UC-NRLF B H 16M 3b=1 ttunn GIFT OF MICHAEL REESE ^ THOMAS AND MATTHEW ARNOLD AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH EDUCATION r THOMAS AND MATTHEW ARNOLD THEIR INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH EDUCATION SIR JOSHUA FITCH, M.A., LL.D. FOEMEELY HeE MaJESTY'S INSPECTOB OF TkAISING COLLEGES (tTNlVERsiTT NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBXER'S SONS 1897 f\TF6 , po'pyright, 1897. by Charles scribner's sons KortoooB lOrtSB . Cuihing &: Co. - Berwick «t Smith NorwooU Mam. U.S.A. INTRODUCTORY NOTE In" the Catalogue of the British Museuiik Library, there are no less than eighty-nine entries under the name of Matthew Arnold, and sixty-seven under that of his father. These entries include references to each of the several editions of their published works, whether books or pamphlets, and also to numerous tracts and essays containing criticism or comment upon those works. They do not, however, include the large num- ber of reviews and articles which occur in the periodi- cals and dictionaries of the time, and which throw light on the character and achievements of the Arnolds. Of the abundant literature with Avhich their names have thus come to be associated, much is occupied with ephemeral controversy, and with incidents little likely to interest the coming generation of readers or indeed to be wholly intelligible to them. It has seemed to me, therefore, that as both men have ex- erted a large share of influence in forming the opinion of the country on educational questions, and as their lives possess peculiar interest for those who are teachers by profession, there was room for a small volume which, without professing to furnish a new biography, or a new theory respecting either writer, should essay the modest task of bringing together so much of the teaching of both as was likely to prove of IV INTRODL'CTollV NOTE permanent value, and also to explain and justify the honourable position the Arnolds occupy in the history of public education in England and in the grateful memory of her teachers. I can claim no higher quali- fication for this duty than is implied in the facts that I have learned some of the best lessons of my life from the study of these authors ; that as a colleague in the Education Department I had many opportuni- ties of knowing Matthew Arnold's views and estimat- ing his personal influence; and that, although for different reasons, I have a genuine admiration fur both father and son. August. 1H97. CONTENTS CHAPTER I \ Difficulties of biography — How Stanley's Life of Arnold has surmounted them — Chief incidents of Arnold's life — Influences which shaped his character — Ships and warfare — Literary revival — History and poli- tics — School-boy experience — Religious doubts and difficulties — Evidential theology — His intellectual out- fit generally CHAPTER II Residence at Oxford — Arnold's friends and associates — Mari'iage and settlement at Laleham — Life as a pri- vate tutor — Studies and literary work — .Aiius and _^spiratiaus — Appointment to Rugby .... 15 CHAPTER III -Rugby and its foundation — Characteristics of ancient endowed grammar schools — Illustrations from statutes of Archbishop Grindal and Dean Colet — The theory of classical education — Milton and the Humanists — Example of an entrance examination — Arnold's schiime of instruclltm — Latin and Greek not useless, even though forgotten in later life — Evils of mechani- cal routine — Composition exercises — Versification — Objections to it — School-boy artifices for evading it — CONTENTS Construing — Bowyer of Clirist's Hospital — Transla- tion — Grammar and philology means not ends — Socratic questioning —ilfineral clianvcteristics ol Arnold's methods CHAPTER IV Language as a discipline contrasted with natural science — Knowledge of physical facts not the only science — History — Relation of Ancient and Modern History — Its claims as a school subject — Training for citizen- ship — Example of a school exercise — Niebuhr's re- searches in Roman History — Arnold's own treatment of the regal period of Rome — His love of history in- fectious — Geography — Tiioroughness in teaching — Qualifications of assistants — School organization — Relation of a head master to governing body . 52 CHAPTER V Arnold as a disciplinarian — Moral evils in school — De- scription of their danger — Mr. Welldon's picture of school life — Fagging — Luxury and idleness — Expul- sion — Religious lessons — Chapel services — School sermons — Extravagance — Home influence — Mental cultivation a religious duty — A memorable sermon — Religious exercises — Corporate life of a great school — What is Christian education — Clerical schoolmas- ters — The influence of Arnold's sermons generally — Punishments — Study of individual character — Games and athletics — 7'om linnrn's School Days — Uw^hy boys at the Universities — Bishop Percival's estimate . CHAPTER VI Arnold's extra-scholastic interests— 'Why such interests are necessary for a teacher — Foreign travel — Extracts CONTENTS from diary — Love of Nature — Intercourse with the poor needed by himself and by his pupils — University settlements and mission work in connexion with public schools — Politics — The Reform Bill — The English- man'' s Begister — The society for the diffusion of use- ful knowledge — Mechanics' Institutes — The London University — Arnold's attitude towards each of these enterprises 110 CHAPTER VII The Oxford movement — The Hampden controversy — Arnold's relation to the movement — His views as to the condition of the Church of England and of neces- sary reforms — Dean Church's estimate of Arnold's ecclesiastical position — The Broad Church — Influence of outside interests on the life of the schoolmaster — The ideal teacher — Regius Professorship of Modern History — Arnold's scheme of lectures — Its partial fulfilment — His early death — Conjectures as to what might have been had he lived — Mr. Forster and the Education Act — Testimonies of Dean Boyle and of the Times 135 CHAPTER VIII Matthew Arnold — The materials for his biography — His wishes — The main facts of his life — His letters — His character — His inspectorship — Distaste for official routine — His relations to managers -^ A school mana- ger's recollections — The office of a School Inspector — Its opportunities of influence — The Revised Code — Arnold's methods of work — Testimony of his assist- ant 157 CONTENTS CIIAI'TEK IX Arnold as an officer of the Education Department — His official reports — Inspection and examination — Forma- tive studies — Learning of poetry — Grammar — Latin and French in the primary school — Science teaching &nd Natnrkunde — Distrust of pedagogic rules — Gen- eral aim and scope of an elementary school — The teacher's personal cultivation — Religious instruction — The Bible in the common school — Arnold's attempt at a school reading-book with extracts from Isaiah — The failure of this attempt ClIAl'TKK X Matthew Arnold's employment in foreign countries — The Newcastle Commission of 1850 — The Schools In- quiry Commission of 1805 — Special report to the Edu- cation Departmint, 1885 — Democracy — Relation of the State to voluntary action in France and in England — Why Germany interested Arnold less than France — Advantages of State action — The religious difficulty in France — Why a purely secular system became inevi- table in tliat country — A French Eton — Comparison with tlie English Eton — Kiid.>wim'iits uixltr French law — Latin and Greek as taught in French Lyc^es — Entrance scholarships — Leaving examinations — In- struction in civic life and duties -*X) CHAPTER XI Arnold's views of English society — Tlif three cla-sses, the Barbarians, the Philistines, the Populace — Char- acteristics of the Philistine or middle class — Why his diagnosis, though true in the main, was inadequate — The want of culture among Nonconformists — Tlie tlisa- bilitics uiidtT wliicli tlicv had siiffcrt'd — A stmni-t — PAGE Illustration of the difference between public schools and private " academies " — Schools for special trades, sects, or professions — Hymns — Effects of his polemic in favour of a system of secondary instruction . . 220 CHAPTER XII Arnold as a literary critic, a humorist, and as a poet — Criticism and its functions — Comparison with Sainte Beuve — Examples of his critical judgments — Homer, Pope, and Dryden, Byron, Wordsworth, Burke, Ten- nyson, Charlotte Bronte, and Macaulay — The gift of humour indispensable to a critic — English newspapers — The Tele fir apli and the Times — His American ex- periences — His personal charm — Tributes of Mr. John Morley, Aiagustine Birrell, and William Watson — Poems — Arnold's place as a poet — Examples of his poems — General estimate of his own and his father's services to English education — Bugby Chapel .ITNIVERSITT, THOMAS AND MATTHEW ARNOLD CHAPTER 1 '•—'.- Difficulties of biography — How Stanley's Life of Arnold has sur- mounted them — Chief incidents of Arnold's life — Influences which shaped his character — Ships and warfare — Literary re- vival — History and politics — School-boy experience — Religious doubts and difficulties — Evidential theology — His intellectual outfit generally Thomas Arnold has had the good fortune to be the subject of one of the best biographies in our language. In the history of English literature, when one comes to enumerate the most notable biographies which have been produced, it will be found that the number of such books entitled to the highest rank as works of art is not large. It is easy to record the dates and parentage, the public employments, the events and movements of a man's outward life, to give a selection from his letters and to add a critical account of his principal writings. But it is not easy to present a true portraiture of the hero's character, to acquire a keen insight into the motive forces of his life, to distinguish the significant from the insig- nificant, the typical from the exceptional incidents in his career, to look at him from without, and also to understand him from within, and to know B 1 2 THOMAS ARNOLD with what eyes he saw the worhl around liiin, and in what spirit he encountered the problems it pre- sented. "I have remarked," says Carlyle, "that a true delineation of the smallest man, and his scene of pilgrimage through life, is capable of interesting the greatest man; and that all men are to an unspeakable degree brothers, each man's life a strange emblem of every man's, and that human portraits faithfully drawn are of all pictures the welcomest on human walls."* Of English books which have best fulfilled these conditions Bacon's Henry VIL, Walton's Lives, Johnson's Lives, Bos- well's Johnson, Cai'lyle's Life of Sterling, Tre- velyan's Life of Macaulay, !Mr. John Morley's Rousseau and Walpole are among the best. But Dean Stanley's Life and Correspondence of Dr. Arnold will ever be entitled to a high rank, not only for the vividness of its presentation of a striking character and the circumstances of a life, but also for the skill Avith which relevant and irrelevant facts are discriminated, and for the profound sympathy of tlie author with its subject. The book will long remain to the student of tlie social, religious, and p«ditical history of the former half of the nineteenth century a treasury of valuable material, because it })ortrays in clear outline a central figure round which clustered some of the most n-UKirkable ])ersonages and inci- dents of a stirring and eventful period. Stanley's book is a large one and deals necessarily with nuich ephemeral controversy, religious and i>olitical, wliich 1 Ciirlyle's Life of Sterliuy, Cliai). 1. STANLEY'S LIFE OF ARNOLD 3 may possibly not excite any strong interest in the present generation of readers. It is to be feared that these facts may have the effect of concealing from those readers much that is of permanent value in Arnold's history and performance. A smaller volume, The Life of Dr. Arnold, by Miss Emma J. Worboise, is also distinguished by care and sympathy, by a reverent and yet candid estimate of character, and especially by the emphasis with which she dwells on the religious side of Arnold's nature and influ- ence. It is not in the vain hope of adding new material to the story which has twice been so well told, or with a view to present any new theory by which to interpret the significance of Arnold's career, that the present book is written, but simply in order to bring into special prominence those features of his own character and that of his more gifted son Matthew, which possess special interest and are likely to be of permanent value to the pro- fessional teacher. Of his personal history during the forty-seven years in which he lived, a brief outline will here suffice. He was born in 1795, at West Cowes in the Isle of Wight, the son of a collector of customs, who died suddenly when the boy was five years old, from the same malady — angina pectoris — which afterwards proved fatal to himself. He owed much of his early education to the pious care of his mother, and more to the wisdom and unfailing devotion of his aunt, Miss Delafield, towards whom he through life evinced the strongest affection and gratitude. From 1803 to 4 THOMAS ARNOLD ISO? he was a pupil in the endowed school at Warmin- ster, and was then transferred to Winchester. In ISll, at the age of sixteen, he was entered at Oxford as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Three years later he took his degree, and gained a First Class in Classics. In 1815 he was elected a Fellow of Oriel; in 1815 he won the Chancellor's pri;j^for Tirttiin, nnd in 1817 tliaiL.ibx_aai_Eaiglish_£asay- He continued in the University until 1820 at work as a tutor, having been ordained two years earlier. He then left Oxford and took a curacy at Lalehani in Surrey, married Mary Penrose, and during the next eight years was chiefly occupied in historical studies and in preparing private jiupils for the University. In 1828 he accepted the Head-^Iastership of Rugby School, and continued iu that post until his sudden death in 1842. Of the influences which contributed to shape his character in early life, perhaps the most potent, next to those of a happy, intelligent, well-ordered home, were the political and military events Avhich at a crisis of extraordinary interest in English history, were well calculated to fire the imagination and call forth the latent ])atriotism of a young boy. He was but a little child when Pitt was at the zenith of his power, and " Launched that thunderbolt of war On Egypt, Hafnia, Tnifalgar," when Nelson's victories filled all English hearts with exultation, when the name of Buonaparte was so asso- EARLY TRAINING 5 ciated with terror and alarm that nurses used to frighten chiklren with the threat that he was com- ing; and when every gazette brought exciting news of battle by field or at sea. The news of Trafalgar to a boy of ten, and of Corunna four years later, and the succession of peninsular victories ending at Vittoria in 1813, could not fail to make an enduring impression on the mind of an open-hearted, thought- ful lad, habitually predisposed to look upon human history rather as the scene of action and of noble endeavour than in any other light. Years after, he looked back and counted his early experience of ships and warfare as among the forma- tive influences of his life. ^"More than half my boys," he said in 1829, "never saw the sea and never were in London, and it is surprising how the first of these disadvantages interferes with their understand- ing much of the ancient poetry. Brought up myself in the Isle of Wight, amidst the bustle of soldiers and sailors, and familiar from a child with boats and ships and the flags of half Europe, which gave me an instinctive acquaintance with geography, I quite marvel to find in what a state of ignorance boys are at seventeen or eighteen who have lived all their days in inland parishes or small country towns." ^ To such experience, and to the events of the great war, may be attributed the zest with which he after- wards described the wars of Greece and of Rome, the keen interest with which he traced with Livy the march of Hannibal over the Alps, or described the 1 Letter XII. 6 TIKJMAS AUNOLI) battle of ^Egospotamos or Salauiis. Dt)\vn to the time when he went to Oxford, all English politics were wai-like. Great questions of domestic politics, such as the emancipation of the Catholics, and social and electoral reform, Avere for the time in abeyance, or they would probably have had, even at that early date, profound interest for him. If the combative instinct was strongly manifest in him through life, so that it is hardly too much to say that in one sense he was a "man of war from his youth," the fact may be partly ascribed to the fierce national rivalries and contests in the midst of which his childhood was passed, and to the strong impulse which those con- tests gave to his youthful patriotism. Nor could the changed aspect of the literary hori- zon be without its influence on a young boy who was from the first a voracious reader, as sensitive to the intellectual as to the political movements of his time. The taste for the classical poetry of Pope and Dryden had declined; Cowper, Thomson, and Crabbe had sought the subjects of their verse in the incidents of familiar life, had evinced a keener sense of the beauties of outward nature, had revolted against established tradition, and had prepared the way for a revival of the healthy romanticism, which was begin- ning to find a fuller expression in Coleridge, Scott, Wordsworth, and Southey, and was afterwards to achieve some of its greatest triumphs in Tennyson and Browning. But although ballad poetry and Pope's Homer had ever a certain fascination for him, chiefly because of the incidental liglit it threw on his- BOOKS AND STUDIES 7 tory, it was not from the poets, ancient or modern, that he derived the main inspiration of his life. History and politica l philosopji Y always had stronger attrac- tions for hini. Gibbon and Burke, JMitford, Eussell, and Priestley, Thucydides and Livy, Herodotus and Xenophon, were eagerly read by him at a very early age, and had a larger share than tragedians or poets in the direction of his aims and the formation of his tastes and character. "Every man," says Coleridge, " is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. The one considers reason a quality or attribute, the other con- siders it a power." We may well hesitate to accept Coleridge's rough classification of mankind as ex- haustive; but in so far as the distinction on which he insists is real, it is well illustrated in Arnold's mind and character. He was Aristotelian, mainly in the sense in which he sought to make all speculative enquiry subservient to the solution of practical prob- lems. To the last he had a peculiar reverence and affection for the "dear old Stagja-ite," and when the time came for him to send his sons to the University, he was led to prefer Oxford, because there Aristotle was held in higher esteem and Avas more likely to be well studied than at the sister University. The parent of science, properly so called, the master of criticism, and in one sense the founder of formal logic, Aristotle was to Arnold something more than all this ; he was the guide to right methods of study, the seer who beheld the larger problems of life, of society, and of polity in their true perspective, and the intrepid and earnest seeker after truth. Mr. Justice 8 THOMAS ARNOLD Coleridge, in liis interesting reminiscences of Arnold as an undergradnate at Corpus, remarks, " He was so imbued with Aristotle's language and ideas that in earnest and unreserved conversation or in writing, his train of thoughts was so affected by the Ethics and the Rhetoric, that he cited the maxims of the Stagyrite as oracles, and his language was quaintly and easily pointed with phrases from him. I never knew a man who made such familiar, even fond, use of an author; it is scarcely too much to say that he spoke of him as of one intimately and affectionately known and valued." * For one who wa s destine d many years later to exert so large an influence on the public ' schools of Eng- land, it was a happy and appropriate circumstance that his own early education was obtained at public schools and largely influenced by the traditions of venerable endowments. From the age of eight to nearly twelve, he was at Warminster, one of the minor grammar schools, founded early in the eigh- teenth century; and thenceforward, until the age of sixteen, he was a scholar at Winchester. There is 1 Stanley's Life and Correapondence. 