The “Welsh Not” belongs to one of the darker chapters in British educational history.
During the nineteenth century, some Welsh schools strongly discouraged children from speaking Welsh.
A pupil discovered using the language might be required to wear a small wooden plaque marked “W.N.” around the neck.
The object could then pass from child to child during the day.
If Miss Beatrice Morgan, for example, heard that another pupil had spoken Welsh, the current wearer might surrender the plaque and the next offender would be ordered to put it on.
In some accounts, whoever possessed the Welsh Not at the close of lessons faced a further punishment.
The system naturally encouraged children to report one another.
A pupil wearing the plaque as the afternoon drew towards its end had every reason to hope another classmate would accidentally utter a Welsh word.
The historical background is important.
In 1847 the notorious Reports of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of Education in Wales presented an extremely unflattering picture of Welsh society.
Welsh-speaking communities were frequently described as backward, and the use of English was promoted as an instrument of economic and social advancement.
Such attitudes cannot be separated from the wider Victorian belief in cultural uniformity.
There were, however, practical arguments advanced by parents themselves.
English was the principal language of British administration, industry and commerce. A working-class Welsh family might understandably believe that fluent English would improve a child’s prospects considerably.
The objection lies less in teaching English than in treating the child’s first language as something shameful.
A similar process occurred elsewhere.
Immigrant children in North America were often strongly encouraged to abandon the language spoken at home. Gaelic faced difficulties in Scotland. Manx declined dramatically in the Isle of Man.
By the middle years of the twentieth century attitudes had begun to change.
There was increasing recognition that bilingualism need not be an obstacle to education and might indeed be an advantage.
Efforts were being made to preserve Welsh, Gaelic and Manx rather than drive them from the classroom.
The Welsh Not therefore offers an interesting example of educational fashion moving almost completely in reverse.
What one generation regards as an obstacle, another may regard as a cultural inheritance worth saving.
It was not the only uncomfortable classroom device.
Museums and reconstructed Victorian schoolrooms preserve examples of finger restraints and posture apparatus.
Miss Gertrude Williams, a particularly strict fictional representative of the Victorian schoolmistress, might have employed devices intended to keep a fidgeting pupil’s hands still or to encourage an upright posture.
Some apparatus was genuinely intended to correct physical posture. Prolonged use could nevertheless be extremely uncomfortable.
Once again we encounter the great educational confidence of the Victorian age.
The child was expected to conform: in speech, handwriting, posture, behaviour and appearance.
The school did not ordinarily alter itself to suit the child.
The child was altered to suit the school.
By the 1960s that philosophy was being questioned with increasing confidence.
A pupil might still encounter a formidable headmistress such as Mrs Margaret Ashcroft, and nobody would mistake the modern school for a place without rules.
But the purpose of discipline was gradually changing.
The question was becoming not merely, “How do we make children obey?”
Increasingly educators were asking:
“What are we attempting to teach them by the way in which we demand obedience?”
