Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/142

 the revival of political nationality is so willing, unselfish and generous that no reformer need despair. Those who know rural Wales can point to a most marked and salutary improvement in the tone and intelligence of many a whole district by the initiative and strenuousness of a school-master or a minister or 2 local leader. Mr. John Morley not long ago said that we can only be sure of advancing all kinds of knowledge and developing our national life in all its plenitude and variety on condition of multiplying local centres both of secondary and higher education and encouraging each of them to fight its own battle and do its work in its own way." But it seems to me that there is one special and pressing duty to be performed by those who are interested in the social life of rural Wales. It is the improvement of the housing, increasing the opportunities of farm servants, and the brightening of village life. Mr. Lleufer Thomas reports that in the greater part of Welsh Wales the servants who are lodged on the farm premises are put to sleep in an