2 This title, " Public Schools," is one which may easily he misin- terpreted by American readers, since in their country it connotes the ordinary common and municipal school, which is acccssililc to all classes, and in which instruction of tiie most elementary char- acter is given. But in England the common use of the name is limited to ten or fifteen schools of the highest rank and the closest relation to the Universities, and for the most part of ancient and historic foundation, — Eton, Harrow, Winchester, AVest minster, St. Paul's, Charterhouse, Merchant Taylor's, Kughy, and Shrewsbury being the most famous examples of the " Public School " type. SCHOOL-BOY LIFE 9 little to be recorded respecting his residence at the former of these schools, except that he alwa3's spoke gratefully of the obligations he owed to iDr. Griffiths, the head master. But his residence at Winchester had a far larger share in determining the future development of his tastes and the aims of his life. The oldest, nearly the richest, and in many respects the most illustrious, of the public schools of England, Winchester is specially fortunate, not only in its situation and its surroundings, but in its history and traditions. The memory of William of Wykeham, scholar, architect, bishop, and benefactor, the asso- ciation of the College with the noble Cathedral, the nave of which he had designed, and with New Col- lege, Oxford, also a monument of his genius and his munificence, the long roll of famous pupils, which in the course of more than four centuries has contained the names of Chichele, of Warham, Waynflete, of Ken, and of South among ecclesiastics; of Cole, Grocyn, and Udal among scholars; and of Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Henry Wotton, Otway, Young, Collins, and Warton among other notable men in literature or in public life, — all combined to strengthen in him that feeling of reverence for what is ancient and noble, and that pride in a great intellectual inheri- tance, which form such potent factors in the educa- tion of a youth, especially of one filled with ardour and sensibility, and with a desire to do something worthy of his spiritual ancestry. In the massive architecture of the Cathedral, in its solemn mediae- val surroundings, in the neighbouring hospital of 10 TIIDMAS AKNOLl) Saint Cross, and in tlic buildings of the ancient Col- lege itself, there was nmch to kindle the imagination of one who loved history ; and in the fair and pleas- ant country round, watered by tlie Itchen, and beau- tified by shady elms, there was room for delightful rambles, scope for boyish enterprise, and much to encourage that lo ve of nature which aft erwards showe d itself to be one of his healthiest cha racteris- tics, and which exercised a purifying influence on tlie whole. pX iii» +iTe. To the last he was a loyal Wykehamist, proud of his association with AVinches- ter, grateful to the memory of Goddard and Cabell, who had been head masters during his stay, and steadfastly attached to the friends Avhom he had made while at school. No estimate of the intellectual and moral equip- ment with which he embarked on the voyage of active life would be complete if it did not take into account the deep seriousness of his character, his strong interest in religious questions, and his high sense of duty and of human responsibilit}'. Sir John Coleridge's letter, already quoted, contains a striking record of the impression he made on tliat acute observer and sympathetic friend, when he was an undergraduate at Corpus, and afterwards Fellow of Oriel. "His was an anxiously inquisitive mind, a scnipultnisly conscientious heart : his enquiries i)rcviously to his talcing orders led him on to distressing doubts on certain jioints in the Articles ; these were not low nor rationalistic in their tendency according to the bad sense of that term, there RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 11 was uo indisposition in him to believe merely because the Article transcended his reason : he doubted the proof and the interpretation of the textual authority. His state was very painful, and I tlunk morbid, for I remarked that the two occasions on which I was privy to the distress were precisely those in which to doubt was against his dearest schemes of worldly happiness ; and the consciousness of this seemed to make him distrustful of the arguments which were intended to lead his mind to acquiescence." A friend to whose counsel lie had recourse at this crisis, and who had advised him to pause in his enquiries, to seek earnestly for further help and light from above, and meanwhile to turn himself more strongly than ever to the practical duties of life, wrote of him in 1819: "It is a defect of A.'s mind that he cannot get rid of a certain feeling of objections, and particularly when, as he fancies the bias is so strong upon him to decide one way from interest : he scniples doing what I advise him, which is to put down the objections by main force whenever they arise in his mind ; fearful that in so doing, he shall be vio- lating his conscience for a maintenance sake." It may well be doubted whether the latter part of this friendly prescription was the best calculated to heal the hurt of a sensitive conscience. But the advice to busy himself in practical work proved very helpful. Little by little, though after severe trials, " He fought his doubts and gathered strength, He W'Ould not make his judgment blind ; He faced the spectres of the mind — And laid them : thus he came at length THOMAS ARNOLD " To find a stronger faith liis own, And power w:i.s with him in tiio night AVhich makes tlie (hirkncss and the light And dwells not in the light alone." * Though doubt was characteristic of him, and was from the nature of his mental constitution inevitable, he could not, like ]\Iontaigne, " se reposer tranquille- ment sur I'oreiller du doute." His mind was averse from suspense, and after much effort he laid hold firmly on the central truths of the Christian revela- tion, a hold never abandoned or relaxed. Perhaps in arriving at this result he was helped most by Hooker and Butler, whom to the last lie held in higher estimation than any other of the English divines, even than Jeremy Taylor, whose genius, no less than his devout aspirations after holiness, he greatly admired. He certainly owed little to Paley's evidences, or any of the colder evidential theology of the eighteenth century. Very sadly, he said in late life in reference to his youthful studies : ^ " There appears to me in the English divines a want of be- ilieving or of disbelieving anything, because it is true or false. It is a question which does not seem to occur to them." This sentence is characteristic of the impatience with which he always treated what seemed to him insincere or half-he{iili:il-ittt»^j;iJ^ts to defend the Christian faith. His passituuite desire to see clearly into the truth of things, and to brush away all hindrances and i)rejudices by whicli counsel might 1 In Menwriaiii. - St;iiilfV. l-rttcr CLII. HIS INTELLECTUAL OUTFIT 13 be darkened, alarmed the more timid and orthodox of his companions, but nevertheless led some of them to admit that one had better have Arnold's doubts than most men's certainties. Thus the environment of his early years and the mental and spiritual outfit with which he entered upon the duties of his life were in many ways hap- pily adapted to the part he was destined to play in the world. Without fortune, but with all the com- forts and shelter of a godly home, he was free from any temptation to idleness or extravagance, and \ conscious from the first that his future was to be assured only by his own strenuous effort. Without : patronage or the help of influential friends, he was j enabled to breathe the atmosphere of a renowned pub- ' lie school, and to make valuable friendships there. With tastes especially directed towards history and language, and to ethical and political problems, his studies were precisely such as had the closest rela- : tion to a profession in which the formation of character is of no less importance than the com- ' munication of knowledge. A And the fact that his religious convictions had.feen reached after dearly bought spiritual experience, helped all through life to place him in sympathy with young and earnest enquirers, to make him understand their difficulties and to qualify him for the office of a teacher and a guide/>fro bsJiOJittmaJie. iu -Uift^rettmstauces and in . the discipline jof^eaxLy^-Jife. ■ia,ijie,Jot of niany.paen. / But it is the lot of comparatively few to find in later I days such singular opportunities as Arnold enjoyed 14 THOMAS ARNOLD of turning tliis di.seipline to useful account, or to be so strongly and so early peneti-ated with a sense of the obligation which the possession of privileges entails. CHAPTER II Residence at Oxford — Arnold's friends and associates — Marriage and settlement at Laleham — Life as a private tutor — Studies and literary work — Aims and aspirations — Appointment to Rugby The period of Arnold's residence at Oxford — 1811-1820 — was one of great intellectual activity and even of unrest. It was indeed anterior to the time of Royal Commissions and of schemes for aca- demic reorganization, for the revival of the profes- soriate, or for the introduction of new systems of graduation and examination. The importunate claims of "the physical sciences for fuller recognition, either in the teaching or the examinations of the Universi- ties, had not yet been urged, and had they been put forth at the time would have met with scant sympathy, either from the most influential leaders of thought in academic circles, or from Arnold himself. He had been elected scholar at Corpus Christi College on his admission to the University; but after taking his de- gree in the first class in 1814, he became a Fellow of Oriel, and it was in this college that his chief academic friendships were formed. Dean Boyle, in his Remi- niscences, says, "Many years ago Matthew Arnold said to me that he had been very much struck, in reading again Stanley's life of his father, with the high-minded religious tone of the Corpus set, as 15 16 THOMAS ARNOLD they were called, and the great interest shown by them in literature."' Whateley, Copleston, Davison, Keble, Hawkins, and Hampden were among the Fel- lows of Oriel. Arnold obtained the Cliancellor's prize for two University essays, Latin and English, but failed to obtain the prize for verse. What are now called educational problems did not possess very great interest in such a society. The principles of political and theological science, and their applica- tion to the social problems and the moral needs of the people, were, it would seem, the dominant sub- jects of thought and discussion in the common room at Oriel. Many of the residents were, as Sir John Coleridge said : " For the most part Tories in ( 'lunch aiul State, great re- specters of things as tliey were, and not very tolerant of the disposition which Arnold brouglit with him to (juestion their wisdom. Many and long were the coiiHicts we had and with unequal numbers. There can be little doubt that his rather pugnacious Radicalism and his iiatred of tlie corrupt French Aristocracy cften betrayed him into intemperate speech, ami placed him out of sympatliy with many of his a.ssociates, but as he afterwards said, ' All the associations of Oxford, wliioh I loved exceedingly, blew my Jacobinism to pieces.' " And in a letter to 'Mr. Tucker - he afterwards said : " The benefits which I have received from my Oxford frien(lshii)s have been so invaluable, as relating to points of the highest importance, that it is impossible for me ever to forget them, or to cease to look on thcni as tlie greatest blessings I have ever yet enjoyed in life." 1 Keininisceiices of Dunn !'..)> li', p. IJ'.I. -' Slaiiley. Letter IV. LIFE AT LALEHAM 17 Yet it would not be right to credit Winchester and Oxford with the whole of his education. The striv- ings and controversies of the school and the Uni- versity Avere very precious parts of the discipline which helped to form his opinions and to give cour- age and force to his mode of expressing them. But experiences of another kind were needed to mature his character and to shape the course of his life, — " Impulses of deeper birth Had come to him in solitude," — or rather in the comparative solitude of Laleham, to which he betook himself in 1819. He had been ordained the year before, and he accepted a curacy in this little village, intending to take as pupils a small number of young men preparing for the Uni- versities. During the seven years succeeding his mar- riage in 1820 he lived in retirement, busy first with his pupils, and afterwards with a Lexicon to Thucydides and with Greek and Eoman history. A pupil Avho read with him at Laleham, and resided in his house, Mr. Bonamy Price, subsequently a Rugby master, and afterwards Professor of Political Econoni}- at Oxford, testifies: "The most remarkable thing, which struck me at once on joining the Laleham circle, was the wonderful healthiness of tone and feeling which pre- vailed in it. . . . Arnold's great power as a private tutor resided in this, that he gave such an intense earnestness to life. Every pupil was made to feel that there was a work for him to do, that his happiness as well as his duty lay in doing that work well." c 18 THOMAS AKNOLD On the very attractive picture which is presented in Dean Stanley's pages of the tranquil life daring nearly nine years at Laleham, of his happy domestic sur- roundings, and of his diligent reading, it is unneces- sary here to dwell. It will suffice to say that the interval of comparative seclusion between the active and quasi-public life of the University, and the yet more formidable storm and stress wliich awaited him at Rugby, did much to strengthen his character, to give solidity to his scholarship, and to deepen his religious convictions. The charm of the country, the delights of home, the daily call of duty, and the refreshment of congenial studies gave fulness and variety to his life, and made up a peaceful and appropriate scene for "those quiet efforts of self- mastery — moral and intellectual — which so well precede in men of a certain strength the going forth to the real business of life and to the contact of good and evil." ^ He himself afterwards spoke of Laleiiani as a "place of premature rest." The arrangement which he made for the division of duty between him- self and his partner practically confined his own attention to the elder pupils; and in making it, he showed a characteristic unwillingness to undertake any duty which he did nut feel able to do well. For » example : l "Bucklaiul is luituially foii.lcr of tlio sdiiK.l aii.l is in- J clined to give it tlio greatest part of Iiis attention ; and I -I from my Oxford liabits as naturally like the other part of 1 See Edlnbiu-ijh lievicw, October, 1.S44. WORK AS A TRIVATE TUTOR 19 the business best ; and thus I have extended my time of reading with our four pupils before breakfast, from one hour to two. Not that I dislike being in the school, but quite the contrary ; still, however, I have not the experience in that sort of work, nor the perfect familiarity with my gram- mar requisite to make a good master, and I cannot teach Homer as well as my friends Herodotus and Livy, whom I am now reading I suppose for the fiftieth time." ^ The distrust of liis own power to interest boys led him to decline a friendly proposal that he should accept an assistant-mastership at Winchester. "It is a situation," he said, "which I know myself very ill-qualified to fill. ... I know pretty well what the life of a master at Winchester would be, and feel equally certain that it would be, for me, excessively disagreeable."^ This, however, was written in 1819, at the beginning of his residence at Laleham. How the experience of the following years helped to alter his estimate of his own powers and duties, and to give him the confidence needed for the main work of his life, may be judged from a few brief sentences extracted from letters written within that period: " I am now working at German in good earnest, and have got a master who comes down here to me once a week. I have read a good deal of Julius Hare's friend Niebuhr, and have found it abundantly overpay the labour of learning a new language, — to say nothing of some other very valua- ble books with which I am becoming acquainted, all pre- paratory to my Eoman History. I am going to set to work at the Coke upon Littleton of Roman Law to make myself 1 Letter to J. T. Coleridge, Nov. 29, 1819. 2 Letter to F. C. Blackstoae, Oct. 28, 1819. 20 THOMAS ARNOLD acquaintoil, if i»ossi])lc, with the temire of property ; and I think I shall apply to you for the loan of some of your books touching the Civil law, and especially Justinian's InxtitKfes. As my knowledge increases, I only get a clearer insight into my ignorance, and this excites me to do my best to remove it before I descend to the Avcnuis of the press. But I ara twice the man for labour that I have been lately, for the last year or two, because the pupils, I thank God, are going on well. I have at this moment the plea.surc of seeing three of them sitting at the round table in the drawing-room, all busily engaged about their themes. The general good etlect of their sitting with us all the evening is really very sur- " What I am doing in Greek and Roman history " (he is referring to the articles he was preparing for the Enryrlo- piedia Metropolitooks. He shall chiefly labour to make his .scholars perfect in the Latin antl Greek grammar, and to the end they niay betttM- ]ir«ifit therein, he shall exercise them in the best authors in both tongues that are meet for their capacity. Provided always that the first books of construction that they shall read, either in Latin or Greek, .shall be the smaller catechisms set forth by public authority for that jturpose in the said DEAX COLET FOUNDER OF ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL 29 tongues, which we will that they shall learu by heart, that with the knowledge of the tongues, they may also learn their duty towards God and man." Dean Colet (1509) had prescribed for his famous school at St. Paul's, ordinances which furnished a model for many of the sixteenth century foundation deeds and was fairly characteristic of the revived taste for learning which prevailed at that time. " I will that the children Icarne first above all the Caie- chizon in Englishe, and after the Accidens, that I made or some other, if any be better for the purpose, to induce children more speedily to Latin speche. And then Insti- tutum Christiani Hominis which that learned Erasmus made at my request, and the book called Cojyia of the same Erasmus. And then other authors, Christian, as Prudentius and Proha and Sedulius and Juvencus and Paptista Mantuanus, and such others as shall be thought convenient, and most to purpose unto the true Latin speche. All BarbarT/, all corruption, all Latin adulterate which ignorant blind fooles brought into this world, and with the same hath distayned and poisoned the very Roman tongue which in the time of Tully and Sallust and Virgil and Terence was used, which also St. Jerome and St. Ambrose and St. Austin and many holy doctors learned in their times, I utterly bannyshe and exclude out of the schole ; and charge the Masters that they teche always that is beste and instruct the children in Greke and redynge Latin, in redynge unto them such authors that hath with wisdom joyned the pure chaste eloquence." "That they teche always that is beste," — This is a high and generous utterance and represents fairly the spirit of the Renaissance and of the founders of gram- 30 THOMAS A UNO LI) mar schools. It is because Latin and Greek were the best intellectual aids then known, and the keys to all the knowledge then best worth having, that these lan- guages formed the staple of a gentleman's training. No higher conception of a liberal education could possibly be formed tlian that each age should furnish its youth with its best. But this object is to be attained by imitating the spirit rather than the letter of founder's statutes, and by such a study of the needs and circumstances of our own age as may enable us to do for our contemporaries what Colet and Grindal sought to do for theirs, and what they would probably have done had they lived now. It cannot be claimed for Arnold that he was eager to emancipate himself from the traditions thus inher- ited from the sixteenth century. We cannot concede to him the character of a great reformer or revolution- ist in the sense in which Comenius, Kousseau, Locke, or Pestalozzi was entitled to one of those designations. He was not a realist, but essentially a " humanist " of the type of Milton. He accepted tlie traditions of the long succession of English teachers, from Ascham and Colet down to lUisby and Keate, in favour of making the study of language, and particularly tlie languages of Greece and Rome, the staple of a liberal education. But, like Milton, lie rebelled strongl}^ against the wooden, mechanical, and pedantic fashion in wliich those languages were often taught, as if the attain- ment C)f ])roficiency in tliom were an end in itself and not tlie means to some higher end. Milton had pro- tested against tlie " jireposterous exactions by which A FOLLOWER OF MILTON 31 the empty wits of cliiklren were forced to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of ripest judgement; and were thus mocked and deluded with ragged notions and babblements while they ex- pected worthy and delightful knowledge."^ He would indeed have tlie pupil introduced to a great variety of Greek and Eoman authors, poets, philoso- phers, and orators, but mainly that through and by means of these writers, he might obtain access to the best thought and culture which the world could af- ford, and so become acquainted with history and political science, witli logic, with the principles of law and morals, with geometry and natural philoso- phy, with the story of heroes and statesmen, so as to "stir up learners with high hopes of becoming brave men and worthy patriots dear to God and famous to all ages." In like manner Arnold, while founding his whole educational system on the study of the ancient languages, sought mainly to use those lan- guages as instruments for a large extension of the range of subjects beyond the traditional routine. Greek and Latin were to him the -n-ov a-To>, the firm earth on which he sought to erect a fabric in which history, poetry, philosophy, ethics, love of truth, and aspirations after nobleness and usefulness should find their due place. Accordingly we are not to expect from him any attempt to dissociate himself from the traditional belief of scholars that, after all, knowledge of lan- guage was the truest measure of a boy's ability and 1 Letter to Master Samuel Hartlib. 32 THOMAS AIJNOLI) promise. In classifying new pupils, lie would not Lave cared to adopt the multifarious method of mod- ern entrance examinations, with their options and alternatives. The form into wliidi a m-w scholar was to be entered was determined by his acipiaint- ance with grammar and vocabulary, and by little else. When the little Arthur Stanley, at the ago of thirteen, went up to llugb^', and had concluded his first awful visit to the Doctor, he wrote to his sister Mary, " Papa and I walked to Dr. Arnold's, and pres- ently Mrs. Arnold came in; she was very nice indeed. At last came tlie Doctor himself, but I certainly sliould not have taken liim for a doctor. He was very pleasant and did not look old. "When Papa asked him whether I could be examined, he said that if I would walk into the next room he would do it himself; so of course I went with him, with a feeling like that when I am going to have a tooth drawn. So he took down a Homer, and I read about half a dozen lines, and the same with Virgil; he then asked me a little about my Latin verses, and set me down without more ado in the great book as placed in the fourth form. I felt such a wciglit off my mind when that was done."* In Arnold's own account of tlie school, contributed to the Journal of Education, 1834, he describes at length its general aims and methods. He sets forth a graduated schem(> of insti-uetion extending from the first to the sixth fonii. It w ill suffice liere to give in 1 Li/c of Dean Sdmlci), \o\. I. PLAN OF SCHOOL WORK 33 detail tlie coixrse of the first, tlie fourth, and the sixth, since the character of the intermediate exer- cises may be readily inferred from them: Classical Divisiox. Language. Scripture. Htst07-y. Latin Grammar and Delectus. Church Catechism and Abridgement of New Testament History. Markham's England. 3 Jischylus, Prometheus. Virgil, Mn. 11. and III. Cicero, de Anii- citia. Acts in the Greek Testament. St. John in the Eng- lish Bible. Ol.l Testament History. Part of Xenophon's Hellenics. Floras HI. to IV. History of Greece, U.K.S. Markham's France from Philip de Valois. Growth of Italy and Germany. 1 X H r5 Part of Virgil and Homer. One or more Greek Trage- dies. Orations of Demosthenes. Cicero against Ver)'es. Part of Aristotle's Ethics. One of the Prophets in the Septuagint Version. Parts of the New Testament. Parts of Thucydides and Arian. Parts of Tacitus. Parts of Russell's Modern Europe. Mathematical Division. French Division. 1^ Tables. Addition to Divi- sion. Simple and Compound Reduction. Hamel's Exercises up to the Auxiliary Verb. 34 THOMAS AK.Nol.l) i X jNIathematical Division. Fhknch Division. r Decimals. Involution and Evolution. Elementary Algebra. Bi- nomial Theorem. Euclid, Book I. Hamel's Second Part. Syntax of Pronouns. La Fontaine's Fables. f Eucli(UII.