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Photo by Mr Baldwyn Rowlands, Post Office, Machynlleth.

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THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENGA

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

THE ROYAL VISIT TO WALES.

INSTALLATION OF THE PRINCE OF WALES AS CHANCELLOR OF THE WELSH UNIVERSITY.

MR GLADSTONE AT ABERYSTWYTH.

The Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Princess of Wales and their Royal Highnesses' daughters, the Princesses Victoria and Maud, left London on Thurslay, for Plas Machynlleth, the residence of the Dowager Marchioness of Londonderry. The occasion of the visit, the installation of his Royal Highness at Aberystwyth as the first Chancellor of the University of Wales, has excited great interest, especially in Montgomeryshire and Cardiganshire, and for many weeks in Machynlleth and Aberystwyth committees have been actively preparing to give the visitors a loyal and hearty welcome.

When the question arose, who should be the first Chancellor of the new University, everybody thought of the Prince, and he was elected without opposition; and when the place of installation was discussed, Aberystwyth was chosen, as the seat of the oldest University College, and as the birthplace, in a sense, of the system of higher education in Wales. It is now twenty-four years ago since the College, which had long been the dream of patriotic Welshmen, was opened at Aberystwyth, on the 9th of December, 1872, and for some years it was the only University College in Wales. More than two centuries before that time Richard Baxter had written to his friend John Lewis "about a College, with academicall privileges for Wales," and "conceived Shrewsbury the only fitt place in many respects"; and it is an interesting fact that the Court of the University of Wales now finds Shrewsbury the fittest place to meet in. Nor was the movement in Baxter's time the first of the kind, for it is recorded that as early as the days of Owain Glyndwr the thoughts of men of light and leading turned to something in the shape of a Welsh University, which has only taken form now, in the days of the Victorian renascence in Wales.

Eleven years after the opening of the College at Aberystwyth the South Wales University College was opened at Cardiff, in Otober, 1883, and the North Wales University College at Bangor, opened in 1884, completed the number of the University Colleges of Wales. When the College was opened at Aberystwyth about twenty students presented themselves; the number now in the three colleges is made up of 219 men and 152 women at Aberystwyth, 133 men and 61 women at Bangor, and 256 men and 139 women at Cardiff; and it is a matter for great congratulation that so many of the students are women.

The leaders of the education movement in Wales have been wise enough to encourage the attendance of women as much as men, and they must feel peculiar satisfaction at the remarkable success of their efforts at Aberystwyth, where the Women's Hostel, opened by the Princess of Wales, is under the excellent control of Miss Carpenter. The equal treatment of the sexes is carried into the Charter of the University, in which no distinction

of any kind is made, and there is no reason why at some future day the Chancellor should not be a

woman.

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The opening of the University Colleges made the want of secondary schools more acutely felt in Wales, for if the colleges were to be something more than superior schools provision must be made to prepare a large supply of Welsh students. The same determination which had brought the colleges into existence soon succeeded in setting up a system of Intermediate Education, in which Wales had the rare distinction of taking precedence England. In August, 1889, the Welsh Intermediate Education Bill received the royal assent; in August, 1893, the nemorial stone of the first Welsh Intermediate School was laid at Aberdare, the ceremony being appropriately performed by one to whom Wales owes a deep debt of obligation in the matter of education, the late Lord Aberdare; and at the present time a large number of intermediate schools are in existence in Wales.

The same year which witnessed the beginning of the first intermediate school saw also the crowning of the edifice of Welsh education, for on the 23rd of November in that year the Charter of the University of Wales was passed by the Queen in Council. A few weeks later it was announced that the Treasury had granted £3,000 to the University for the coming year; and it may be said that Wales, after long neglect, has had less reason to complain of late of the liberality of the Government. The Colleges have received the financial assistance which they needed so much, and which was peculiarly deserved in a country where the great mass of the people have generously contributed to provide the means of higher education, and there is now in Wales a more complete system of education than is to be found in some countries of much greater consequence in the world.

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The Prime Minister of the day, Lord Rosebery, described the first meeting of the Court of the University, over which he presided, at the Privy Council Chamber, Whitehall, on the 6th of April, 1894, as a great occasion in the history of the Principality," and he happily pictured character of the new University. "It will not be a place," he said, to which men of wealth will come, where they may put the final polish to a leisurely course of education fastidiously gone through, but it will be a place where the son of the peasant or the farmer or the workman may come up and grasp with hard or even horny hand the weapons with which he means to carve out his career. The students of the Welsh University, we may hope, will include all classes, but it is a great point that the University, like those of Scotland, will open its portals wide to the poorer students, and offer to them the privileges of the higher learning almost at their own doors.

At subsequent meetings of the Court the Prince of Wales, as we have said, was elected Chancellor, Dr Isambard Owen was elected Senior Deputy Chancellor, Mr Humphreys-Owen, M.P., Junior Deputy Chancellor, and Principal Viria.nu Jones of Cardiff College, Vice-Chancellor, an office in which he is succeeded, in the second year of the University's existence, by Principal Reichel of Bangor. Finally, in June, 1895, the work of the

University began, when a number of students offered themselves for the matriculation examination.

