even more, to divide. Crowds are expected in June that do not come until August, and the process of waiting is a dreary one, especially for those who are hard pushed to make both ends meet. Nothing could be more per- plexing than the apparent anxiety for summer success than the general all- the-year-round indifference as to what is dõrie- or leIt undone in the public interest. A good deal of this indiffer- ence is due to sheer ignorance-against which we have striven for many years. An American minister of religion, who has been recently staying at Bettws-y- Coed, wrote a letter to his congrega- tion and in it said Wales surpasses my expectation of beauty and charm of scenery. This little country, with its fascinating landscapes, stands like a jewel, and what makes me wonder is that so many of the people leave Wales to come to America. You, who are the children of Wales, have a good right to be proud of your native land be not afraid to love her rocks and rills, her woods and hills. Let your manner of life tell us Americans something of the rare beauty of these everlast- ing hills, and the large generosity of GOD in adorning the land of your children with such an unspeakable 1I beauty and charm of scenery." The foregoing is good and well-deserved testimony to the almost inexpressible beauty of Wales which, alas, is often defiled by the ignorant or marred in other ways. There are scores of little places-villages and small towns- which are made impossible for visitors owing to the ignorance and stupidity of members of local governing bodies. Just now, at Criccieth, for instance, the local- builders are determined to cart away sand from the beach 'for their own individual profit and con- venience and at the loss of the whole community. They are going to have their own way in defiance of common sense. There is nothing we can say that is likely to be of the least influ- ence, but it does not require a local genius to see that sand on the beach at Criccieth is a far greater public asset than the money it can be so?d for will be when placed in the pockets of builders. Inability to see and appreciate natural beauty is a severe affliction and also an irrepar- able loss in many ways. What can be done, we ask our readers, to obtain greater advantages from the natural attractions ot Wales in face of what is done or left undone against common sense and reason. We have had to deal with advertisers who post bills on trees and ancient monuments, but the worst and most hopeless offenders are local governing bodies who, like the Town Council of Aberystwyth, or the Aberystwyth Rural Council, refuse to keep the places under their authority free from defects which mar beauty, interfere with comfort and convenience, and imperil health and life. There is not in the whole of Wales a more beautiful place than Aberystwyth, or one more delightfully and conveniently situated. It has many rivals and equals we frankly admit. The charms of all the places are seriously inter- fered with and often reduced to worth- lessness by the incompetence of those who ought not only to maintain and preserve local attractions, but should do whatever can be done to enhance those attractions. What is to be said to a body that sits contentedly in a dirty hole like the Aberystwyth Town Hall, and allows every byelaw the town has adopted to be set at defiance by who- ever has the ignorance or impudence to act as if there were neither byelaws nor officials in existence. There can be no doubt whatever that a great deal could be done to bring people into the district earlier in the summer and to keep them there later in the autumn, but that great work cannot be done by grumbling, or by neglecting matters which have to do with beauty, comfort, health, and convenience. There is a widespread and deeply-rooted notion that it is the duty of the Cambrian Railways Com- pany to spend money freely in making this part of Wales known all over England, and that trains ought to be run whether they pay expenses or not. We do not know what is possible in the way of running excursions, but it seems to us that if there were more local unity and enterprise it ought to be possible to run many more excur- sions between the middle of April and the beginning of July than are run at present. This is work that would pay nobody in particular, but would be of advantage to everybody, including the railway company. The question is, how could the work be done, and as long as local governing bodies grossly neglect their duties, is the work worth doing? As we have pointed out many times, there is nothing more fatal to a badly-conducted business than prom- inent and successful advertisements. If the distribution of guides and souvenirs brings people to dirty, ill- provided, and slovenly-kept holiday resorts, every one of them when they go home will become decriers of the places that disappointed them. The first condition of successful advertis- ing, whether the advertisement refers to a business or a summer resort, is to make adequate provision for those whom it is hoped the advertisement will attract. If members of local governing bodies and the inhabitants generally of summer resorts could be made to realise that municipal defici- encies and disorder are advertisements, which deter people from repeating their visits to the summer resorts where they exist, reforms would be far more easily secured than they are under existing conditions. The absence of visitors all over the district in the early part of summer could be remedied if only a few people in each resort took interest in the subject and could induce the members of local governing bodies to co- operate with them. How little is known about places was well illus- trated this week at Criccieth which has an Urban Council certainly not less enterprising than similar bodies in other towns. Not for the first time somebody in authority at Bangor College, where there ought to be some knowledge and a little intelligence, addressed a letter to the Parish Council of Criccieth. If Bangor College knows no more about Cric- cieth than this incident indicates, it may be inferred how much it is neces- sary to do to bring Wales into that prominence further afield which is necessary fo secure increased popu- larity and consequent prosperity. The inhabitants of all the resorts in the district are anxiously waiting for visitors, but nobody seems to be pre- pared to do anything at his own cost to bring them there, not even to abstain from the perpetuation of village survivals which are indicative of ignorance and cause loss in all sorts of ways.