-VI. Simple and Quadratic Equations. Trigonometry. Conic Sections. Parts of Guizot's Histoire de la Kevolution de I'An- frlettn-re, and Miunet's Histoire de la Revolution Frani/aise. The article proceeds to defend the principle on which so large a proportion of the time and attention are devoted to the Greek and Roman classics. The writer admits frankly that the ''first origin of classi- cal education affords in itself no reasons for continu- ing it now. When Latin and Greek were almost the only M^ritten languages of civilized man, it is manifest that they must have furnished the subjects of all liberal education. The question, therefore, is wholly changed since the growth of a complete litera- ture in other languages ; since France and Italy and Germany and England have each produced tlieir phi- losophers, their poets, and their historians wortliy to be placed on the same level with those of Greece and Rome." He shows that, "although there is not the same reason now which existed three or four cen- turies ago for the study of Greek and Roman litera- ture, there are others no less substantial." These reasons he finds in tlie familiar facts that the gram- matical forms of Greek and Latin are at once perfect GREEK AND LATIN LANGUAGES 35 and incapable of being uuclerstood without long and minute attention; that the study of them involves the general principles of grammar, and that their peculiar excellences illustrate the conditions under which lan- guage may become clear and forcible and beautiful. And apart from the linguistic training afforded, he set a peculiar value on the general broadening of the intellectual horizon Avhich attended the study of the literature and history of the ancient world. "Expel Greek and Latin from your schools," he says, "and you confine the views of the existing generation to themselves and their immediate predecessors, you will cut off so many centuries of the world's experience, and place us in the same state as if the human race had first come into existence in the year 1500. . . . Aristotle and Plato and Thucydides and Cicero and Tacitus are most untruly called ancient writers. They are virtually our own countrymen and contemporaries, but have the advantage which is enjoyed by intelligent travellers, that their observation has been ex- ercised in a field out of the reach of conmiou men, and that having thus seen in a manner with our eyes what we cannot see for ourselves, their conclusions are such as bear upon our own circumstances ; while their information has all the charm of novelty, and all the value of a mass of new and pertinent facts, illustrative of the great science of the nature of civilized man." In reply to the familiar argument that men in after life often throw their Greek and Latin aside, and that this fact shows the uselessness of such early studies, the article goes on to emphasize a view which is too often lost sight of in. popular discussion, whether in relation to the higher or the lower departments of 36 THOMAS AKXOLl) educational work. It is not uncommon to find critics wlio seek to discredit the arithmetic and geograjthy and the grammar of the elementary school by urging that much of the knowledge so acquired is soon for- gotten. No doubt it is. So is a great part of all the knowledge received by learners at all ages, and in reference to all subjects. But this does not i)rove that the acquisition is barren or useless. It may not survive in the exact form in which it has been first imparted. But it has for tlie time served its pur- pose; it has helped to put the mind into a better atti- tude for the acquisition of further knowledge, and it has left behind it such a residuum of thought and experience as will make it easy to revert to tlie sub- ject and learn it anew, if special occasion for it should arise. In fact, nothing which is honestly learned, and which forms a legitimate part of a scheme of instruction having an organic unity and a clear pur- pose of its own, can ever be rightly regarded as worth- less ; and no time spent in acquiring such details is ever wasted, even though they may have disappeared from the memory and left no visible result. Arnold's argument was sound and admits of far wider applica- tion than to the particular department of education to which lie was especially interested. " It does not follow that Avhen a man lays aside his Latin and Greek books, he forgets also all that he had ever gained from tliem. Tliis, however, is so far from being the case, that even where the results of a clas- sical education are least tangible and least appreci- ated, even by the individual liimsclf, still the mind CLASSICAL STUDIES VINDICATED 37 often retains nmcli of the effect of its early studies in the general liberality of its tastes and eomjjarative comprehensiveness of its views and actions." But all this presupposes that the teaching is intel- ligent and that the teacher has so far emancipated himself from routine as to be able to discriminate between what is mechanical and sterile, and that which is formative and vital in the classical tradi- tion. The mere scholar, he contended, cannot pos- sibly communicate to his pupils the main advantage of a classical education. " The knowledge of the past is valuable, because without it our knowledge of tlie present and of the future must be scanty : but if the knowledge of the past be confined wholly to itself: if instead of being made to bear upon things around us, it be totally isolated from them, and so disguised by vagueness and misapprehension as to appear incapable of illustrating them, then indeed it becomes little better than laborious trifling, and they who declaim against it may be fully forgiven." ^ The characteristic of Arnold as a schoolmaster was that he was much more concerned to put new life, freshness, and meaning into the received methods \^ than to invent new ones. What is imitable in his system — if system it may be called — is not a new educational creed or practice, but the infusion into the system of a new spirit, one of enthusiasm, of clear insight into the inner intellectual and moral needs of scholars, and of careful introspection in reference to those studies which had enriched his 1 Arnold's MisceUaneoua Works, p. 350. 38 Tllo.MAS AKNUL1> own cliaracter and intellect most. Dean Stanley says of liiin, "He was the tirst Englishman who drew attention in our public schools to the historical, political, and philosophical value of philology and of the ancient writers as distinguished from the mere verbal criticism and elegant scholarship of the last century." This may be illustrated in his treatment of composition exercises, of which he says: "There are Exorcises in Composition in Greek and Latin prose, Greek and Latin verse, and Englisli i)rose as in other large classical schools. In the subjects given for original composition in the higher forms there is a considerable va- riety, — liistorical descriptions of any remarkable events, geographical descriptions of countries, imaginary speeches and letters supposed to be spoken or written on some great question, or under some memorable circuinstanocs ; etymo- logical accounts of words in different languages, and criti- cisms on different books are found to offer an advantageous variety to the essays on moral subjects to which the boy's prose composition has sometimes been confined."^ Dean Stanley gives in an interesting appendix a selection of the themes chosen for composition exer- cises, from which a few characteristic examples may be cited here : (a) The differences between atlvantages and merits. (b) Conversation between Thomas A(piinas, James Watt, and Walter Scott. (c) The principal events and men of England, France, and (Jerniany and Ilollanil a.i>. IdOl). 1 Quarterly Jouruuli'f Kducalion, 1834. GREEK AND LATIN VEKSE MAKING 39 (cZ) How far the dramatic faculty is compatible with a love of truth. (e) De seculo, quo Esais vaticinia sua edidit. It will be seen that there is very little of the icono- clastic temper in this description of his methods. He did not even attack the time-honoured superstition that the manufacture of Latin and Greek verses was the ultimate test and crown of scholarship. It is true he did not like it. He rebelled, as Milton did, against a theory which imposed on young boys a task for which they were wholly unfit; he was conscious of the preposterous absurdity of regarding the fitting together of longs and shorts as a true Gradus ad Parnassam, but he nevertheless sought to make the best of the method and to clothe the dry bones with flesh and blood. But it may be doubted whether he ever fully real- ized the enormous injury done to the rank and file of boys by this antiquated and soulless exercise; the inevitable weariness and disgust produced by it; the false and ignoble ideal of scholarship which it set before them, or the intellectual habits which it gener- ates. An eminent public schoolmaster of a later generation has had the courage to speak with great frankness on this point. He says : "Without a conception of rhythm, without a gleam of imagiuation, without a touch of fancy, boys are set down to write verses, and these verses are to be in an unknown tongue in which they scarcely possess a germ of the scantiest vocabulary, or a mastery of the most simple construction ; and further, it is to be in strict imitation of poets of whom, 40 Tllo.MAS AKNol.n at their best, tlioy have only read a few score of lines. . . . The pupil is reriuirt'il umlcr all the inexorable exigencies of metre to reproduce in artificial and phraseological Latin the highly elaborate thoughts of grown men, to piece their muti- lated fancies, and reproduce their fragmentary conceits. In most cases the very possibility of doing so depends on his hitting upon a particular epithet, which presents the requi- site combination of longs and shorts, or on his evolving some special and often recondite turn of thought and expres.sion. Supposing, for instance (to take a very ea.sy line, typical of many thousands of lines), he has to write a pentameter. ' Where Acheron rolls waters.' He will feel that his entire task is to write where somethi'nff Acheron rolls soitufhiti;/ waters. His one object is to get in the somethiufj which shall be of the right shape to screw into the line. The epithet may be ludicrous ; it may l»c grotesque, but provided he can make his brick he does not trouble himself about tlie quality of his straw, and it mat- ters nothing to him, if it be a brick such as could not by any possibility be used in any human building. It is a literal fact, that a boy very rarely reads through the English he is doing, or knows, when it has been turncil into Latin, what it is all about ; hence, for the next year or two his life resolves itself into a boundless hunt after epithets of the right shape, to be screwed into the greatest number of jdaces ; a practice exactly analogous to the putting together of Chinese puzzles, only producing a much less homogeneous and con- gruous result." ^ Whatever may be urged in favour of the theory of verse composition as a youthful effort of imagination, as a discipline in taste and litcn-ary discrimination, 1 Dean Farrar in Esxni/s on ut in pro- portion to their advance in the school he tried to cultivate in the boys a habit not only of collecting facts, but of expressing themselves with facilit}', and of understanding the principles on which the facts rested. 'You come hero,' he said, 'not to read, but to learn how to read.'"' ' yiaiiley, (liap. 111. GENERAL EDUCATIONAL AIMS 51 On tlie Avliole, tlie student of " methodology " who searches the life of Arnold for tips and artifices whereby classical teaching may be rendered easier or more vital is likely to be disappointed. What- ever was excellent in the Rugby method of classi- cal learning lay rather in the man, and in the spirit in whicli he worked, than in the communicable form of newly invented original rules and systems. His merit consisted mainly in the fact that he did not mistake means for ends ; that he kept constantly in sight the goal to which all true education sliould be directed, and that he refused to attach undue im- portance to conventions and usages which did not hel}) boys to arrive thither. It was, in fact, the cardinal principle, as it was the only justification of all his language exercises, that it was not knowledge, but the appetite for knowledge, and the means of gaining it, Avhich it was the chief business of a schoolmaster to impart. CHAPTER IV Language as a discipline contrasted with natural science — Know- ledge of physical facts not the only science — History — Relation of Ancient and Modern History — Its claims as a school subject — Training for citizenship — Example of a school exercise — Niebuhr's researches in Roman History — Arnold's own treat- ment of the regal period of Rome — His love of history infectious — Geography — Thoroughness in teaching — Qualifications of assistants — School organization — Relation of a head master to governing body It will thus be seen that Arnold was a faithful representative and successor of the school of educa- tional theorists who place the "humanitios" in the foremost place as the staple of liberal culture, lie may be said to belong to the pre-scientihc era of educational history. Had he lived to know of the marvellous extension of physical science which has characterized the subsequent half-century, had he followed the researches of Huxley and Darwin and Lockyer and Lyell, and recognized the skill with wliich the forces of nature have been investigated and turned to account in enlarging the resources of human life and happiness, he miglit in all probability have revised his plans and seen the wisdom of recog- nizing the claims of natural knowledge as an integral liart of a scheme of liberal education. He was too well acquainted with the Novum Organum, ami with the spirit of its illustrious author, to disregard the new and beautiful knowledge which such studies as 52 (X^NIVSHSIT- LANGUAGE AND PHYSICAL SCIEN;QEc^^,»§J^^j^. biology, chemistry, and zoology have of late brought to light. But it may well be doubted whether he would ever have regarded any acquaintance with the material forces of nature as good substitutes for / the intellectual culture derived from classical studies, ' or as equal to them in disciplinal value. It is cer- tain that he would have rebelled against the view put forth by Herbert Spencer in his famous essay, "What knowledge is of most worth?" In particu- lar he would have been unwilling to admit the claims of the physicists to appropriate the name of "sci- ence" to their own special department of human learning. . Science, in its true sense, connotes organ- ized systematic knowledge, as distinguished from the knowledge of disjointed and unrelated facts. It implies insight into reasons, causes, consequences. It is not specially concerned with one class of j)he- nomena, nor with one subject of investigation, but pertains alike to all branches of knowledge if treated in a philosophic spirit. The nature and significance of the Greek aorist, or the laws of the syllogism, belong as truly to the domain of science as the pre- cession of the equinoxes, or the superposition of strata. It is just as possible to teach grammar and philology in a scientific way as it is to treat biology or the theory of refraction in an unscientific Avay. Even in an elementary school, the teacher who makes clear the distinction between the subject and the predicate, or between the essential and the non-essen- tial parts of a sentence, is as truly a teacher of science as he who explains why the water boils, or what are 64 THOMAS ARNOLD the respective functious of the heart and lungs. Our popular conceptions of the relative value of different departments of human knowledge will become clearer when the honoured name of " science " shall have come to be understood to imply rather a sound method of investigating truth than the particular kind of truth which is subject to investigation. For the present, however, it will suffice to say that "science," in the restricted sense in which we are accustomed to use it of late, hardly came into the liugby scheme at all. But language, though the cen- tre of that scheme, was not the exclusive subject of instruction. Auxiliary to it, and necessary to give organic unity to the whole plan, were history, geog- rai)hy, divinity, etliical and jiolitical science. And of these, history took the foremost place. Tlie educational value of history, whether ancient or modern, considered as a formative study and a legitimate part of academic discipline, has been much discussed by teachers and theorists. On the one hand, it is contended that the material is unsuited for the purpose of such discipline; that the facts with which it deals are inexact, unverified, and often incapable of verification, and that tlie sureness and precision which should characterize all scholarsliip are unattainable in liistory. And it is often further contended that the subject should not be recognized in the curriculum of a school or a university at all, but should be left for the voluntary reailing of the learner. On the other hand, there are those who see in the record of jjast events, and in the accumulated HISTORY AS A SCHOOL SUBJECT 55 experience of mankiud, the most awakening form of intellectual exercise, the best training for citizen- ship, and some of the profoundest and most potent truths, in their bearing on human conduct and on the formation of character. Arnold had no misgivings as to the side of the controversy on which he should range himself. Coleridge once complained that the lessons of history failed to teach us as they might, because the light which experience gives is little more to us than a lantern on the stern of a ship, which illuminates only the waves that are behind us. It was precisely against this mistake that Arnold's whole teaching Avas a practical protest. Freeman's dictum that "History is past politics, and politics present history," was well illustrated in the Eugby lessons. The life of the Commonwealth was to him the main subject of history; the laws of political sci- ence, the main lesson of history ; the desire of taking an active share in the great work of government, the highest earthly desire of the ripened mind.^ In the interesting Excursus to be found appended to his edition of Thucydides, abundant evidence may be seen of the keen interest Arnold felt in tracing the analogies between ancient and modern history, and of his desire to obtain light from the polity and social life of the Greeks and to cast it upon some of the complex political problems of our own time. 1 See the Appendix to the first volume of Thucydides. The whole discussion as to the functions and influence of the rvpavvoi and the relation between the aristocracy and the people, is very charac- teristic of the spirit in which Arnold gave historical lessons. 56 THOMAS AUNOLl) His pupils say that he was singularly successful in connecting tlie events recorded by Thucydides and Tacitus with parallel incidents in modern history. A discussion on the irtpCoiKOL of Athens — not exactly citizens, nor yet slaves — leads him to a comparison with the burghers of Augsburg, or with the uuen- franchised commons of England. Tlie steps by wliich the aristocracy of blood becomes in time overthrown by the aristocracy of wealth, and by which both may be in time superseded by the ascendency of mere numbers, he would illustrate in such a way as to show the fundamental likeness between some of the social and political i)roblems of antiquity. and those of our own day. Ancient anil modern, he always contended, were misleading terms. For there was an ancient and a modern period in the history of every people. "And a large portion of that history which we are wont to call ancient, the later history of the Greek republics and that of the period of the Koman Empire, is practically modern, — much more modern, say, than the age of Alfred, as it describes society in a stage analogous to that which we have now reached in the history of England.'' ' This view of the essentially modern character of much of Avhat is called ancient history, and of the practical identity of many of the social and political problems Avliich present themselves for solution in dilferent ages, is so important and so characteristic of Arnold's method that it needs to be more fully vindicated in liis own words. 1 Stanley, CliJii.. IV. ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY 57 " The state of Greece from Pericles to Alexander, fully described to us as it is iu the works of their great contem- porary historians, poets, orators, and philosophers, affords a political lesson perliaps more applicable to our own times, if taken altogether, than any otlier portion of history which can be named anterior to the eighteenth century. When Thucydides, in his reflection on the bloody dissensions of Corcyra, notices the decay and extinction of the sim])licity of old times, he marks the great transition from ancient his- tory to modern, the transition from an age of feeling to one of reflection, from a period of ignorance and credulity to one of inquiry and scepticism. Now, such a transition took place in the sixteenth century ; the i:)eriod of the Reformation, when compared with the years preceding it, was undoubtedly one of inquiry and reflection. But still it was an age of strong feeling and of intense belief; the Inunan mind cleared a space for itself within a certain circle, but except in individual cases, and even those scarcely avowed, there were still acknowledged limits of authority, which inquiry had not yet ventured to question. The period of Roman civilization from the time of the Gracchi to those of the Antonines was in this respect more completely modern, and, accordingly, this is one of the periods of history we should do well to study most carefully. In point of political experience we are, even at this hour, scarcely on a level with the statesmen of the age of Alexan- der. Mere lapse of years confers here no increase of know- ledge ; four thousand years have furnished the Asiatic with scarcely anything that deserves the name of political experi- ence ; two thousand years since the fall of Carthage have furnished the African with absolutely nothing. Even in Europe and in America it would not be easy now to collect such a treasure of experience as the constitutions of one hun- dred and fifty-three commonwealths along the various coasts of the Mediterranean offered to Aristotle. There he might study the institutions of various races derived from various sources : every possible variety of external position, of na- 58 THOMAS AKNeoplc have been subject to a succession of influences, some accidental, othcre regular, to see and remember what critical seasons of improve- ment have been neglected, what besetting evils have been wantonly aggravated by wickedness anil folly. In short, the pui)il may be; furnished, as it were, with certain forinuld- which shall enable him to read all history beneficially, shall teach him what to limk for in it, liow to judge of it, and how to ai^.ly it." Ill all tills wc .soo an illustration of the intellectual process which Professor Laurie lias called the de- parocbiali/ing, of the stndent, the detaclunent of the mind from what is transitory in the polities of the present hour, to what is permanent and typical in the hi.story of the human race. "A man thus educated," .Arnold ar-nied, ''even MORAL PURPOSE IX TEACHING HISTORY 61 though he knows no history in detail but that which is called ancient, will be far better fitted to enter on public life than he who could tell the circumstances and the date of every battle and of every debate throughout the last century, and whose information, in the common sense of the term, about modern his- tory might be twenty times more minute. The fault of systems of classical education in some instances has been, not that they did not teach modern history, but that they did not prepare and dispose tlieir pupils to acquaint themselves with it afterwards; not that they did not attempt to raise an impossible superstructure, but that they did not prepare the ground for the foundation and put the materials within reach of the builder. . . . It is no wisdom to make boys prodigies of information, but it is our wisdom and our duty to cultivate their faculties each in its season, first the memory and imagination, and then the judgment, to furnish them with the means, and to excite the desire of improving themselves, and to wait with confidence for God's blessing on the result." ^ How early it was possible for a young and ingenu- ous mind to become impregnated with some of the Arnoldian enthusiasm may be judged from this pas- sage in one of Arthur Stanley's letters to his sister, written three months after his admission to the school. "We have been examined again by Dr. Arnold in Latin, and he seemed very much pleased with me. He is very par- 1 Use of the Classics — Arnold's ^^scellaneolls Works, p. 359. 