Page:Speeches and addresses by the late Thomas E Ellis M P.pdf/86

 encourage and develope a national and characteristic Welsh style.

It may be asked whether the establishment of a School of Architecture in a Welsh University, with its professorships and its lectures and its degrees would be a step fruitful of good? I can only reply to that question by reference to experience. Consider the condition and prospects of Welsh literature 50 years ago. There was considerable zeal and some knowledge, but no real research, no scientific guidance, no recognised School of Celtic Study. In 1838 and 1839, benefitting by the labour of Tegid, Lady Charlotte Guest published at Llandovery that great treasure-house of Medieval Welsh literature, the Mabinogion. Among those who were fascinated by this treasure was Mr. Matthew Arnold. When elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford, he chose for his subject Celtic Literature. In those remarkable Lectures, Mr. Matthew valuable and Arnold said that Oxford's most beneficent message to Wales and Ireland would be the establishment in that ancient University of Professorship of Celtic.