1922.] 



A Village History Exhibition. 



617 



A limited number of entrance scholarships are awarded to 

 pupils from Carnarvonshire who propose attending courses at 

 the school, and also leaving scholarships on the result of an 

 examination held at the end of each course, to enable pupils to 

 proceed to one of the University Colleges, or to some recognised 

 centre for advanced dairy instruction. 



* * ^ * * 



A VILLAGE HISTORY EXHIBITION 

 AS AN EDUCATIONAL FACTOR: 



AN EXAMPLE FEOM THE WEALD OF KENT. 



Gtjy Ewing, J. p., F.S.L, 



Member of the Kent C.C. 



The unit of national patriotism is surely the parish. The 

 parish, the county, the country — these are the steps. This is 

 clearly recognized by the promoters of one great movement which 

 is directed solely to the improvement of the conditions of country 

 life. The Village Clubs Association, already a great organiza- 

 tion in this country, and one recently and eagerly copied by the 

 French, realizes that the village is a self-contained unit of the 

 countryside, and, better still, it reahzes that while the villagers 

 want clubs, they want clubs like gentlemen's clubs, where the 

 members elect their own committees and frame their own rules, 

 where they trust one another to behave properly and deal with 

 offenders themselves. A club, under the Association's constitu- 

 tion is to be a headquarters for all village activities, and the 

 centre for all schemes of recreation and im^provement. Improve- 

 ment is asked for by the villagers, but it must be tactfully 

 supplied. Lectures suggest high-brows and long words, 

 addresses are suspected as inspired by " causes." 



An experiment in what is, at any rate in Kent, a new line has 

 recently been tried, which seems to have been wholly successful. 

 The promoter, forced bv years to have a good deal of leisure, 

 occupied himself with a study of the records of an ancient parish 

 in the Weald of Kent. The Registers, dating from 1566, com- 

 plete with the exception of two years, he transcribed, and a 

 valuable account book of the Parish Officers from 1599 to 1714 

 he analyzed. Various other documents, including ancient deeds 

 and the admirable publications of the Kent Archaeological Society, 

 yielded much interesting information, incidentally showing th^.t 

 some of the families have been settled in the parish since the 