62 THOMAS AllNOLl) ticular. The least word you stiy or pronounce wrong lie finds out in an instant, and he is very jtartiiailar about chronology, history, and geography. He does not sit still like tlie other masters, but walks backwards and forwards all the time, and seems rather fidgety. Only a fortnight to Ea-stcr and the speeches. There are to be English verses. How I sluill listen ! . . . How particular he is, but at the same time so mild and pleasant. I like saying to him very much. He asks much about history, and puts queer, out-of-the-way ques- tions. I daresay you will be glad to hear that I got up to the top place for answcrijig something about Thcmistocles. He seems very much pleased when I answer anything." The boy goes on to tell also how he has again seen Mrs. Arnold, and how " she talked to me about lier children, and told me that little Matthew, the eldest of her hoys, that morning had been in the garden, and got a red and white rose for her, and showing them to the Doctor, said, 'See, Papa, here are York and Lancaster.' It so happened that that very day the lesson with Dr. Arnold was history, and though there was nothing particular about it in the lesson, he asked a good deal about the devices of York and Lancaster. I daresay he was thinking about JNfatt and his roses." ^ Incidentally, an interesting side light is tlirown on his method of teaching by the method adopted in his Koman history. He had been profoundly impressed by the researches of Niobtihr into the earlier annals of Kome, and he regarded that writer as one who, by the motliod no less than by the results of bis cnqui- 1 IJi'r of Ih'un St.nilcii, X<>]. I. ROME UNDER THE KINGS 63 ries, had done for ancient history what Bacon did for science. Indeed, it may be said that this author's works exercised a singularly profound influence on Arnold's character, since they not only inspired him with new views of historical criticism, but by introduc- ing him to German literature, opened out to him new realms of thought. With a view to make the result of Niebuhr's researches intelligible to English readers, he determined to set forth the legendary story of the first three centuries of the regal period of Rome in a manner likely to call special attention to its unhis- torical and quasi-mythical character. Like all true teachers, he knew that truth of mere fact, — definite, verifiable truth, is not the only kind of truth worth studying. What actually happened about the begin- nings of Rome, whether iEneas and Romulus ever lived, and what they did, are matters undoubtedly worth knowing if we can find them out. ^^ut what the Romans believed about the origin of their city is equally well worth knowing, for it helped to shape the polity of the Roman commonwealth, to form the national character, and to influence Roman literature. It is therefore as true a subject for the historian, and has exercised as great an influence on the fortunes and development of the human race as any dates and records which will satisfy the historical critic. It might be contended that the like argument would justify the historians of our own country in setting forth the legends of Brutus the Trojan, of Lear, and of Pendragon, as they are told by Geoffrey of Mon- mouth, Gildas, or Nennius, or later by Milton him- 64 THOMAS ARNOLD self in his curious fragment of British history. But it is manifest that the same reasons do not apjily, and that, interesting as these legends are, and fruitful as they have been found by our poets, from Shake- speare to Tennyson, they have never been incorporated in the popular belief, as the traditions of the prehis- toric age of Rome had been. It ^vas, however, very characteristic of Arnold tliat he was unwilling to dismiss these traditions as irrelevant and wholly unhistorical, but tliat he sought ratlior to iind for them their due place in the narrative with a kind of authenticity all tlieir own. "I wished," he said in his preface to the lloman history, "to give these legends with the best effect, and at the same time with a perpetual mark, not to be mistaken by the most careless reader, that tliey were legends and not history. There seemed a reason, therefore, for adopt- ing a more antiquated style, which otherwise, of course, would be justly liable to the charge of affec- tation." Most readers of his Tvoman history will be ready to acknowledge tliat this aim has been well fulfilled. The author has succeeded in adding a new charm to the story of Ilomulus and Numa, and has invested with tlie hues of poetry the beautiful legend of the nymph Egoria, who " in her sacred grove and by the si)ring that welled out of tlic rock tauglit the good king all that lio ouglit to do towards the gods and towards iiicn." It is pleasant tlius to have the old-world stories of the statesman-like Sorvius aiul the wicked Tullia, tlie Sibylline books, the Delphic oracle, and the exi)ulsion of I.Ik^ Tartpiins told with HISTORICAL SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES 65 simplicity in archaic and semi-Biblical language, while all the critical apparatus and discussion of their historical trustworthiness are appropriately re- served for separate treatment. One obtains, as this book is read, a glimpse of the method by which a teacher might vivify history and make it real and edifying to a nineteenth century learner, without robbing it of that nuance of poetry which makes the twilight of history so full of pathetic beauty. And hence we are not surprised to learn that his- tory as he treated it became a favourite subject with the boys. A schoolmaster wlio lias no hobby, no subject which he teaches Avith special sympathy and with contagious enthusiasm, loses a great opportunity of influence. And it was soon perceived that his favourite books and periods the boys read zealously, and that his favourite heroes were theirs. The char- acters and thoughts of antiquity were to him and to them alike almost living and present. "A black cloud was on his brow when he spoke of Tiberius or Augustus or Napoleon, of the soulless Epicureanism of Horace or the coarseness of Juvenal; and few of his pupils have lost his enthusiasm for the often mis- represented and vilified Cicero, or for the best and holiest of kings, St. Louis of France. He denounced Polybius as a dull geographer and an overrated mili- tary historian, and Livy as a drunken helot, showing us what history ought not to be, and so uniformly careless as to make the Punic war as hard in the telling, as it was in the fighting." Thus, as INIr. Oscar Browning says: 66 THOMAS ARNOLD " Arnold's deep interest in liistory, his grasp of all that was living and actual in the authors which he taught, were the springs of a literary stimulus, the eftcets of which fre- quently lasted througli life. After reading St. Paul's denun- ciations of tlie sins of the heathen, he would turn to his Horace and siiy, ' Let us now see what this ancient world was like. ' " As an adjunct to liistory he attached special value to geography. The physical features of a country must be studied before the events which took place in it can be explained. As a topographical map is indispensable to the commander who undertakes a campaign, it is not less useful to one who wishes to understand the history of such a campaign. Carlyle did not undertake to describe the battle of Dunbar or of Rossbach until he had visited the spot and studied the conformation of the ground ; and in like manner Arnold followed and traced with care the footsteps of Hannibal over the Alps. That Ostia in the time of Ancus Martins was at the mouth of the Tiber, though now seven miles froin the sea, that Ravenna, in the time of Theodoric, w^as one of the most famous cities of Italy, though now, owing to the physical changes of the shore, an obscure and pestilential town, and that Rome itself owes its growth to its fortunate position in the midst of a large area of i)roductive territory, w^ere facts which seemed to him to have a significant bearing on the course of history. " I have l)ecn working at ITaiuiibars pa.ssage of the Alps. ITow bad a geographer is Poly1>i\i.s, and how strange thiit he shoidd be thought a good one ! Cnniiiare liini with any man GEOGKAPHY AN ADJUNCT To HISTORY 67 who is really a geographer, — with Herodotus, with Napo- leon, whose sketclies of Italy, Egypt, and Syria, in his memoirs are unrivalled, — or with Niebuhr, and how strik- ing is the ditfereuce. The dulness of Polybius' fancy made it impossible for him to conceive or paint sceneiy clearly, and how can a man be a geographer without lively images of the formation and features of the country wliich he describes 1 How different are the several Alpine valleys, and how would a few simple touches of the scenery which he seems actually to have visited, yet could neither under- stand nor feel it, have decided for ever the question of the route. JVoiv the account suits no valley well, and therefore it may be applied to many ; but I believe the real line was by the little St. Bernard, although I cannot trace the par- ticular spots which De Luc and Cramer fancy they could recognise. I thought so on the spot (i.e., that the route could not be traced) when I crossed the little St. Bernard with Polybius in my hand, and I think so still. How much we want a physical history of countries, tracing the changes they have undergone, either by such violent revolutions as volcanic phenomena, or by the slower but not less complete change produced by ordinary causes : such as alteration of climate occasioned by enclosing and draining, alteration in the course of rivers, and in the level of their beds, alteration in the animal and vegetable productions of tlie soil, and in the supply of metals and minerals, noting also the advance or retreat of the sea, and the origin and successive increase in the number and variation in the line of roads, together with the changes in the extent and character of the woodlands. How much might be done by our society at Rome if some of its attention were directed to these points ; for instance, drainage and an alteration in the course of the waters have produced great changes in Tuscany, and there is also the interesting question as to the spread of malaria in the Maremma."^ 1 Letter CXII. 68 THOMAS AIJN'oLl) Dean Stanley gives anotlier example of the way in which Arnold would vivify his lessons by associating geography and history. " In the Seven Yeiu.s' AV;ir lie would illustrate tlie gen- eral connexion of military history with geography by the simple instance of the order of Hainiibal's successive vic- tories, and then chalking roughly on a board the chief points in the physical conformation of Germany, apply the same principle to the more complicated campaigns of P^cderick the Great. Or again in a more general examination he would ask for the chief events which occurred, for instance, in the year 15, of two or three successive centuries, and by making the boys contrast or compare them together, bring before their minds the ditt'crcnces and resemblances in the state of Europe in each of the periods in question." This passage is interesting as a revelation of one conspicuous note or characteristic of Arnold's teach- ing — its thoroughness. The truly effective teacher must not only know his subject or his text-book, he must look all round it, must survey from all sides the problem he has to solve and nuist furnish himself with such auxiliary inforjnation as may help liim to illustrate the matter in hand from very differ- ent points of view. Arnold saw the necessity of Avidening the school curriculum, of giving to mathe- matics, modern languages, and even to rudimentary science increased attention and importance; but his own personal teaching was mainly confined, as we have seen, to divinity, language, literature, and to history, and to so much of geography as would make history and lileralure intelligible. AVithin that RELATION OF HEAD MASTER TO ASSISTANTS 69 range nothing which had even an indirect bearing on the ehicidation of the subject seemed to him unim- portant or irrelevant. But outside this range, he habitually deferred to the judgment of otliers. When a boy brought him a question he was unable to answer, he would say frankly, "Go to Mr, Price," or perhaps some other assistant, " he knows more about it than I do." That affectation of omniscience wliich some teachers deem necessary for the maintenance of dignity seemed petty and unworthy in his eyes ; and one of the lessons the boys learned from him was that one should have the courage to admit ignorance of many things, and that it was a mean thing to pre- tend to know that of which we are actually ignorant. His views as to the right relation of a head master to his colleagues are Avell illustrated in these two extracts from letters, the first being one of enquiry for a master. "What I want is a man who is a Christian and a gentle- man — an active man, and one who has common sense and imderstands boys. I do not so much care about scholarship, as he will liavc immediately under him the lowest forms in the school ; but yet, on second thoughts, I do care about it very much, because his pupils may be in the highest forms ; and besides, I think that even the elements are best taught by a man who has a thorough knowledge of the matter. However, if one must give way, I prefer activity of mind, and an interest in his Avork, to high scholarship, for the one can be acquired more easily than the other." In a letter addressed to a new master on his ap- pointment, he amplifies this theme, and presents to us a picture of an ideal assistant, 70 'JIIOMAS ARNOLD " Tlic qualifications which I deein essential to the due per- formance of a master's duties here may in brief be expressed as the spirit of a Christian and a gentleman — that a man should enter upon his business not tK irapipyov, but as of substantive and most important duty ; that he should devote himself to it as the especial branch of the ministerial calling which he has chosen to follow ; that belonging to a great public institution, and sharing in a public and conspicuous situation, he should study things 'lovely and of good report ' ; that is, that he should be public-spirited, liberal, and entering heartily into the interest, honour, and general respectability and distinction of the society that he has joined, and that he should have sutticient vigour of mind, and thirst for knowledge, to persist in adding to his own stores, without neglecting the full improvement of those whom he is teaching. I think our masterships here offer a noble field of duty ; and I would not bestow these on any one who I thought would undertake them without entering into the spirit of our system heart and hand." * In short, his aim was first to surround himself with men worthy of trust, and tlien to trust them. Every three weeks a council was held, in which all school matters were discussed, and in which every one was free to express his opinion or pr()i>ose any measure not in contradiction to any fundamental prineiple of school administration, and it not unfrequently liap- pened that he himself was opposed and out-voted. He tried to strengthen the bonds Avhich united the masters and the school, and their loyalty to one another, by offering in various ways means for friendly connnunication between them. He desired, 1 Slaiiley, Cliap. III. THE IDEAL SCHOOL 71 also, that the, masters should have "each a horse of his own to ride," independent of the mere phantas- magoria of hoys passing ^successively through their respective forms. He had learned from experience how much his own mental horizon and his power of usefulness had been enlarged by the indulgence of intellectual hobbies not directly connected with the necessary routine of school work ; and when he dis- covered any special gift or taste on the part of a young master, he sought to find an opportunity for its exercise. A weak head master seeks to be an autocrat, and is fain to lay down mechanical rules with a view to secure that all his assistants shall conform to his pattern and his methods. It is only a strong man who can afford to encourage freedom and reasonable independence among his subordinates, and thus to secure their hearty co-operation. Yet with- out such freedom there will always be waste of power; the school Avill lack organic unity, and will fail to achieve its highest purposes. Thus the ideal ever before the head master's mind was not that of a school in which it was the business of some to teach and others to learn, and in which the functions of the various members were clearly separated and detined, but an organized community for inutual help in the business both of teaching and learning. Education, he was wont to say, is not a mechanical but a dynamical process, and the more powerful and vigorous the mind of the teacher, the more clearly and readily he can grasp things, the better fitted he is to cultivate the mind of another. UNIVERSITT 72 THOMAS ARNOLD "And to this I find myself coming more and more. I care less and less for information, more and more for the pure exercise of the mind, for answering a question concisely and comprehensively, for showing a command of language, delicacy of taste, a compre- hensiveness of thought, and power of combination."^ The relations of a head master to a governing body are among the most difficult and delicate concern- ments of his life. The right of governors and trus- tees to control the general administration of the school and of its funds is undoubted; and deference, courtesy, and full information are their due from the master to whom they have confided the actual internal government of the school. lUit in Arnold's view the delimitation of power and responsibility should be very clearly marked. Fuller has said of the good schoolmaster, that " he is and will be known to be an absolute monarch in his school." And this is indeed the only condition on which a high-minded man, con- scious of power and of a clear purpose, could accept a head-mastership. The trustees have always their remedy. They may dismiss, without assigning cause, a master in whom, for any reason, they have ceased to have confidence. But until they do so, his author- ity is absolute. AVhile seeking, therefore, to culti- vate the most friendly relations with tlie trustees, Arnold was very resolute in regard to the rights and privileges of his office. And when on the appearance of an article in the Edinburgh Review, which was generally and rightly attributed to him, an infiueutial J Letter CXXIV. RELATION OF HEAD MASTER TO GOVERNORS 73 governor of the school wrote to ask him if he were the author, he replied without hesitation. The let- ters following have in fact established a precedent of which many later teachers have availed themselves for their own protection against interference within the sphere of their own lawful freedom and respon- sibility. Earl Howe wrote to him requesting, as one of the trustees of Rugby School, that Dr. Arnold would declare if he was the author of the article on Dr. Hampden in the Edinburgh lievieio, and stating that his conduct would be guided by Dr. Arnold's answer. "Rugby, June 22, 1836. "My Lord, — "The answer which your Lordship has asked for I have given several times to many of my friends ; and I am well known to be very little apt to disavow or conceal my author- ship of anything that I may at any time have written. Still, as I conceive your Lordship's question to be one which none but a personal friend has the slightest right to put to me, or to any man, I feci it due to myself to decline giving any answer to it. " In reply to a second letter in which Lord Howe urged compliance with his request, on the grounds that he might feel constrained by official duty to take some step in the matter in case the report were true, Arnold says : "Your Lordship addressed me in a tone purely formal and official, and at the same time asked a question which the common usage of society regards as one of delicacy — justi- fied I do not say, only by personal friendship, but at least 74 THOMAS AllNOLl) by some familiarity of aciiuaiiitaiicc. It was because no such ground could exist in the {uesent case, and because I cainiot and do not acknowledge your right otlicially as a trustee of Rugby Scliool, to question me on the subject of my real or supjMjsed writings on matters wholly uncttnnected with the school, that I felt it my duty to ossibilities of good which Avere there also. " The management of boys," he said, " has all the in- terest of a great game of chess with living creatures for pawns and pieces, and your adversary in plain English the devil, who truly plays a tough game and is very hard to beat." It is a familiar fact in the ex- perience of teachers that the interval between child- hood and manhood is a somewhat intractable period ; — a state of transition wherein the several elements of 76 THOMAS AKNULD our composite nature exist for tlie time in unfavour- able proportions. The shepherd's wish in the Win- ter's Tale, "I Avoukl there were no age between ten and three and twenty, or that youth Avouhl sleep out the rest," has found an echo in the thoughts of many a schoolmaster. Boys, however, decline to go to sleep from ten years old till twenty-three. They are in fact very much alive, and Arnold was sometimes appalled at the task he had undertaken. When he Avent to Rugby, the state of morals and behaviour was emi- nently disheartening; drunkenness and swearing were common vices ; a reckless defiance of authority, and a hatred of submission to it, were combined with a servile cringing to the public opinion of the school. There was great readiness to combine for evil, and a system- atic persecution carried on by the bad against the good. Dr. Moberly, head master of Winchester, and after- wards Bishop of Salisbury, says that "the tone of young men who came up to the University from Win- chester, Eton, Rugby, or Harrow, was universally irreligious. A religious undergraduate was very rare, and Avas much laughed at wlun he appeared." An outspoken passage from one of Arnold's school sermons shows how true a diagnosis he had made of the evils he had to encounter, and how deep was his sense of the dangers and pitfalls which surround life in a great public school. " Whixt tlie a.spoct of public scliools is when viewcil with a Christian oyc, and wliat arc the feeling.s witli whicli men wlio do not really turn to (lod in aftt>r life look back njv>n their years jjussed at .school, I cannot express better tlian in MORAL EVILS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 77 the words of one ^ who had himself been at a public school, who afterwards became a most exemplary Christian, and who in what I am going to quote seems to describe his own experience. 'Public schools,' he says, 'are the very seats and nurseries of vice. It may be unavoidable, or it may not, but the fact is indisputable. None can pass through a large school without being pretty intimately acquainted with vice, and few, alas ! very few, without tasting too largely of that poisoned bowl. The hour of grace and repentance at length arrives, and they are astonished at their former fatuity. . . .' "I am afraid," Arnold goes on to say, "that the fact is indeed indisputable. Public schools are the very seats and nurseries of vice. But the same writer says further, 'It may be unavoidable, or it may not,' and these words seem to me as though they ought to fill us with the deepest shame of all. For what a notion does it give that we should have been so long and constantly bad that it may be doubted whether our badness be not unavoidable, Avhether we are not evil hopelessly and incurably. And this to be true of places which were intended to be seats of Christian education, and in all of which, I believe, the same words are used in the daily prayers which we use regularly here ! God is thanked for those founders and benefactors by whose benefits the whole school is brought up to godliness and good learn- ing ! . . . What is meant when public schools are called ' the seats and nurseries of vice ' 1 That is properly a nurs- ery of vice where a boy unlearns the pure and honest prin- ciples which he may have received at home, and gets in their stead others which are utterly low and base and mischievous, where he loses his modesty, his respect for truth, and his afFectionateness, and becomes coarse and false and unfeeling. That, too, is a nursery of vice, and most fearfully so, where vice is bold and forward and presuming, and goodness is 1 Mr. John Bowdler, Remains, Vol. II., p. 153. 