diving into these parliamentary folios quite at hazard, and fishing up the first returns that meet our eye: they will give some idea of the inspectors' skill, and of the condition of the schools. Mr Lingen reports as follows of a school in the parish of Llangwnnor, Carmarthenshire. "I visited this school on the 24th of November; it is held in a ruinous hovel of the most squalid and miserable character, which was originally erected by the parish, but apparently by encroachment. On Sunday the Calvinistic Methodists hold a school in it; the floor is of bare earth, full of deep holes; the windows are all broken; a tattered partition of lath and plaster divides it into two unequal portions; in the larger were a few wretched benches, and a small desk for the master in one corner; in the lesser was an old door with the hasp still upon it, laid crossways upon two benches, about half a yard high, to serve for a writing-desk! Such of the scholars as write retire in pairs to this part of the room, and kneel on the ground while they write. On the floor was a heap of loose coal, and a litter of straw, paper, and all kinds of rubbish. The vicar's son informed me that he had seen eighty children in this hut. In summer the heat of it is said to be suffocating; and no wonder. "The master appeared a pains-taking and amiable man, and had a very good character given of him. He had been disabled from following his trade (that of a carpenter) by an accident. He was but indifferently acquainted with English; one of the copies set by him was 'The Jews slain Christ.' I stood by while he heard two classes--one of two little girls, and another of three little boys and a girl--read. The two first read an account of our Lord's temptation; the master asked them to spell a few words, which they did, and then to give the Welsh equivalents for several English words, which they also did; he asked no other questions. The other class read small sentences containing a repetition of the same word, _e. g._, 'The bad do sin--wo to the bad--the bad do lie,' &c. They were utterly unable to turn such sentences into Welsh; they knew the letters (for they could point to particular words when required,) and they knew to some extent the English sound of them; they knew also the meaning of the single words (for they could give the Welsh equivalents,) but they had no idea of the sentence. With them, therefore, English reading must be (at best) a mere string of words, connected only by juxtaposition." Mr. Symons gives the following report of a school at Llanfihangel Creiddyn, in Cardiganshire.