The indirect effects of Nonconformity were, in their own way, as important as the direct. The Welshman, hitherto so careless and docile in his politics, became thoughtful and independent, having accustomed himself to government by discussion and voting in his chapel. He had learned to read in the Sunday School; and it was not long before he added to his Bible and his commentary a newspaper and a literary and political magazine. Every chapel would have its Literary Society; and by that means new ideas in poetry and music, in science and in philosophy would slowly be disseminated among the people. A modern scholar probably did not go too far when he declared that "Nonconformity found Wales derelict; it has reared up a new nation. It found Wales pagan; it has made her one of the most religious countries in the world. It found Wales ignorant; it has so stimulated her energies that by to-day Welshmen, largely by their own self-sacrifice, have provided for themselves the most complete educational system in Europe." {218} CHAPTER XIII THE DAWN The new spirit which began to manifest itself in Wales in the eighteenth century took various forms. Of these, by far the most important was religion, and with that we have already dealt. The other forms were education, industrialism, politics, and literature; and among these, education claims the first place. It is impossible to make any clear distinction between religion and education; for the chapel, by its Sunday School, its Literary Society, its Bible Class, and its preaching was, for many years, a far more important agent of education than any school or college. Again it is not easy to determine whether that peculiarly Welsh institution, the Eisteddfod, belongs more properly to the domain of education, or to that of literature and art.