78 THOMAS AlINOM) timid and shy, and exists as if by suffcrauce ; where the good, instead of setting the tune of society and branding with disgrace those who disregard it, are themselves exposed to reproach for their guorhiess, and shrink before the open avowal of evil principles which the bad are striving to make the law of the community. That is a nursery of vice where the restraints laid upon evil are considered as so much taken from liberty, and where, generally speaking, evil is more willingly screened and concealed than detected and punished. What society would be if men regarded the laws of God and man as a grievance, and thought liberty consisted in follow- ing to the full their proud and selfish and low inclination.^, that schools to a great extent ;ire, and therefore they may be well called ' the seats and nurseries of vice.' " ' The peculiar conditions which help to determine the public opinion of a great school have been described with much vividness and clearness of insight, by a later head master of large and varied experience. "The modern bed of Procrustes, is, or wa.s, a public school. Nowhere in the world is there so keen an appre- ciation of those who adapt tliemselves to local tone, temper, and custom. But nowhere is departure, however sligiit, from the recognized standard of propriety visited witii consequences so unfailing. The society of a jiublic school is a world in itself, self-centred, self-satisfied. It takes but slight account of the principles and practices which obtain in tlie world of men. It has its own laws, its own fashions, its own accepted code of morals. To these all pcreons nuist submit, or the penalty of resistance is heavy. Its virtues are not altogether those of men and women, nor are its vices. Some actions of which the world thinks comi)ara- tively little, it honours with profound admiration. To DANGERS OF SCHOOL-BOY LIFE 79 others which the world thinks much of, it is indiiferent. There, physical courage, for instance, is esteemed too highly. Self-repression is depreciated. Hypocrisy is loathed. But the inverted hypocrisy — the homage which virtue pays to vice — or, in other words, the affectation of being worse than one really is, is common among boys, and is thought to be honourable. Truth, again, is not esteemed as a virtue of universal application, but is relative to particular persons, a folsehood, if told to a schoolfellow, being worse than if told to a master. Nobody can be intimate with a com- munity of schoolboys and not feel that a morality so abso- lute, yet so narrow, and in some ways so perverted, bears a certain resemblance to the morality of a savage tribe. It is rather the germ of morals, tlian morality itself. . . . What may be called the uncivilized or unsoftencd spirit in public school life is seen in the homage paid among public- school boys to physical faculties and performances. Of the' achievements of the intellect, if they stand alone, public- school opinion is still, as it has always been, slightly con- temptuous. But strength, speed, atldetic skill, quickness of eye and hand, still command universal appliuise among schoolboys, as among savages." ' How Arnold sought to meet the difficulties of the task before him, and by what expedients he endeav- oured to clear the moral atmosphere of the school, and to set up by degrees a higher standard both of aim and achievement in school-boy life, cannot be fully under- stood without acquaintance with the fuller details which are given in Stanley's Life. It may suffice here to enumerate them briefly. The steps he took in the way of reform were, even when boldest and most reso- lute, cautious and tentative. He had the wisdcnn to 1 Gerald Everdey's Friends/iip, J. E. C. Welldon, p. T.'i. 80 THOMAS A K NO LI) know that a new head master who insists at once on nieasnres of reform which appear to liis colleagues and to the older boys to be needless and revolu- tionary, may defeat his own purpose by creating the friction and opposition a little tact might render un- necessary. His first duty is to accept and turn to use whatever of good tlicrc is in tlie existing system, his next to modify and iiiiinovo that system, as experi- ence enables him to juake sure of Ids ground. For ■ example, he niade no attempt to abolish fagging, but determined to avail himself of that venerable institu- tion. "Another system," he said, "might perhaps be better than this, but I am placed here in the midst of this one and must make the best of it." So he first souglit and won the confidence of the sixth form, told them frankly that he regarded them as invested with responsibility, and that he relied on their help. "I want you to feel," he used to say to them, " how enor- mous is the influence you possess here on all below you." Nothing seemed to him of so much importance as to secure a body of praepostors distinguished by high principle, gentlemaidy conduct, and intellectual ability. " You should feel," he told them, " like offi- cers in the army whose want of moral courage would be thought cowardice. When 1 have confidence in the sixth, there is no post in England for which 1 would exchange this; but if they do not support me, I must go." He believed that one way of making a boy a gentleman was to treat him as one, and to show that he was respected aiul trusted. Va'ou in the lower part of tlu! school he never seeuu>d on tlie watch for boys, MORAL DISCIPLINE 81 and in the higlier any attempt at further proof of an assertion was at once checked. ^' If you say so, that is quite enough for nie; of course I take your word." And hence it came to be the current opinion of the school that it was a shame to tell Arnold a lie, for he always believed it ! The annals of English education present to our view no eminent teacher who was more profoundly penetrated than Arnold with the need of a moral basis for all school work. Aristotle had taught him that in advancing towards ideal perfection, the im- provement of the moral faculties should go on con- currently with the development of intellectual powers. Hence he never ceased to insist on the paramount im- portance of training as distinguished from teaching. Every evil habit conquered, and every good habit formed, he knew would remove one obstacle to the energy of the intellect and assist in invigorating its nature. He thought that few spectacles were more appalling than that of a youth of high mental gifts divorced from moral principle. When habits of self-indulgence and lawlessness have become so confirmed in a community of high- spirited youths as to be part of its traditions, rapid and drastic reform is practically impossible, and it would be dangerous and Quixotic for a master to attempt it. It was therefore by degrees that Arnold sought to remove the worst and most ob- stinate of these usages. Eor example, the prac- tice of keeping beagles and guns surreptitiously in the back premises of the boarding-houses was G 82 THOMAS ARNOLD effectually stopped, not by a peremptory prohibition, but by simply ruling tliat houses in which they were kept should be held to be out of the school bounds, — a rule which practically involved some- thing like financial ruin to the house-master unless a change were made. It was more difficult to deal with the sporting section of the elder boys, who Avere wont to hire horses at Duiiclinrcli, three miles off, iu the heart of a famous liuntiiig country, and to indulge in steeplechase and other races. I\[r. Hughes tells of one such race which excited so much animation and enthusiasm among the boys that they resolved to have another, and made all arrangements with jockeys and umi)ires for a longer race across country. It was commonly said of Arnold that he knew better than any one when to look, and when to see nothing. However, it was expected in this case that there would be a "row," and that he would publicly notice the breach of rule which had been committed, and forbid its intended repetition. Nothing, however, was publicly said; but in the evening the chief of the sportsmen, a ])romising sixth-form youth, was sent for, and the Doctor said: "I know all about tlie match you rode the other day. If I had taken any public notice of it, I must have expelled you pub- licly. Tills would have ruined your career at Oxford, where you have just matriculated, and I hope will do well. ]iut I have written to your father to tell him of your flagrant breach of discipline. And now let me warn you and your friends. I know Avhat you are inttMiding, and I will vK\tv\ every boy who EXPULSION 83 rides or is present, and will have the road watched to get the names." Mr. Hughes adds, "That race did not come off, or any other during Arnold's time." That boys should wish to see a race he thought reasonable enough; and a few weeks afterwards, when there was a grand steeplechase at Dunchurch, we find Clough writing to Arthur Stanley, *' Arnold very wisely and indulgently altered the hour of call- ing over, and took off the Dunchurch prohibition for the day, so at least nine-tenths of the school Avere present to see the sport. " ^ Again, he resolutely expelled a boy wliose influence tended to degrade the public opinion of the school or to be seriously detrimental to his companions. There were few points on Avliich he was more emphatic and determined than this. " Undoubtedly it would be better if there was no evil, but evil being unavoid- able, we are not a jail to keep it in, but a place of education where we must cast it out, to prevent its taint from spreading." Again, "If a boy has set his mind to do nothing, but considers all the work here as so much fudge, which he will evade if he can, he is sure to corrupt the rest, and I will send him away without scruple." Such a course necessarily proved unpopular, and brought about at first a good deal of remonstrance from parents and muttered discontent among the boys. They were scared and silenced, however, when he broke out one day with the oft- quoted allocution: "It is not necessary that this should be a school for three hundred, or even one 1 TJie Great Public Schools. Article on Rugby. 84 THOMAS ARNOLD hundred, boys, but it is necessary that it should be a school of Christian gentlemen." Those who have seen in the National Portrait Gallery in London tlie ad- mirable portrait of Arnold by Diillips, and have marked tlie keen eye, the firm and reso lute m outh, and the masterful pose of the head Avill easily under- stand the tone in which he would utter tliese words and the rather startling effect Avhich they produced. Yet it is noticeable that although his great aim was to give a Cliristian tone to the little community, he did not set about increasing the number of reli- gious services or theological lessons, or rely for the fulfilment of his ideal on wliat is often described as definite dogmatic teaching. "lie shrank," says Stan- ley, "from pressing on the conscience of boys rules of action which he felt they were not yet able to bear, and from enforcing acts wliicli, though right in themselves, would in boys be performed from wrong motives." . \ The school chapel became, under Arnold's regime, the centre of the religious life of the community, and played an important part in the discipline of the school. Before his time there had been a chaidain at Rugby as well as a head master, but three years after Arnuld's a^jpointment the former office fell vacant, and lie ai)plied to the trustees for the ap- pointment without the salary. The use he made of his new office will be fully appreciated by all who read the published volumes containing the sermons ])reached in Kugby cha])td. Arthtir Stanley, at tlie age of eighteen, said ol' Arnold's sermons tliat he SCHOOL SERMONS 85 never heard or saw anything which gave him so strongly the idea of inspiration. The prevailing note of these sermons is intense seriousness, — a deep sense both of the need of a high ideal in life and of the difficulties which attend its realization. His conception of the purpose which a school sermon ought to serve is well illustrated in this passage ■r " It is not enough to speak of sin in general and holiness in general, of God and Christ, of death and judgement. Some- thing more clear and distinct is wanted. You know very well that your faults are not those which you read of most in books, for books are written by men, and in general are intended to be read by men ; they speak therefore mostly of the sins and temptations of manhood : of covetousness, ambi- tion, injustice, pride, and other older vices with wliicli you feel that you have as yet but small concern. Besides, the pulpit is a solemn and sacred place, whereas the matters with which you are daily engaged are so common and so humble, that it seems like a want of reverence to speak of them in a sermon plainly by their names. And yet, if we do not speak of them plainly by their names, half of what we say will be lost in the air."^ "^ Accordingly, we find throughout the sermons evi- dence of a full acquaintance with the peculiar temp- tations which school life presents, and a keen insight into the effects produced by them upon the character. Perhaps of all the evils he denounced and sought to expose, the worst was the cowardice which made boys succumb to the public opinion of the set in which they happened to live. 1 Sermon V., Vol. II. 80 THOMAS AK.NOLI) "There arc boys who have cither never learned, or have (luite furgotteu all that may have been told them at home, of the duty of attending to tlieir school lessons. We know that there are boys who tliink all their lessons merely tire- some, and who are resolved never to Uike any more trouble about them than they can possibly avoid. But being thus idle tliemselves tliey cannot bear that others should be more attentive. We all know the terms of reproach and ridicule which are thrown out against a boy who works in earnest and upon principle. He is lauglied at for taking unnecessary trouble, for being afraid of punislunent, or for wishing to gain favour with his masters, and be thouglit by tliem to be better than other boys. Either of these reproaches is one which a boy finds it very hard to bear; he does not like to be thought afraid, or as wishing to court favour. He has not age or sense or firmness enough to know, that the oidy fear of which he needs be ashamed is the fear of his equals, the fear of those who are in no respect better than himself, and have, therefore, no right to direct him. To be afraid then t)f otlici- boys is, in a boy, the same sort of weakness as it is in a man to be afraid of otiier men, and as a man t)uglit to be etpially ashamed of fearing men and of not fearing God, so a boy ought to be ashamed of fearing boys, and also to be ashametl of not fearing his parents an than a lilank. So SCHOOL TRADITIONS \^C^UF^|A. the spirit gets lower and lower, and instead of finding a help and an encouragement in tlie associations of its place of education, the ingenuous mind feels them all no more than a weight upon its efforts ; they only tend to thwart it and keep it down. This is the tendency not only of a vicious tone, but even of a foolish and childish one, of a tone that tolerates ignorance and an indifference about all save the amusements of the day. On the other hand, whatever is done liere well and honourably, outlives its own genera- tion. . . . The size, the scale, the wealth, of a great insti- tution like this ensures its permanency, so far as anything on earth is permanent. The good and the evil, the noble- ness or the vileness, which may exist on this ground now, will live and breathe here in the days of our children ; they will form the atmosphere in whicli they will live hereafter, either wholesome and invigorating, or niunbing and deadly."* Arnold's dread of any theory which would tend to view the life of the scholar as a thing apart from the life of a Christian, found further expression in a memorable sermon on Christian education, from the striking text in Deuteronomy, " Ye shall teach these my words unto your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." The preaclier takes the opportunity of protesting earnestly against any attempt to divorce religious from secular instruction, or to treat them as distinct parts of an educational scheme. The device sometimes advocated in later times for solving the religious difficulty in our common and munici- pal schools, by confining the functions of the school 1 Sermon XVI., Vol. III., p. 210. 96 THOMAS ARNOLD teacher to secular instruction and calling in the aiil of the clergy or other specialists to give lessons on religion at separate hours, would have seemed to him wholly indefensible, and indeed fatal to any true conception of the relation of religious knowledge to other knowledge. " It is clear tliat neither is the Bible alone sufficient to give a complete religious c(hication, nor is it possible to tendi history, and uKjral and puliticul pliilosophy, with no reforcnec to the Bible, witliout giving an cdueation that shall be anti- religious. For, in the one case, tlie rule is given without the application, and in the other, the ai)plication is derived from a wrong rule. If, indeed, history were rigorously nothing but a simple collection of particular facts ; if the writers made no remarks on tliein, and the readers drew from them no conclusions, there might indeed be no reference to a wrong rule, and the study miglit be harmless except as a waste of time. But as this is not and cannot be the case, as almost every writer of history does comment upon his facts and reason about them, and as all readers, even when they cannot be said to draw conclusions from a history, are yet sure to catch some moral impression, so it becomes impossible to read and think much about human actions and human character, with- out referring bt)tli to God's standard, and yet, at the same time, to avoid separating off a lai'ge portion of our moral nature from the guidance and habitual sovereignty of (lod." ' His strongest sentiment as a teacher, that the intellectual life should be dominated and controlled by moral and spii-ituiil iiilhuMiccs, is W(dl summed up in a, ])liras(' wliicli occurs in a letter to ;in obi pupil. "1 call by the name of wisdom, knowledge rich and ' S.Tinoii XVI.. Vol. III. CLERICAL SCHOOLMASTERS 97 varied, digested and combined, and pervaded throngh and through by the light of the spirit of God." The union of the clerical office with that of the schoolmaster, which, with few exceptions, has been the traditional practice of the public schools for four centuries, was thus in Arnold's case justified in a remarkable degree. And there can be no doubt that it has some advantages. Parents, in parting with the moral supervision of their sons, are not unreason- ably disposed to place increased confidence in a head master who combines the scholarship and skill of the teacher with the dignity and weight of tlie clergy- man's office. And it is unquestionable that the opportunity thus afforded to tlie head master of per- forming pastoral functions, and especially of preach- ing in the school chapel, gives unity to the whole discipline of the institution and adds to his own means of influence. In days in which scholars by profession were nearly all in holy orders, the most obvious and reasonable course for a governing body was to choose the head master from the clerical ranks. But in view of the state of learning and the educational requirements of our own times, the sur- vival of this usage is not only undesirable, but often mischievous. It seriously narrows the range of choice open to trustees and governors. INIany men of the highest academic distinction do not take orders, and yet desire to devote themselves to the profession of teacher. The demand for skill and educational experience, in addition to some acquain- tance with the philosophy and the history of teach- 98 THOMAS ARNOLD ing, is dail}'- mnro audible; and oxporionco does not. show that these qualities are more likely to be pos- sessed by a clergyman than by a layman. The fact that the head-mastership of a great public school often proves a step to ecclesiastical preferment is in itself not without its drawbacks. It subordinates the profession of a teacher to that of a church dig- nitary; it prevents the bestowal of a man's best powers upon the duties of a schoolmaster, by setting before him as an object of higher ambition the attainment of a deanery or a bishopric. Sometimes, also, the candidate for the headship of a public school expresses his Avillingness to take orders if he is elected; although, teaching apart, tlie clerical voca- tion may not be specially congenial to him. In this way a grave injustice is often done to scholars of eminence, who have sought to qualify themselves for the profession of teaching and intend to make it the business of their lives. We may look forward, then, with hope to the time when, as a rule, laymen will fill the highest scholas- tic offices, or when, at least, men will be chosen for those offices on the grounds of their professional qualifications onl}-, without reference to the accident of their liaving taken or not taken holy orders. In no other way can the function of the schoolmaster assume its rightful rank among the liberal and learned professions. Nevertheless, it will nearly always happen that a ])erson gifted with the true teaching instinct, and conscious of his own responsi- bility in I'l'gard to tlie moral and spiritual well-lteing CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 99 of his scholars, will greatly value the opportunity of addressing the school collectively on the highest of all subjects. And for this purpose a license to preach in the college chapel should be obtained from the bishop of the diocese. No breach of church order would occur if the school were thus regarded as a pecuUum, outside the ordinary ecclesiastical rules, with its ordained chaplain for the performance of the Church's ordinances, and with special recognition of the riglit of the head master to address the whole community from the pulpit whenever he desired to do so. Of Arnold's sermons we may say generally that they do not aim at theological teaching, and that there is a marked absence of what is often called dogmatic statement, or of any attempt prematurely to form the opinions of boys on disputable religious questions. "Give me credit," he says in a letter to a friend, "for a most sincere desire to make Rugby a place of Christian edu- cation. At tlie same time my object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope to make. I mean that, from the naturally imperfect state of boyhood, they are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development and practice ; and I suspect that a low standard of morals in many respects must be tolerated among them, as it was on a larger scale, in what I consider the boyhood of the human race." Hence we trace throughout the school sermons an effort to awaken and inform the conscience, to arouse reverence for sacred things, and, above all, for the 100 THOMAS ARNOLD character and example of Christ; to inculcate the habit of veracity and the love of truth for its own sake, rather than to enforce any number of truths as understood by theologians; and to encourage