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION. MR. JOHN SAUNDERS, at the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist General Assembly held last week at Rhos, moved an amendment whch called for secular education as the only solution of the pioblem of injustice which Noncon- formists suffer under the existing laws pertaining to religious education in elementary schools. When ques- tioned, he said that his amendment meant the exclusion of the Bible from all schools. This amendment was seconded by the Rev. JOHN OWEN, who said that he firmly believed a settle- ment could not be brought about except by the introduction of a system of secular education. Relig- ious instruction, he further said, should be left to the churches entirely, thus leaving the State to impart secular .n education, and secular education alone. The amendment of Mr. SAUNDERS was defeated by seventy nine votes to twenty-five. How hopelessly even professedly religious people are at variance as to what religion is, and as to what elementary education includes, cannot be better illustrated than by this amendment. In our opinion it is as hopeless to attempt to grow trees without producing wood as to give elementary education without teaching religion. The multiplication table can be taught without teaching religion and so can the nine parts of speech, of geography, or reading, or writing, but we presume that an essential part of elementary teaching includes morals-" the difference between right and wrong, honesty and dishonesty, truth and falsehood, vice and virtue, good and bad, courage and cowardice, life and death. There is no occasion to teach child- ren in elementary schools the existing variations in interpretations of relig- ion, whether Christian or Pagan, but we fail to see how truth, or honesty, or any other ethical principle, can be imparted without teaching religion; and, in this country, without Bible teaching. An old writer says that the completeness and consistency of its morality is the peculiar praise of the ethics which the Bible has taught. 'In other lands other religions have other Holy Books. That Roman Catholics, or Conformists, or Nonconformists should seek to eject the Bible and its teaching from elementary schools is one of the hard things to understand in the religious world. We believe that religion in its highest and grandest aspects can be taught in elementary schools, just as the highest and grandest poetry can be taught, but it may not be possible to teach the children in elementary schools to make either poetry or religions, and it may not be wise to attempt in elementary schools to classify either different kinds of poetry or different kinds of religion. The great and grand and essential features of religion are, happily, com- mon to all, or almost all, the denom- inations. These features should be embodied and taught without consider- ing the differences which divide the sects. Religion cannot be cast out of schools because even Nonconform- ists cannot agree among themselves which sort of it shall be taught to children during their elementary school life. To read the speeches of the advocates of what is called secular education anyone might think that ethics and religion can be separated in elementary schools and that religion is a thing quite apart from theories of life and existence. Religion in its widest aspects is a theory of life and existence based on the Bible or on other writings, revelations, and experiences. What is called natural religion is based upon the evidences of a GOD and His qualities supplied by natural phenomena. Again, re- vealed religion is that which is based on real or supposed direct communi- cations of GOD'S will to mankind, especially the Christian religion, which is based on the revelations recorded in the Old and New Testaments. Religion it will be seen by those who give the subject thought cannot be got rid of. It may change with the advancement of knowledge, but men will always have theories of origins and destinies, of right and wrong, of life and death that is, they will always have relieT" ions, and whoever teaches what is right or wrong, or what is true or false in ethics must, in the very nature of things, teach religion. When Mr. SAUNDERS, or the Rev. JOHN OWEN, or anybody else, urges the adoption of what they call secular education in elementary schools, do they mean that there should be no elementary teaching of morals, or do they mean that morals can be taught without teaching any religion, or do they mean that morals should not be taught in elementary schools? Our contention is that the adoption of a secular system of teaching in elementary schools is abso- lutely impossible. In secondary schools and colleges, Latin, Greek, logic, and any art or science can be taught without dealing with religion, but one of the fundamental features in elementary education has to do with morals and morals have to do with religion, quIte apart, of course, from denominationalism. It is a very serious thing for the churches-we mean all the churches- that they cannot agree upon a system of religious teaching that would serve the same purpose in Wales as the Shorter Catechism serves in Scotland. The fact is that political hate is sapping the vitality of the churches and driving the people to other sources than the churches for their religious teaching. The people are weary of the strife, whether it comes from the bishops and clergy of the Established Church or from the ministers and deacons of the Nonconformist denom- inations. Religion is not dying or decaying, but the churches are losing their hold of the people and of vital truth. It is often asserted that it is religion that is decaying, but religion can no more decay than truth, or love, or virtue, or purity can decay. Theology may change-ecclesiastical definitions and arrangements may alter ceremonies may be superseded,, but religion is the life men live based on their theories of life and existence, and if the existing theories pass away other theories will take their places and devotion and sacrifice and aspiration- and noble life will be as great and as common as ever in the past. What is meant by secular education in elemen- tary schools we do not know, unless it means that children are not to be taught morals based on religion, and that is impcssible.

WORK AND WORKERS.. THE CLEARERS. FOR every description of public work it is absolutely necessary that there should be clearers. Their work is to prepare the way for whatever has to be done afterwards, whether it be sowing, or building, or making. There can be no sowing, or reaping, oE ploughing until the clearers—some- times called forerunners—have pre- pared the way, often by violent methods. When the harvests are ripe the sowers may be remembered, and even the ploughers, but who thinks of the clearers, those who first made the harvests possible, or, at any rate, did rough and often dangerous pioneer work for those who were to follo^ them? Hard things are almost always said of clearers wherever they are found. They are called iconoclasts, wreckers* destroyers, rebels, revolutionaries. l