Page:Ashorthistoryofwales.djvu/136

114 was no demand for them, but on account of a dispute about their endowments in 1779, eighteen years after Griffith Jones' death. They were followed by voluntary schools, very often kept by illiterate teachers. Between 1846 and 1848 two organisations—the Welsh Education Committee and the Cambrian Society were formed; and they developed, respectively, the national schools and the British schools. After the Education Act of 1870, the schools became voluntary or Board; education gradually became compulsory and free; and in 1902 an attempt was made to give the whole system a unity and to connect it with the ordinary system of local government.

The training of teachers became a matter of the highest importance. In 1846 a college for this purpose was established at Brecon, and then removed to Swansea. From 1848 to 1862, colleges were established at Carmarthen, Carnarvon, and Bangor.

The history of secondary education is longer. It was served, after the dissolution of the monasteries, by endowed schools—like that of the Friars at Bangor and by proprietary schools. By the Education Act of 1889, a complete system of secondary schools, under popular control, was established. Two