diligence in the discharge of school duty, and right and generous aspirations after future honour and usefulness. As the best means of attaining these ends, he always extolled the virtue of that courage which will resist what is evil in tlfe public opinion of the school, and which will render all other forms of excellence easier and more possible. Nearly all boyish faults and vices he knew ultimately resolved themselves into cowardice. Falsehood, indolence, shirking, the low ideal of duty which comes from acquiescence in the worst usages of one's fellows, — all were traceable to lack of courage. L'esprit de solidarite doMS le mal, he thought the most dangerous of a school-boy's temptations, and he never ceased to expose it and to denounce it. I5ut it does not need that a high-minded Christian schoolmaster should have been ordained as a priest, in order tliat he may see the need of such teaching and be able to give it with effect, and in the right spirit. On the subject of school punishments, Arnold did not profess to be much in advance of his age. All the traditions of the public schools were in favour of flogging. In some of the corporate seals of chartered foundations a rod occupies a conspicuous place as part of tlie arms or device of an endowed grammar school. For example, the common seal granted to the Ix)uth (Jrammar Scliool with the letters-jiatent of Edward PUNISHMENTS 101 the Sixth (1552) represents a pedagogue in the act of inflicting corporal punishment, and contains the legend, Qui imrcit virge odit Jilium. The rod was in fact the emblem of discipline, the one characteristic symbol of magisterial authority. Arnold himself said, in one of his letters before going to Rugby: " When I think about this, I long to take rod in hand ; " ^ and so far as the y oun^r boys w^r e^ concerned, he made no aiiology for retaining the ancient discipline of the public schools. Had he lived in later times, when the theory of education and the study of child nature have received more system- atic attention, when other and wiser means, of cor- recting evil have been discovered, and when some' of the best-ordered and happy eoucatitii.al oommupi-; ties exist without the employment of physical pun- ishments in any form, he would probably have changed his views on this subject, and acknowledged that in just the proportion in which a skilled teacher understands his business, it becomes less necessary for him to resort to corporal punishment at all. It was with increasing reluctance that he inflicted it, confin- ing it chiefly to moral offences, such as lying, drink- ing, and habitual idleness, keeping the use of it as much as possible in the background, and for younger scholars only, and regarding it as wholly unsuited as the penalty for intellectual weakness or dulness. Yet to merely sentimental objections to it as degrad- ing to the recipient he would yield nothing. With characteristic directness, he declared that corporal 1 Letter XXII, 102 THOMAS AUNOLD puuislimeut litly luaiktMl uiul uiiswuiuil to the natii:, nilly inferiur state ut' buyhuud, and therei'ore conveyed no i)eculiar degradation to persons in such a state. " I know well of what feeling this argument about the degrading character of such punishment is the expression. It originates in that proud notion of personal independence, Avliich is neither reasonable nor Christian, but essentially barbarian. It visited Europe with all the curses of the age of chivalry, and is threatening us now with those of Jacobinism. At an age when it is almost impossible to find a true manly sense of the degradation of guilt or faults, •\diere'is.tae Avisdom of encouraging a fantastic sense of the degradation of personal correction?" The ■ tho:a<^ht. ;that it, was sin Avhich degrades, not the ^*^ punishment of sin, was ever uppermost in liis mind^r^ and prominent in his sermons. " \Vliat I want to seel in the school, and what I cannot find, is an abhor- rence of evil. I always tliink of the psalm, 'Xeitherl doth he abhor anything that is evil.' " Much of the influence he gained over his scholars — influence which enabled him to dispense in an increasing degree with corporal i)unishment — was attributable to his knowledge of the individual char- acteristics of boys. lie is said to have known every i boy in the school, his ap[)earance, his habits, and his companions. This is a kind of knowledge which has long Ix'cMi known to be cliaracteristic of the disci- ' l)liiiary system of the Jesuits, but has not boon common among the liead masters of English public scliools. Arnold valued it higlily and found many SCHOOL SPORTS AND ATHLETICS 103 opportuuities of turning it to useful account. It cannot be said that he was always genial in uuinuer; the younger boys, especially, regarded liiui with awe, and his own sense of the intense seriousness of life and duty gave a sternness and austerity to his aspect which made many of his pupils afraid of him. He liked to encourage games and sports, though he seldom joined in them, and had a healthy love of bathing, exercise, and long skirmishings in the country. His sympathy with these pursuits showed itself mainly in hasty and occasional visits to the school close. He certainly did nothing to encourage that extravagant passion for athletics, that exaltation of physical prowess to the same level as intellectual distinction, which has in later years so seriously debased the ideal and hindered the usefulness of the great public schools. Mr. Oscar Browning has well said on this point : " The most salient characteristic of modern public schools is the reception of games into the curriculum on an equality with work, if not into a superior position. Of this Arnold would entirely have disapproved. He would have seen that it min- istered to a lower standard of effort, that it vulgarized intellectual labour, that it substituted self-indulgence for self-denial, and that it placed those boys in posi- tions of command and influence who were frequently most unfit to exercise either the one or the other." The danger of the modern ^' cultus " of sports and athletics is precisely that which Aristotle pointed out in the Politics (VIII. 3-35) when he denounced the ex- treme and violent training which was imposed by the 104 THOMAS AIJNOLl) gymnastic exercises of the Spartan youtli, as tending to make them " brutal of soul." " Physical courage is not the only end," he urged, *Ho be aimed at in civil education." A savage and brutal soul is less compati- ble Avith exalted courage than a gentle soul trained so as to be exquisitely sensitive to the feelings of shame and honour. The most savage and unfeeling among the barbarian tribes were far from being the most courageous. A man trained on the Lacedemo- nian system in bodily exercises alone, destitute even of the most indisi)ensable mental culture, was a real /8avauo-o9, useful only for one branch of political duty, and even for that less \iscful than if he had been dif- ferently trained.^ Modern experience in i)u])lic scliouls curiously re- produces that of Greece more than two thousand years ago. For the moincnt llic ty]K' of scliool-boy and of manhood most in favour with tlie British pidilic is Spartan rather than Athenian ; but there can be no doubt that Arnold, faithful to the teaching of his own , master, would have sought to resist the i)revailing fashion, and to confine athletic sjiorls within narrower limits. The truth is that the Arnoldian tradition which has become slowly evolved and has lixi-d itself in the minds of most Kii-lish jH-oplc. is basi'd iii..i-(> upon Mr. Thomas lliii^hcs" romance, tlian upon the actual life as set forth in Stanley's volumes. Tom Ih-i>iri,'s /School DiujH is a manly aiul spirited book, and is pervaded throughout with a sense of humour, a sym- I Sec Groto'.s Aristotle, i>. 514. TOM BKOWN'S SCHOOL DAYS 105 pathy with boyhood, and a love of righteousness and truth. The story is well and vigorously told, and has been deservedly admired. But as Matthew Ar- nold once said to me, it has been praised quite enough, for it gives only one side, and that not the 1 best side, of Rugby school life, or of Arnold's character, j It leaves out of view, almost Avholly, the intellectual I purpose of a school. It gives the reader the impres- sion that it is the chief business of a public school to produce a healthy animal, to supply him with pleasant companions and faithful friends, to foster in him courage and truthfulness, and for the rest t(j teach as much as the regulations of the school enforce, Ijut noi more. It is to be feared that Hughes' own boyhood! was not spent with the best set at llugby. There werei in his time Lake, C. J. Vaughan, Arthur Stanley,! Bradley, Lushington, the two Walronds, JVIatthew and i Thomas Arnold, but of these, and of the intense in- > tellectual strain in the sixth form and the upper schoolhouse set, and of the aims by which tliey Avere inspired, Hughes appeared to have little or no know- ledge. His typical school-boy is seen delighting in wan- ton mischief, in sport, in a fight, and even in a theft from a farm-yard, distinguished frequently by inso- lence to inferiors, and even by coarseness and brutal- ity, but not by love of work or by any strong interest in intellectual pursuits. It is after all a one-sided and very imperfect view of ethical discipline, which while it seeks to make a boy sensitive on the point of honour, refusing to "blab" or tell tales of a schoolfellow, is yet tolerant of " cribs " and '' vulguses " and other de- 106 THOMAS AUNOLD vices by wliicli masters could he liuudwinked or deceived. This picture of a itul)lic school, in s]»ite of its attrac- tive features and of its un(|uestiouable power and reality, will probably be quoted in future years as illustrating the low standard of civilization, the false ideal of manliness, and the deep-seated indifference to learning for its own sake which characterized the upper classes of our youtli in the early half of the nineteenth century. In short, the book will be held to explain and justify the famous epithet of '* bar- barians " wliich Matthew Arnold was wont to apply- to the English aristocracy and to that section of society wliich was most nearly influenced by the great public schools. / At the Universities it soon became noticeable, not only that Kugby won an increasing number of ' academic triumphs, but that the Rugbeians were •^characterized by a certain gravity and by a deeper seriousness of purpose in life than were to be found among ordinary public-school boys. They were not on that account very popular. The as- sociations wliicli surround ordinary undergraduates, and the talk to wliich they listen, and the homes from which they come, are not specially calculated to encourage moral thoughtfulness and introspection; .and, to say the truth, young people -who are prema- Turely distinguished by these qualities are apt to be regarded as "prigs." Nothing exasperates the aver- age man more than the airs of a superior person, and it may be readily admitted that there was in Arnold's A TEMPLE OF INDUSTRIOUS PEACE 107 intense earnestness and intellectual aspiration some tendency to beget among his elder pupils self-con- sciousness and a too pronounced scorn for what satisfies commonplace people. But, after all, this danger, though a real one, is not that from which English society and English boyhood are likely to suffer much. Most of the faults and shortcomings of the British "barbarian" lie in the opposite direction. And an infusion into our social system of a few men with high and even impossible ideals, and with too much earnestness, may well be borne by John Bull without much complaining or loss. It may be said generally that Arnold's conception of a school was that it should be first of all a place for the formation of character, and next a place for learn- ing and study, as a means for the attainment of this higher end. Discipline and guidance were in his view still more prominently the business of a school- master than the impartation of knowledge. The motives he sought to develop and strengthen were the love of righteousness, the admiration of valour, genius, and patriotism, the sense of duty to others and the scorn of what was little, untruthful, mean, or base in daily action. But the main condition on which the incidental attainment of this object was possible was that the community should be aw fond pervaded with the spirit of work, and that the proper business of a good school, the production of exact and accomplished scholars, should be thoroughly well fulfilled.' Thomas Carlyle, who stayed a week at Rugby, characterized the school as a "temple of 108 THOMAS AKNOLI) industrious peace." This would liardly be an accu- rate description of a naodern public school in which boat races and football matches are the prominent topics of discussion and furnish the chief fields of ambition. One of the most distinguished of Arnold's succes- sors in the head-mastership of Rugby, Dr. Percival, now the Lord liishop of Hereford, in writing to me has thus summarized his estimate of Arnold's school work and personal influence : '^ If I were called upon to express in a sentence or two my feeling in regard to Dr. Arnold's influence on school life, I should describe him as a great prophet among schoolmasters, rather than an instructor or educator in the ordinary sense of the term. Some are appointed to be prophets, and some pastors and teachers, and he was undoubtedly one of the great- est in the first of these classes. I remember asking Dean Stanley if Arnold taught them a great deal in the sixth form in the course of his lessons, and in reply to my question the Dean held up a little note- liodk wliich he hajjpened to have in his hand at tlie moment, and said, * I could put everytliing that Ar- nold ever taught me in the way of instruction into this little book.' "Thus it miglit fairly be said of him, as was said of a famous Oxford leader the other day, that his influ- ence was stimulative rather than formative, the secret of his i)ower consisting not so much in the novelty of his ideas or methods, as in his conunanding and mag- netic i)ersonality, and llie intensity and earnestness ARNOLD A rROPIIET 109 1 with which he impressed his views, and made them — \ as a prophet makes his message — a part of the living forces of the time. " The dominating idea of his Kiigby life was that a head master is called of God to make his school a Christian school, an idea which has no doubt been en- throned in the hearts of multitudes of other school- masters, both before and since; but he was destined to make it a new power in the world through the intensity with which he nursed it as a prophetic in- spiration, and preached it in all his words and works with a prophetic fervour. This idea pervades not only his chapel sermons, but all the activities of his life. In his lessons, his study of history, his discipline, his exhortations addressed to the sixth form, and to the whole school, and his dealings with individual boys, he is felt to l)e always striving to infuse into the com- " moil life his own enthusiasm of Christian earnestness, and to stimulate the growth of pul)lic spirit, moral thoughtfulness, and what we sum up as Christian character. " Such, I take it, is the best part of the inheritance we owe to him, as it is the food and sustenance of all our highest hopes for the future of English schools." CHAPTER VI Arnold's extra-scholastic interests— "Why such interests are neces- sary for a teacher — Foreign travel — Extracts from diary — Love of Nature — Intercourse with the poor needed hy himself and by his pupils — University settlements and mission work in connexion with public schools — Politics — The Reform Bill — The Englishman'. s lierjister — The society for the diffusion of useful knowledge — Mechanics' Institutes — The London Uni- versity—Arnold's attitude towards each of these enterprises It is impossible for readers to understand tlie true significance of a life or to estimate the value of a man's work without taking into account tlie pursuits and tastes which have lain outside of his professional duties. It is a familiar truism that we come into the world not only to get a living but to live; and that the life we live depends as mucli upon the tastes we form, the number and variety of the interests which appeal to us, as upon the manner in wltich our definite and ostensible work is done. A life wholly devoted to professional duty is necessarily an incom- plete life. Tliat duty can only be seen in its true proportions, can, in fact, only be properly discharged at all when its relation to the larger interests which lie outside of it is clearly perceived. This is true of all human employments. But it is especially true in regard to the otlice of a teacher. There is an inevi- talde (doseiiess in ilic iiitcllccttial atinospluTe (tf a 11(1 EXTRA-SCIIOLASTIC INTERESTS 111 schoolroom, and the best teachers are precisely those who are most conscious of the need of some sphere of activity beyond its walls. Nothing serves so well to keep the life of a schoolmaster sweet and wholesome as a love for some study or employment which he pursues for its own sake, and which has no immedi- ate and visible relation to the routine of teaching or to the passing of examinations. Pedantry and donnish- ness, the characteristic faults of the teacher's calling, are wont to be encouraged by the constant exercise of authority in a little world composed entirely of his in- tellectual inferiors, by the habitual use of the impera- tive mood, and by an exclusive, albeit conscientious, absorption in scholastic functions. We all need, if we would see our work in true perspective, a vivid sonse of the richness and spaciousness of the world outside and some contact with its greater interests, especially those which touch most nearly the border- land of our own profession and home. And we can never understand Arnold's educational work unless we enquire liovv he employed his leisure, and what were his relations to the larger world of thought and action, of which, after all, a school is only a part. Arnold was very conscious of the limitations which his profession imposed, and of the danger of sinking to the rank of a mere dominie. And he found the needful expansion in more directions than one. For- eign travel was to him one of the most effective and the most delightful expedients for correcting the ten- dency to professional narrowness and pedantry. He felt refreshed and invigorated by it. XTNIVER-TT^^ 112 THOMAS ARNOLD "I am come out alone, my dearest," he says in one of his home letters, " to see the morning sun on JMont Blanc, and the lake, and to look, I trust, with more tiian outward eyes on this glorious scene. It is overpowering like all intense beauty, if you dwell on it, but I contrast it immediately with our Rugby horizon and my life of duty there, and our cloudy sky of England, clouded alas ! socially, for more than physically. | . . . And if, as I trust it will, this rambling and this beauty of nature in foreign lands shall have strengthened me fur my work in England, then we may both rejoice tiiat we have had this little parting." It is noticeable that there is little or no evidence in his letters or journals of any interest in what is generally called "art." Tliere are no raptures about the great painters. He doubtless visited the Uffizi gallery at Florence, the Accademia at Venice, and the galleries of the Vatican, but none of them moved or inspired him much, and he says little or nothing about their treasures. Nor, except once at Pisa, did the architecture of the great Italian cathedrals, the music, the solemn procession, or the mere i)ictu- resqueness of the ceremonial of the IJoman (diundi, win from liini citlitT admiration or criticisin. " I care little for the siglit of the churches, and nothing at all for tlic rfc As an illustration of the alacrity with which he •seized on any link between the present and the past, and turned from the observation of the material sur- roundings and people to the consideration of their history and character, this extract may be quoted from the diary (1S28) in which he describes his first view of the Khine and of Cologne. " We burst upon the view of the valley of the Rhine, the city of Cologne with all its towers, the Rhine itself distinctly THE RECREATIONS OF LIFE 115 seen at the distance of seven miles, tlie Seven Mountains above Bonn on our right, and a boundless sweep of the country beyond tlie Rhine in front of us. To be sure, it was a striking contrast to the first view^ of the valley of the Tiber from the Mountains of Viterbo ; but the Rhino in mighty recollections will vie with anything, and this spot was particularly striking. Cologne was Agrippa's colony inhabited by Germans, brought from beyond the river, to live as the subjects of Rome ; the river itself was the fron- tier of the Empire, — the limit as it were of two worlds, that of Roman laws and customs, and that of German. For before us lay the land of our Saxon and Teutonic forefathers, the land uucorrupted by Roman or any other mixture, the birthplace of the most moral races of men that the world has yet seen, of the soundest laws, the least violent passion?, and the fairest domestic and civil virtues. I thought of that memorable defeat of Varus and his three legions, which for ever confined the Romans to the western side of the Rhine, and preserved the Teutonic nation — the regenerating element in modern Europe — safe and free." But it was not merely to physical exercise and to acquaintance Avitli foreign lands that he turned for the needful refreshment and solace, and for the means of enlarging the sphere of his own interests beyond the Avails of the schoolroom. Even wlien at Laleham, he felt the need of distraction of another kind. Xot only enjoyment, but fresh and different duty, seemed to him needful to restore the balance of life, and to save him from the fate of becoming a mere pedagogue. And one of the duties which he found most helpful for this purpose was that of making himself more closely acquainted with the condition and the feelings of the poor. He said in a letter to his friend Tucker : 116 THOMAS ARNOLD "I care not a straw for the labour of the half year; for it is not labour but vexation which hurts a man, and I find my comfort depends more and more on tlie pupils' good and bad conduct. They arc an awful charge, but still to me a very interesting one, and one which I couhl cheerfully jjursue till my health or faculties fail me. Moreover, I have now taken up the care of the Workliouse, i.e. as for as going there once a week to read prayers and give a sort of lecture upon some part of the Bible. I wanted to sec more of the poor peo- ple, and I found tliat uidcss I devoted a regular time to it I should never do it, for the hunger for exercise, on the part of myself and my horse, used to send me out riding as soon as my work was done. Whereas now I give u]) Timrsday to the village, and it will be my own fault if it does not do me more good than the exercise would." ^ The belief that the life of a scholar might easily become too isolated and selfish a life, that a know- ledge of the needs and feelings of the poor and of the unprivileged classes was a valuable part of educa- tion, and that the i)Ossession of intellectual advantages carried with it the obligation to do something for those Avho did jiot possess them, became stronger as experience brought him more into contact with the sons of rich men and made him more familiar with the peculiar temptations of their life. The memory of the wholesome tonic influence which had become so valuable to himself, when visiting the workhouse at Laleham, remained with him through life. In the course of two remarkable sermons, XXII. and XXII I . . on a single episode in our Lord's life, his eating and drinking