ABSTRACT
Wales was becoming what may well have been the most modern society in Europe; and the economic and technological arrangements of this new world opened the way for new forms of politics, propaganda and communication. From the 1830s, the Welsh were influenced by the most advanced intellectual currents of contemporary Europe, idealism, nationalism, liberalism, and these were disseminated by a vigorous new press. It was the issue of education which most firmly united the nonconformist cause with national and linguistic issues. As throughout the whole of Britain, religious control of education was a great controversy in mid-century. 'National' schools looked to the established Church, while 'British' schools offered non-denominational education of a sort acceptable to the dissenters, who provided much of their support. Traditional Welsh music had been linked to the aristocratic culture of the bards. The Methodist triumph was accompanied by extensive work in hymn-writing, some execrable, but much of literary quality.
