Technical School Prize Distribution, Newport,
December 3rd, 1902.
Sir William Preece has said that there were five new elements discovered within the last century. There were others undiscovered, and it only remained for some student to discover one of them to make himself famous, and, like Xenophon, return to find his name writ large on the walls of his native town. A celebrated poet once declared—
"You can live without stars;
You can live without books,
But civilized man
Cannot live without cooks."
Some people may be able to live without books and only with cooks. But without science and books we should not have had our Empire. Books and science help us to keep up the Empire. It is for these reasons that I do what I can to encourage technical and scientific education.
School of Science and Art Prize Distribution,
December 4th, 1901.
You can be quite certain that no hooligan ever attended an art school. The intelligence and refinement of manners brought about by the study of sculpture, painting, and architecture have more to do with the stopping of drunkenness than any other teaching you could think of.... The charm of these art schools for me lies in the fact that we are always expecting something great, just as a fisherman at a little brook, where he has never caught anything much larger than his little finger, is always expecting to hook some big monster. In these art schools I am always expecting some great artist or sculptor turned out—somebody from Newport Schools—not only a credit to himself but to any town, somebody who will become a second Millais or a great sculptor.
Newport has improved a good deal of late years, and I am sure the study of painting and architecture has had much to do with it. In looking over some old papers in the Tredegar archives the other day, I came across a description by two people who passed from Cardiff through Newport about 100 years ago. They said: "We went over a nasty, muddy river, on an old rotten wooden bridge, shocking to look at and dangerous to pass over. On the whole this is a nasty old town."
School of Science and Art Prize Distribution,
December 5th, 1900.
Sir John Gorst has made reference to the indisposition of the territorial aristocracy to encourage high intellectual attainment. I think "territorial aristocracy" is rather an undefinable term, and perhaps school children will be asked what it is. I do not think that those who own land are as a class opposed to high intellectual attainment. The County Councils to some extent are representative of territorial aristocracy, and 41 of the 49 County Councils of England and Wales have agreed to spend the whole of the Government grant in education. That is a sign that the territorial aristocracy are not averse to intellectual attainment.
Perhaps Colonel Wallis will ask some of the children in the school what the meaning of "territorial aristocracy" is. I read that when a child was asked what the meaning of the word Yankee was, the reply was that it was an animal bred in Yorkshire.