with a mixed company and in the house of 1 Lottor XII. FAMILY AFFECTIONS 117 Levi the publican, lie took occasion to warn young men against the dangers of sellisli isolation, either in the scholar's life or in the life of what is called "society," — the comj)anionship of those of one's own station and of pursuits akin to one's own. Speaking of Christ's example and the kind of intercourse with our fellow-creatures which is calculated to do us most good, he said: " We dare not in this case trust ourselves in the society of publicans and sinners, we should not do good to them, but they would rather infect us with their own evil. But the natural remedy for our peculiar dangers, the way in which we can best mix with our brethren for the nourish- ment of our atfectious, is to be found in tlie intercourse with our own families on the one hand, and with the poor on the other." On the former of these points, the necessity of cul- tivating to the fullest the family affections, he always spoke with peculiar emphasis. Singularly blessed as he was with a happy home, accustomed to do much of his literary work in the room in which wife and children Avere around him, and deriving strength and inspiration from their presence, the boys could never fail to see how the domestic life Avas the centre round which all his thoughts clustered. The picture de- scribed by a pupil of the fireside at Laleham may re- mind us of the story of Melanchthon, who Avas found by the Pope's legate intently studying his Greek Testament held in one hand, while he rocked the cradle Avith the other. And it is A'ery characteristic of the extent to Avhich he himself Avas sensitive to 118 THOMAS ARNOLD the sweet ami gracious influences of home, that lie took occasion to object even to the apparently inno- cent and useful institution of reading parties for the long vacation as being not without its drawbacks. " I cannot but think that a most evil habit has of late years grown up amongst young men when engaged in read- ing — that of going away from their homes and fixing them- selves, for three or four months, in some remote part of the countiy, where they might study without interruption. It may be that more is thus read than would be read at home, though scarcely more than might be ; but even supposing it to be so, it is a dangerous price that is paid for it. The simple quiet of a connnon fixmily circle, the innumerable occasions of kindness that it affords, and its strong tendency to draw away our thoughts from self and to awaken our affections for othci's, — a discipline precious at every perio^cs of the world are just coming upon us, when our stuilies and even our animal spirits are all combining to make us selfish and proud." On the second point — the need of keeping open the sympathies and of redressing wliatever of evil is in the life of the wealthy, by friendly and j'et unpatronizing intercourse with the poor — he was wont to be yet more emphatic. At Rugby, as at Laleham, he had put himself, so far as oi»portunity served, into connnuiii- (!ation witli working men and women, and had derivi'd great benefit from the experience. " Another way of mixing with our brethren in a maimer most especially jdeasiiig to t^nist and useful to others, is by holding frequent intercourse with the poor. Perhaps to young men of tlie richer da.sses there is nothing whidi INTERCOURSE WITH THE POOR 119 makes their fre(iucnt residence in large towns so mischievous to them as the difficulties which they find in the way of such intercourse. In the country, many a young man knows something at least of his poorer neighbours ; but in towns, the numbers of the poor, and the absence of any special connexion between him and any of them in particular, hin- ders him too often from knowing anything of- them at all, — an evil which is as much to be regretted on the one side as on the other, and which is quite as mischievous to the minds and tempers of the rich as it is to the bodily condition of the poor. I can hardly imagine anything more useful to a young man of an active and powerful mind, advancing rapidly in knowledge and with high distinction either actu- ally obtained or close in prospect, than to take him — or, \ much better, that he should go of liimself — to the abodes of poverty, of sickness, and old age. Everything there is a lesson ; in everything Christ speaks, and the spirit of Christ i is ready to convey to his heart all that he witnesses. Accus- | tomed to all the comforts of life, and hardly ever thinking what it would be to want them, he sees poverty in all its evils, — scanty room, and too often scanty fuel, scanty cloth- ing, and scanty food. Instead of the quietness and neatness of his own chamber, he finds very often a noise and a confu- sion which would render deep thouglit impossible ; instead of the stores of knowledge with which his own study is filled, he finds perhaps only a prayer-book and a Bible. ... He will see old age and sickness and labour borne not only with patience, but with thankfulness, through the aid of that Bible and the grace of the Holy Spirit who is its author. He will find that while his language and studies would be utterly unintelligible to the ears of tliose whom he is visiting, yet that thei/ in their turn have a language and feelings to which he is no less a stranger. ... It would, indeed, be a blessed thing, and would make this place really a seminary of true religion and useful learning, if those among us who are of more thoughtful years, and especially those of us who 120 THOMAS ARNOLD arc likely to become iiiiiiistors of Christ hereafter, woiiM remember that tlieir Cliristian education has commenced already, and that he cannot learn in Christ's school who does not acquaint himself something with tlie poor. Two or three at first, five or six afterwards, a very small number, might begin a practice, which under proper regulations and guided by Christian prudence, as well as actuated by Chris- tian love, would be eipially beneficial to the poor and to yourselves." ^ We have in these sermons an indication that to learn to be of service to others was a great part of his own education, and that it should also be set forth before the young, as an indispensable part of theirs. The belief that the well-born and the pros- perous have as much to learn from intercourse with the poor, as the poor could possibly learn in return, was founded on liis own experience and was imparted, as occasion served, to his elder boys. This belief has since his time found expression in many ways. The University Settlements in the South and East of London, Toynbee Hall, the efforts of Eton, ]\[arl- borough, and other public schools to maintain dif- ferent forms of missionary and social enterprise in the poorer suburbs of London, are, though of later ^ate, all in their way legitimate products of Arnold's influence, of the spirit which he sought to infuse into school and University life, the onthusiasm of human- ity, the struggle against selfishness and narrowness, and the belief that a good education, like all other privileges, implies a corresponding obligation towards 1 Sciinoii XXlll. POLITICAL UNREST OF THE TIME 121 those who care without it.^ By Wcay of further anti- dote to the narrowing influence of his professional duties, Stanley notices Arnold's Lectures to Me- chanics' Institutes at Kugby and Lutterworth, liis fre<|uent sermons to village congregations, the estab- lishment of a dispensary, his tracts of advice on the appearance of the cholera; and, at the time of the construction of the railway, his exertions to procure the sanction of the Bishop to the performance of short services for the labourers employed on it, to be con- ducted by himself and his assistant masters in turn. There were circumstances in the political and social life of the kingdom at the time which were well cal- culated to occasion grave anxiety, and to stimulate an ardent reformer like Arnold with a desire to take a part in public life. The period of the Reform Bill happened to coincide with the prevalence of much distress and industrial unrest. The resolute resist- ance of the Duke of Wellington and the Tory party to the enactment of that measure embittered the temper of the unenfranchised classes; and the in- creasing use of steam mechanism, both for manufact- ures and for locomotion, caused a dislocation in our industrial system, closed up some of the avenues to employment, and excited considerable alarm among the working classes. Arnold took the keenest inter- est in the angry and, as it seemed to him, somewhat perilous conflicts of the time. He believed that the social dangers which threatened the nation could only be averted by the exercise of more sympathy on the part of the ruling classes, and more intelligence on 122 TIKtMAS ARNOLD the part of the iiih'd. So he determined to venture on a new periodical, the Englishmcui's Register, which lived a brief life, from May to July, 1831. "I want," he said, "to get up a real Poor Man's Maga- zine, which should not bolster up abuses and veil initiuities, nor prose to tlie poor as to cliildren, but should address them in the style of Cobbett, plainly, bohlly, and in sincerity, ex- cusing nothing, concealing notliing, and misrepresenting noth- ing, but speaking the very whole truth in lovc."^ It is very characteristic of him that he jdunged into this chivalrous enter}»rise before lie had well assured himself of probable support from friends and sympathizers, and before he had adequately estimated the serious pecuniary obligations which it entailed. "Our hope is," he said, in his introductoiy article, "to rally those, and we believe there are many who feel in these tremendous times as we do, who are disgusted alike with the folly and iniquity that would keep all things as they are, and with the no less foolish and unprincipled violence which would destroy rather than reform, and which pollutes even reform itself by its unchristian spirit and resentments." Accordingly, he contributed to the paper some vigor- ous articles in favour of the reform of the representa- tive system, and interspersed them with other articles on the labouring classes, and Avith a series of exposi- tory articles on the book of Genesis, and ou the lessons which might be derived from it in relation to the right economy and use of life. After the discontinuance of the Register he contributed to the 1 Letter XXVL HIS POLITICAL WRITINGS 123 Sheffield Coiirant a succession of letters on the social condition of the operative classes, which dealt with such to})ics as labour, Avages, poverty, education, and reform in a manner wliich is no less remarkable for the sympathy with which he viewed the condition, the needs, and the aspirations of the poor, than for the earnestness with which he warned them against indulging in illusions. He told the working classes frankly tliat tliey must not expect too much from parliamentaiy reform, and he refuted the doctrine that Avar was good because it furnished employment and made trade brisk. He Avould not liave Avorking men suppose that any nostrum or political arrange- ment could ever save them from the responsibility of qualifying themselves by their own industry and intelligence for a larger sliare of the comfort and social advantages of life. Home of his articles in the defunct Register and in the Sheffield Corirant Avere republished by Stanley in a supplementary volume of Miscellaneous Works. They may still be read Avith interest by any one Avho desires to study the economic history as Avell as the temper of the times. For example, he dAvelt on the natural tendency of wealth to become richer and poverty poorer. The effect of Avealth, he said, was to make men more alive to iutellcctua.! jdeasures and more able to pro- cure them, Avhihi poverty renders the same pleasures at once undesired and unattainable. In this Avay the two classes of our community have been removed from one another by a greater distance, and have become strangers, if not enemies. The excess of 124 THOMAS ARNOr.I) aristocracy in our wliole system — religious, political, and social — had led to au enormous evil, though it was hard to say that any one was to blame for it. The rich and poor have each a distinct language, the language of the rich being that of books, and being full of French words derived from Roman ancestors, while that of the poor retained its Anglo- Saxon character. "Our business," he said, "is to raise all and lower none. E(iuality is the dream of a niathnan, or the pas.sion of a fiend. Extreme inequality, or high comfort and civiHzation in some, coexisting witli deep misery and degradation in others, is no less also a folly and a sin. But an equality in whicli some have all the enjoyments of civilized life, and none are with- out its comforts, where some have all tlie treasures of know- ledge, and none are sunk in ignorance, — that is a social system in harmony with the order of (lod's creation in the natural world.'" Tliere were other ]»ublic movements whicli wore not political and were of a more hopeful kind. Lord Brougham, whose reforming zeal made him many enemies, and whose restless and versatile energy alienated many who were disposed to sympathize Avith his nicnsurcs, liad, as early as 1S1(), distin- guisluul liiniscdf in Parlianiciit by setting on foot the first enquiry into the "aJjuscs of the public charitable foundations connected witli education," and had also initiated another emjuiry into tlie state of ediication in the metropolis. Failing, after repeated efforts, to arouse Parliament to any strong interest in tlie sub- 1 ,S/icjHi'l(l Coiiraiil, is;i'_'. l.ctlfi- II. SOCIETY FOR THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE 125 ject, lie, in 1825, allied himself with Eomilly, Lord John Eussell, W. Tooke, Jaiues Mill, Henry Hallam, M. D. Hill, Sir Charles Bell, Bishop jNIaltby of Durham, AVilliam Allen, and other prominent Whigs, in the establishment of a voluntary Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. In 1S2S the society was able to congratulate its supporters on the success " which had attended its efforts to make the most useful and the most exalted truths of science easily and gener- ally accessible." In that year Charles Knight became the recognized publisher, and up to the year 1846, when the society came to an end, a succession of treatises and tracts appeared which undoubtedly had a most stimulating effect on the intellectual life of the working classes, and especially on the class im- mediately above them. Very eminent writers were engaged. Brougham himself contributed the opening treatise on the "objects, advantages, and pleasures of science." Dr. Lardner, Sir James Mackintosh, Pro- fessor Maiden, were among the other contributors. The Library of Useful Knowledge, the Penny Cyclo- pwdia, which appeared at lirst in penny weekly numbers, the Library of Entertaining I^noioledge, and the Penny Magazine, which was the pioneer of man}' periodicals of mingled instruction and en- tertainment, were all new experiments in popular literature, and were welcomed by many good men as enterprises of high value and far-reaching influence. A kindred effort, mainly helped forward by the same persons, was the establishment by Dr. Birkbeck, in 1820, of the first Mechanics' Institution in London. 126 THOMAS A K NOLI) The example was widely followed in the provincial towns. Classes, reading rooms, and libraries were provided, courses of lectures on science were ar- ranged, and great efforts were made to popularize knowledge and to attract working men to the Insti- tutes. Under different names — Literary Institutes, Polytechnics, Evening Continuation Classes — the Mechanics' Institute survives in full and beneticial activity to our own day ; but it should not be forgotten that the first serious attempt in England to provide in the evening for those wlio had been laboriously engaged during the day, means and appliances for intellectual culture was made by IJrougham, liirkbeck, and the promoters of the "Diffusion Society." A still more ambitious enterprise was the founda- tion, in 1828, of an institution intended to serve as a University for London. At tliat time religious tests were enforced at the older LTniversities prac- tically excluding from the benefits of those founda- tions all who felt unable or unwilling to sign the thirty-nine articles. The expense of living at Oxford or Cambridge placed their advantages out of the reach of many poor students; and before the creation of railways, even tlu^ distance of tliese centres of learning IVoin tin' metro])olis was felt to be a disiul vantage. In llicsc ciriMinistaiU't's Tliomas Campbell, tlir poet, liad pul.lishfd, in 1S2~>, a letter addressed to Ijoid r.i-ou.i^hani. earnestly advocating the establishment in London of a great University for "teaching, examining, exercising, and rewarding witli liononrs in the liberal arts and sciences the youth ol' THE LONDON UNIVEUSITY ovir middling rich people," — a University combining the advantages of public and private education, the emulative spirit produced "by examination before numbers, and by honours conferred before the pub- lic, the cheapness of domestic residence, and all the moral influences that result from home." Shares representing £160,000 were taken up, and in 1827 the foundation of the new building in Gower Street was laid by the king's brother, the Duke of Sussex. For a time that institution, though it failed to obtain power from the Crown to confer degrees, was known as the London University, and it was not until 1836, after King's College had been founded, that the long negotiations with the Government were terminated by an arrangement which conferred upon each of those Colleges a charter recognizing it as a teaching body; and at the same time incorporated by Charter a third body, to be called the "University of London," with power to examine candidates from those and other affiliated colleges, and to confer academic degrees in any branch of learning or science except theology. In all these enterprises Arnold had the keenest interest. They seemed to him to be full of promise for the intellectual emancipation and improvement of the whole English people, and he threw himself into them with characteristic vehemence and enthusiasm. He was in full sympathy with the objects Avhich the promoters of the Diffusion Society, the Mechanics' Institutes, and the London Universit}^ had in view, but he was not without grave misgivings about the methods they adopted. He could not withhold sym- 128 THOMAS ARNOLD patliy from the educational rcronuevs, although what Sir Gr. Trevelyau has somewhat happily called brough- am's "slovenly omniscience" caused that sympathy to be imperfect. The arid and limited conception of "Useful Knowledge," knowledge sought because of its visible relation to practical uses, could not be expected to satisfy him. The publications of the " Diffusion " Society dealt mainly with scientific facts and interesting information, and left almost wliolly out of view the culture of the imagination and tlie taste. There was a singular absence from the So- ciety's programme of the humaner studies, literature, art, logic, ethics, poetry, and })hilosopliy. lUit these defects, though serious, were in liis view not tlie worst. There was, In; thouglit, an indifference to religion characterizing tlie publirations of the Society, and tliis cliilhul and disheartened him juost. It was one of his deepest convictions, that wliile the educa- ion of an Englishman need not be sectarian, it should be essentially Christian. "The slightest touch of Christian princijde and Christian liope, in the Soci- ety's Ijiographical and liistDrical artich's," lie said in one of his letters, "would be a sort of living salt to the whole." And in another letter he described the sort of literature wliieli he should like to furnish to th(i working men of England as "Cobbett-like in style, but Christian in spirit." "I lu'ver wanted articles on religious subjects half so nnu-h as artich>s on coiniiion subjects written with a decidedly Chris- tian tone." And his enthusiasm in favour of direct- ing tlu'si! new ami itroniisiii'j' anciicics for mental THE PENNY MAGAZINE 129 improvement into a course wliicli should recognize the moral and spiritual needs of the nation, took a very practical shape when, in Avriting to one of the ofl&cers of the Diffusion Society, he said : "I am convinced that if the Penny Magazine were decid- edly and avowedly Christian, many of the clergy throughout the kingdom would be most delighted to assist its circulation by every means in their power. For myself, I should think that I could not do too much to contribute to the support of what would then be so great a national blessing, and I should beg to be allowed to offer fifty pounds annually towards it so long as my remaining in my present situation enabled me to gratify my inclinations to that extent." The offer was not accepted. