By the Education
Act of 1889, a complete system of secondary schools, under popular
control, was established. Two of the endowed schools still remain--
Brecon, founded by the religionists of the Reformation, and
Llandovery, the Welsh school founded by a patriot of modern times.
It was principally for the ministry of religion that secondary
schools and colleges were first established. Schools were founded in
many districts, and important colleges at Lampeter (degree-granting),
Carmarthen, Brecon, Bala, Trevecca, Pontypool, Llangollen,
Haverfordwest. Many of these have a long history.
Higher education had been the dream of many centuries. Owen
Glendower had thought of establishing two new universities at the
beginning of the period of the Revival of Letters; among his
supporters were many of the Welsh students who led in the great
faction fights of mediaeval Oxford. Oliver Cromwell and Richard
Baxter had thought of Welsh higher education. But nothing was done.
In the eighteenth century, and in the nineteenth until 1870, the Test
Act shut the doors of the old Universities to most Welshmen; the new
University of London did not teach, it only examined; the Scotch
Universities, to which Welsh students crowded, were very far.
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