Plas Machynlleth, the residence of the Dowager Marchioness of Londonderry, the hostess of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their daughters, was formerly called Greenfields, and lies close to the town of Machynlleth. It was the residence of Lady Londonderry's father, the late Sir John Edwards, who was elected as the Liberal member for the Montgomery Boroughs in 1833, and continued to represent the constituency in the Parliaments of 1835 and 1837. Miss Mary Amelia Edwards, his only daughter and heiress, was married just fifty years ago, in August, 1846, to Viscount Seaham, afterwards Earl Vane and Marquess of Londonderry, who died in 1884. Their eldest son, the present Marquess of Londonderry, K.G., is well known in public life, and has held the distinguished position of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.

To make the celebration complete, and we may almost say unique, Mr Gladstone, on being informed that the University desired to confer upon him an honorary degree, decided to attend in person to receive it. Certainly on Mr Gladstone, if on any one, the University should confer one of its first distinctions, for it was Mr Glad stone who issued the fiat which brought the University of Wales into existence. There was a singular appropriateness, also, in the presence of Mr Gladstone at Aberystwyth as Lord Rendel's guest, for Lord Rendel was one of the most influential of the friends of Aberystwyth College, who in 1884 saved it from extinction by persuad; ing Mr Gladstone to let it share with Bangor and Cardiff in the pecuniary assistance granted by the State. Lord Rendel has other claims to take a prominent place in the high function at Aberystwyth, for the present President of Aberystwyth College introduced into the House of Commons the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, which alone would make his parliamentary career remarkable in the history of Wales.

The Prince and Princess of Wales, the Princess Victoria, and the Princess Maud left Paddington soon after one o'clock, and, stopping for a few minutes at Wolverhampton, proceeded to Shrewsbury, where, without entering the station, the train passed on the Shrewsbury and Welshpool line. At Welshpool there was a short stoppage, during which an album containing views of scenery on the line was presented to the Prince by Mr Buckley, Chairman of the Company, on behalf of the Directors, and bouquets were presented by Miss Denniss, the little daughter of the General Manager of the line, and Miss Forrester Addie.

county, presented the Prince of Wales with an address on parchment, in scroll form.

The members of the Reception Committee were drawn up in the station yard and were then presented en bloc to his Royal Highness by their Charman, Lord Henry Vane-Tempest, after which the procession was formed, and proceeded along Doll-street and Pen 'rallt-street, as far as tur Griffin, near the Londonderry Hospital.

At the Londonderry Hospital the children's choir, conducted by Mr J. Lumley, sang very sweetly "Let the hills resound," the Royal parts stopping some minutes to listen. Though the streets, which were beautifully decorated, were not crowded, their Royal Highnesses had an ethusiastic reception, and repeatedly bowed ther acknowledgments.

The carriage with the Prince and Princess of Wales was then drawn up at the Clock Tower for the presentation of an address from the town.

The PRINCE OF WALES, in reply, said-We are very much obliged for the kind invitation of our friend and your neighbour, the Marquess of Londonderry, to visit Machynlleth on this ocsion. There are numerous objects in your towa and neighbourhood calculated to arouse our pies sure and interest. Foremost amongst them your palace in which one of my predecessors in the title of Prince of Wales was crowned nearly 500 years ago. Here too King Henry VII., when Earl of Richmond, after he had landed at Milford, visited, at Mathafarn, David Lloyd, the staunch supporter of his cause, who was a direct ancestar of our hostess. We warmly concur in your recog nition of the kind and hospitable qualities which she in common with her family has illustrated in so many practical objects. We are extremely obliged for the kind reception you have given us and, on behalf of the Queen and ourselves, beg to assure you of our sincerest pleasure in having bad an opportunity to visit Machynlleth, and to find a resting place at the Plas.

After the presentation of bouquets the royal party proceeded to Plas Machynlleth.

THE INSTALLATION.

A BRILLIANT SCENE.

On Friday travelled wyth,

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morning, the Royal party by special train to Aberyst where the installation took pace in marquee arranged to comfortably st between two and three thousand spectators. Th marquee occupied most of the open space in front of the Town Hall, and three or four of the young trees which are planted in the roadway there came within the area of the marquee, and made a pretty addition to the general effect. Here a d tinguished company assembled, and about 125 Mrs Gladstone entered, led by Miss Helen Glad The Prince and Princess of Wales, with the stone, and she was enthusiastically cheered as she Princesses Victoria and Maud, were received made her way to the dais, and took a seat next to on the platform by the Marquess of Londonderry, her widowed daughter-in-law, the Hon. Mrs W Lord Henry Vane-Tempest, Lord Herbert Vane- H. Gladstone. Meantime the boo.ning of Tempest, Sir Watkin W. Wynn, Bart., and others. from the men-of-war in the bay announced th His Royal Highness, who was looking remarkably the Royal procession was on its way from the rai cheery and well, shook hands with several gentle-way station to the marquee, and a little later the men on the platform. Bouquets were presented to the Princesses, after which Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, on behalf of the public bodies of the

At Machynlleth the Royal saloon was brought up nearly opposite the booking office.

playing of the first bars of the National Anther told that the Royal procession was entering the Town Hall. The Treorky choir at once began

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