"It (the English language) is gaining ground in the border counties, but not so fast as Englishmen are apt to suppose. Very few pulpits or Sunday-schools have changed languages within the memory of man. Until that is done, the English, however employed in ordinary matters of business, can have little effect on the formation of character. As to the desirableness of its being better taught, without entering on considerations of commerce or general literature, confessedly important as they are, perhaps you will forgive my taking an extract from the address published by the Llandovery conference" [from which the following passage may be cited]:--"'Hallowed by religion and rich with the magic of genius and associations of home, it (the Welsh language) cannot be otherwise than dear to our hearts. It has done good service in its day, and the sooner that service is acknowledged, the better for all parties concerned. If die it must, let it die fairly, peacefully, and reputably. Attached to it as we are, few would wish to postpone its euthanasy. But no sacrifice would be deemed too great to prevent its being murdered. At the best, the vanishing for ever of a language which has been spoken for thousands of years is a deeply touching event. There is a melancholy grandeur in the very idea, to which even its bitterest enemies cannot be wholly insensible. What, then, must the actual fact be to those who have worshipped and loved in its accents from the earliest hours of childhood, and all whose fondest recollections and hopes are bound up in its existence?'" Mr Johnson, the third inspector, publishes a most curious list of all the books now circulating in the Welsh language. They are only 405 in number, and out of these 309 relate to religion or poetry, 50 to scientific subjects, and only the remaining 46 to general subjects. What can be done for the education of a people with such a literature? Evidently nothing, until one of these two contingencies shall take place: either that the people forsake their own language, and adopt English exclusively, or that a very considerable number of the best elementary and educational books in the English language be translated into Welsh, and the people taught in them. Neither of which contingencies are likely to fall out for many generations yet to come; though the latter is clearly possible and desirable; and the former not only impossible except in the lapse of ages, but also, for reasons that we shall advert to hereafter, highly to be deprecated even if it lay within the limits of feasibility.