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive how an arrangement, such as Arnold desired, could be formulated and rendered permanent without raising in the Society many formidable theo- logical difficulties. To Arnold himself, who saw his way clearly to the preparation of articles which would fulfil liis own ideal, the difficulties seemed to be trifling. The Committee of the Society, however, formed a truer estimate of the public interpretation which would be put on his plan, and determined to adhere resolutely to the course they had from the first adopted. They resolved to make intellectual improvement and useful knowledge their main busi- ness, leaving to other agencies all discussions on disputable theology and on morals and religion. Their activity in publication did not slacken, but they worked under limitations which, even to Arnold, appeared to be harmful, and which caused a large 130 THOMAS AUNOLI) number of the ministers of religion to regard the Society with scant sympatliy and some suspicion to the last. The Saturday Magazine, which was pub- lished by the Society for promoting Christian Know- ledge, was considered by many as the rival, and by others as the antidote to tlie Penny Magazine, and secured a large circulation. Arnold said to a member of that Society : "I have had some correspondence with the Useful Know- ledge people about their Penvy Mayazine, and have sent thi-ni some things which I am waiting to see if they will publish : but of course what I have been doing, and may do, for tht-ni does not hinder me from doing what I can for you. I only suspect that I sliould want to liberalize your magazine, as I wish to Christianize theirs, and probably your Committee would recalcitrate against any such operation, as theirs may do. The Christian Knowledge Society has a bad name for the dulness of its publications, and their contributions to the cause of general knowledge, and enlightening the people in earnest, may seem a little tardy and reluctant." ' The Useful Knowledge Society came to an end in 1846. It was an honourable and undoubtedly suc- cessful effort to promote the better educatiou of the people, and tlie influence of its })ublications long sur- vived its own death. If its promoters ])roved to be too saiiguiiH'. if bitcv experience showed that they made an innrcuratc estimate Ixith of the appetite of ilie working man for iiitelli'et iial nut riiiieiit ami •>!' the eharaeier of the iiutrinient. to be i>rovi(led, the par- tial failure of t.lie enler|prise is nowise to their ilis- 1 l.ciior XI.IV. MECHANICS' INSTITUTES 131 credit. At least it blocked up one of the roads to future failure, and did much to make later educa- tional progress possible. Biit Arnold's interest in the larger work of Dr. Birkbeck was not diminished by this partial failure. His lecture on the divisions and mutual relation of knowledge, delivered before the jNlechanics' Institute at liugby, shows at the same time his sympathy with the promoters of such insti- tutions and his desire to improve the ideal of "useful knowledge " which was to a large extent presented to the Avorking classes in the lectures to which they were accustomed. He expressed an earnest wish to encourage Mechanics' Institutes on account of the good that they can do, and at the same time lie deemed it important to call attention to their neces- sary imperfections and to notice the good Avliich they cannot do. There is in this lecture little or no refer- ence to the merely material or commercial value of knowledge, but an attempt to enlarge his hearers' conception of the worth of mental cultivation as a means of enriching life and adding to its power and usefulness. Hence he dwells much on the need of such studies as philosophy, languages, and logic, as helping to foster a love of truth7 and to qualify the student to think more soundly and accurately about any of the subjects in which he might become inter- ested, especially those which concerned most nearly the duties of the citizen and the formation of riglit opinions about the past and the future. In 1836, he Avas invited to a seat on the Senate of the newly constituted University of London, and he 132 THOMAS AlJNOLl) accepted the i)Ost witli much ;ihicrity, believing that here was a new opportunity for usefulness and a promising instrument for extending the blessings of a liberal education to many persons who had liitherto been excluded froiu academic privileges. One of thu first proposals wliich lie submitted to the Senate was to the effect that an ac(puiintance with some part of the New Testament in the original should be required of every candidate for a degree in Arts. For degrees in Law and Medicine he was not disposed to insist on this condition. But a degree in Arts, he contendetl, ought to certify that the holder had received a com- plete and liberal education; and a liberal education without the Scriptures must, in any Christian coun- try, be a contradiction in terms. Of theoretic diffi- culties in the conduct of the examination he made very light. "I am perfectly ready," he said, "to examine tomorrow in any Unitarian Scliool in England, in presence of parents and masters. I will not put a question that shall offend, yet I will give such an examination sus will bring out, or prove the absence of, Christian knowledge of tlie higliest value. I speak as one who has been used to examine young men in tlie Scriptures for nearly twenty years, and I pknlge myself to the perfect easiness of doing this. Our e.xamina- tions, in fact, will carry tlieir own security with them if our characters will not, and we should not and could not venture to pro.selytize even if we wished it. But this very circum- stance of our having joined the London University at the risk of nnidi odium from a large i)art of our profession would be a warrant for our entering into the spirit of the Cliarter with perfect sincerity.'"' 1 Leltui- U. IJislu.i. Utter, Cl.Xlil. SCRIPTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 133 These views, however, were not accepted by his colleagues on the Senate, many of whom saw with greater clearness than he how difficult it would be to secure a succession of Arnolds as Scripture examiners, and how many promising and conscientious students might possibly be excluded from the University, if the religious examination were insisted on. Accordingly, his proposal that every candidate for the degree of B.A. should be required to take up one of the Gospels or Epistles at his discretion was re- jected. But in deference to his judgment and that of the minority who sympathized with him^_a_vpluntary or supplementary examination was instituted in the Hebrew Text of the Old Testament, the Greek Text of the New Testament, and Scripture History and Evi- dences, and special prizes and certificates were offered to successful candidates. The regulations for tliis examination are still in force in tlie scheme of tlie London University and are an interesting survival testifying to Arnold's influence. But the annual number of candidates is small, and the certificates in this department of knowledge do not count in any way towards the attainment of a degree. Though keenly regretting that the principle for which he had contended did not obtain the approval of the Senate, Arnold yet continued for a time to serve as a member of that body, partly because he did not Avish to cen- sure even by implication those BisJiops and clergy who still felt it their duty to remain, and partly in the hope of making the Scriptural examination as attractive and effective as possible, and perhaps of 134 THOMAS ARNOLD SO regulating its conditions that tlie Arts degree would be generally understood to be incomplete with- out it. Wlieu it afterwards became evident that neither the authorities of the affiliated Colleges, nor those of the University itself, shared his belief in the necessity of such an examination, or were disposed to regard it in any other light than as a purely volun- tary exercise, he' abandoned the contest, and in a sorrowful and dignified letter addressed to tlie ('han- cellor at the end of 1838, he finally resigned all con- nexion with the University. CHAPTER VII The Oxford movement — The Hampden controversy — Arnold's relation to the movement — His views as to the condition of the Church of England and of necessary reforms — Dean Church's estimate of Arnold's ecclesiastical position — The Broad Church — Influence of outside interests on the life of the schoolmaster — The ideal teacher— Regius Professorship of Modern History — Arnold's scheme of lectures — Its partial fulfilment — His early death — Conjectures as to what might have been had he lived — Mr. Forster and the Education Act — Testimonies of Dean Boyle and of the Times It will easily be gathered from the foregoing pages that Arnold was likely to feel profoundly interested in the remarkable religious revival, which under the name of the Oxford movement made the fourth decade of this century so memorable in the history of the English Church. Indeed, any estimate of his charac- ter and career would be incomplete which did not include some reference to his share in that movement. Some of his old associates of the Oriel set, including Keble, Hurrell, Froude, Pusey, Rose, Newman, and others, were led by the study of Church History and by a profound distrust of the current theology of the day, to assume a new position and to be recognized as par excellence the Anglican party in the English church. In 1827 Keble published his Christian Year, a volume of which Pusey afterwards said, that "it was the unknown dawn and harbinger of the reawak- ening of deeper truth." In 1S33, Newman began the 135 136 THOMAS AIJNOLI) publication of Tracts for the Times, with the avowed object of Avithstauding the liberalism of the day, and of finding a basis for the English church in Catho- lic antiquity, and strengthening the sacerdotal and sacramental elements in her teaching.' In 1835, Pusey started the Library of the Fathers. The series of Tracts came to an end in 1841 with the pub- lication of Tract 90, which w^as a laboured argument to prove that the articles of the Church of England admitted of a Catliolic interpretation. This tract was censured by Bishops and by the Heads of Houses at Oxford, and Avas received with such a storm of in- dignation that the publication of the Tracts proceeded no further. The subsequent submission of Newman to the Roman Catholic Church in 181.') was the catas- trophe of the movement. The story of this movement has been tnld with singular candour, clearness, and dignity, and with touching pathos by John Henry Xewman, the pro- tagonist of the drama, in his Apologia pro vitd si«'i ; and from another point of view, with no less fair- ness and scarcely less literary charm, in Dean Church's Oxford Movement. It must suffice here to refer to such of the incidents of that eventful time as specially interested Arnold and called forth his com- bative instincts. Dr. R. D. Hampden, Avho was public examiner in Oxford in 1831-1832, became l>am])ton lecturer in the following year, and in that capacity preached a course of lectures on tlie '' Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relations to Christian 1 Jpulo;/ia, pii. \'<0 aii.l I'.tS. THE HAMPDEN CONTROVERSY 137 Theology." It was a scholarly though not very inspiriug book; it traced the intiueuce of the Alex- andrine divines and of the schoolmen on the forma- tion of the Christian Creeds, and would in our days have been regarded as a thoughtful and useful contri- bution to Church History, without startling any one by its originality or daring speculation. But by the High Church and Tory party in Oxford the book was then regarded as dangerously latitudinarian in its opinions, chiefly because it exhibited with re- morseless frankness the very human elements which entered into the composition of ancient formularies, such as the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, and so might tend to deprive them of that divine author- ity which high Anglicans were wont to claim for them. The book Avas solemnly condemned by the Heads of Houses as unorthodox and dangerous, and when Lord Melbourne, in 1836, proposed to appoint Hampden to the Regius Professorship of Divinity, a strong and acrimonious opposition to the appointment arose in Oxford. ) The Prime Minister, however, per- sisted in the nomination, and the only practical effect of the agitation was by a vote in Convocation to exclude the Regius Professor from his place at a Board whose duty it was to nominate University preachers.^ 1 It was not till after Arnold's death that the same controversy was revived in an aggravated form by the nomination in 1847, of Hampden to the bishopric of Hereford — a nomination which Ix>rd John Russell, the minister of the day,' persisted in, notwithstanding remonstr.ances from the clergy, from the Deau of Hereford, and from thirteen of the bishops. 138 THOMAS ARNOLD It was not to be expected tliat Arnold could keep silent in the midst of this ecclesiastical ferment. He was "ever a fighter," and in regard to (|uestions which touched the interests of religion a strong and even vehement controversialist. He threw himself with characteristic courage and energy into the thickest of the fray. Of what has been cynically called the "nasty little virtue of prudence," it must be owned he was not endowed with a large share. He wrote, in 1821), a pamphlet strongly urging the wisdom and expediency of conceding the Catholic claims. He stayed not to consider whether the outspoken utter- ance of unpopular opinion would injure his reputation with the governors of the scliool; and as we have already shown, he refused with courtesy, but with firmness, a request from one of the liugby trustees that he would declare whether he was or was not the author of an anonymous article in a Review. Free- dom to speak his mind on burning questions was a necessity of his being, and he would readily have resigned his mastership, had it been necessar}', rather than suri'i'mlcr tliis freedom. Tliat a cause was for tlu! moment unpopular, was with him almost apnwici facie reason for espousing it, Vidrix causa dils placuit, scd ricta Cutoni. His famous article in the Edinburgh He view, enti- tled the "Oxford Malignants," ' is an example of his 1 These were the five memhcrs of a small oinnniittco which met in the common room iit Corpus to draw up a protest asjainst llamiv (leu's appointment as Reftius Professor, on tlie j;round tlmt " ho had contradicted the doctrinal truths which lie was pledned to nuiin- tain." Eighty-one members of the University signed this protest. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY 139 polemical style when specially roused to indignation j and his knowledge of history caused him to feel how impotent was the attempt to j)revent the spread of opinions, whether really or only apparently hetero- dox, by means of ecclesiastical censures. "He wielded a pen," said J. B. Mozley, "as if it were a ferule." The violent proceedings of the New- manite party against Hampden were, in his opinion, glaringly unjust. He saw in the privilegium voted by Convocation nothing but Lynch law. He saw in it a reproduction in spirit and in essence of the non- jurors reviling Burnet, of the Council of Constance condemning Huss, of the Judaizers banded together against Paul.^ As one reads the story of those days, he is reminded of the terms in which iNIatthew Arnold, many years afterwards, apostrophized Oxford as the "home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loj^alties."^ Father and son were alike in loving Oxford dearly, and were con- scious of their deep and lifelong debt to it. But to both, the influence of the High Church party appeared profoundly mischievous to the true interests of reli- gion and to the welfare and full development of the Church's usefulness. Indeed, Arnold almost despaired of the Church of England, although he believed that it ought to become the main instrument for the moral culture of the nation and for the exaltation of right- eousness and truth. The decorous and apologetic 1 Edinburgh Revieic, January. 1845. 2 Preface to M. Aruold's Essays in Criticism, 140 THOMAS A UNO LI) orthodoxy of the eighteenth ceutuiy, the negligence and apathy of many of the clergy, and their isolation from the main current of popular interests, repelled and profoundly saddened him. "Our Church," he said, "bears, and has ever borne, the marks of her birth. The child of royal and aristocratic selfishness and unprincipled tyranny, she has never dared to speak boldly to the great, but has contented herself with lecturing the poor. 'I will speak of thy testimonies even before kings, and will not be ashamed,' is a text of which the Anglican Church as a national institu- tion has never caught the spirit." The fact tliat twenty-two out of twenty-four bishops voted in the House of Lords against the Reform Bill was well calculated to arouse the sceva indignatio which, %vhen occasion arose, was so easily excited in him. Here was no case in Avhich the religious interests of the people needed to be safeguarded by the spiritual peers. But the incident brought into strong relief I the fatal tendency of English ecclesiastics to identify themselves with the interests of tlie ])rivileged classes, and seemed to Arnold to render the outlook for tlie future more dispiriting than ever. In these circumstances, the new signs of life and energy which the leaders of the Oxford movement Avere beginning to put forth, and the desire of tluit l)arty to emancipate itself from political tranunels, miglit liave been expected to win Arnold's sym- pathy. But in liis view the whole of that movement was vitiated by the sacerdotal pretensions and idaims of some of the clergy, by their revival of some medi;u- THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND 141 val and outworn superstitions, and by their habit of regarding the acceptance of dogmas as the only basis of Christianity. He had learned from Coleridge a larger conception of the scope and office of a Christian church, whose members should include many of those now called dissenters, and whose ministers should form a clerisy — not exclusively teachers of theol- ogy, but leaders and helpers in all that concerned the intellectual interests and the social life of the pe(>[ile, in Avise philantliropy and in practical reli- gion.' Dean Church thus defines what he conceives to have been Arnold's position at the time: "Dr. Arnold's view of the Church was very simple. He divided the world into Christians and non-Christians. Chris- tians were all who professed to believe in Christ as a divine person, and to worship him ; and the brotherhood — the ' Societas ' of Christians — was all that was meant by the Church in the New Testament. It mattered of course to the conscience of each Christian what he had made up his mind to believe, but to no one else. Church organization was according to circumstances pjirtly inevitable or expe- dient, partly mischievous, but in no case of divine authority. Teaching, ministering the word, was a thing of divine ap- pointment, but not so the mode of exercising it, either as to persons, forms, or methods. Sacraments there were, signs and pledges of divine love and help in every action of life, in every sight of nature, and eminently two most touching ones recommended to Christians by the Redeemer himself; but except as a matter of mere order, one man might deal with them as lawfully as another."^ 1 Coleridge's Church and State. 2 Dean Church, The Oxford Movement, p. G. 142 THOMAS AKNol.l) He advocated the abolition of tests in tlie Universi- ties, the opening of the church's doors to the admis- sion of dissenters, the abandonment of the practice of translating r>ishoi)S from one diocese to another, the equalization of incomes, the formation of new parishes, and the revival of the order of deacons. But his utterances on these subjects were not accept- able to any party in the English church, and it pained and distressed him to find how many enemies lie naade. One of those parties appeared to him narrow, timid, and at the same time fanatical in their Ribli- olatry and their demands for evangelical orthodoxy, and another to be putting forth personal claims to priestly authority which he regarded as wholly alien to the spirit of Christianity. At any rate, he received little sympathy from either. ''If I had two necks," he said, "I should have a good chance of being hanged by both sides." His unpopularity Avas shown by the refusal of the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow him to preach the sermon at Lambeth on the consecration of Stanley, the Bishop of Norwich. His attitude towards the reforming party in the Church on the one hand, and to the older orthodo.\y on the other, reminds one of that of Erasmus, who though symi)a- thizing Avith Luther in his dennnciati(m of negligence, corruption, and superstition, was unwilling to weaken the Church or to deny her primitive teaching. " In- stead of leading," Erasmus sadly complains, '* I have stood naked and unarmed l)et\veen the javelins of two angry foes." It woiild appear t.liat he had foniied an iilt-al of a RELATION OF CHURCH TO STATE 143 Christian state organized on some such model as his own school at Rugby, with a cliief magistrate, ener- getic, God-fearing, and wise, with the clergy and aristocracy a sort of sixth form, exercising large influence in the repression of evil and encouragement of good, and a whole community not necessarily holding one set of opinions, but willing to share the same worship and to work together as the servants of the same Divine Master, Neither in a State nor in his school was he disposed to regard uniformity as the test of excellence. In his opinion intellectual i freedom, and diversity in creed and organization were wholly compatible with unity of Christian purpose and with corporate national life. It would be foreign to my present purpose to enter further into details respecting Arnold's religious life, and his strivings against what seemed to him the worldliness of the Church and in favour of wider Christian comprehension. "The identity of the Christian commonwealth with the Christian state Avas tlie vision that had inspired the ecclesiastical polity of Hooker. It was the ruling thought of Selden's grave sense, of Burke's high political phi- losophy, and of the religious philosophy of Cole- ridge." ' To this may be added that it had been the dream of Chillingworth, and has been, in different forms, that of Arthur Stanley, of Frederick Maurice, of Whateley, of Bunsen and of Jowett, of Phillips Brooks, the late Bishop of Massachusetts, and of many another large-souled man who sought to make 1 Life of Dean Stanley, Vol. II., p. 176. \ 144 THOMAS AlJNnl.l) Christian men lay aside minor differences and agree to combine together in religious sympathy, in the advancement of righteousness, and in strenuous Christian work. But it is a dream which has never been realized, and, so far as we can see, after more than half a century, is not likely to be realized. Arnold believed that so long as the only unity the churches can understand means uniformity of belief and opinion, and not identity in moral and spiritual aim; so long as the battle of the sects is a fight for creeds rather than a war against sin and ignorance, unity is simply impossible in any country in which there is any intellectual life at all. While each sec- tion of the Cliristian community attaches more importance to the dogmas and usages by which that section is distinguished from the rest, than to the fundamental aims in which they are all i)ractically agreed, every effort to secure greater comprehensive- ness in the Church and unity in Christendom seems foredoomed to failure. And those who shared his views must have sorrowfully admitted that in this matter Arnold was only beating the air, and that the problem he mused over and vehemently discussed is, for the present at least, insoluble. Yet something will survive, — something alwa3's does survive from honest striving after a generous and noble, even if an unattainable, ideal. When much that is ephemeral in theological controversy is forgotten, the aspirations of those who have sought to discover a deeper foundation for spiritual unity tlian that of ecclesiastical creeds anil .systems will abide as EXTRA-SCHOLASTIC INTERESTS 145 permanent factors in the history of religion. To men with such aspirations it is a relief to tnrn from the polemics of rival schools, from the Oxford move- ment, from Tract Ninety, from discussions about the Hampden controversy or the Eastward position, to the calm and gracious utterances of one who said: "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also must I bring, and they shall hear my voice • and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd." No apology is needed, even in a book mainly addressed to teachers, for dwelling Avith so much detail on the extra-scholastic aspects of Arnold's life. For indeed, the influence of a schoolmaster is largeh' conditioned by the pursuits and tastes which charac- terize him out of school, and by the nature of his outlook into the life on which his pupils are about to embark. His love of foreign travel served to illu- minate his lessons, to increase his descriptive power, and to help boys better to know something of the world, and of their own place in it. His historical imagination enabled him to arouse their sympathies for the great men of old and their aspirations after the nobler kinds of fame and success. His insatiable thirst for knowledge kept his mind fresh and recep- tive, made the life of the scholar more attractive in the eyes of the boys, and prevented him from losing touch with young learners, to whom all knowledge was new. His militant political liberalism, though not obtruded in school, could not fail to leaven a commun- ity largely composed of the sons of rich men, and it unconsciously helped them to become aware of their 146 TH'iMAS AUXoLl) duties to the unprivileged classes, especially to the poor and the ignorant. His domestic life, in a sin- gularly happy and tranquil home, kept his affections pure and tender, and caused him to bring the intui- tions of a parent to rectify his merely professional knowledge of boys and their capacities, tlieir needs, and their dangers. Above all, the profound reli- giousness of his nature and his solemn sense of duty coloured the whole of his acts and thouglits, and gave to all those who came most under his influence an almost premature sense of the seriousness of life and of the responsibilities of Christian manhood. Thus his life reveals to us the manifold and varied nature of the equipment of a true teacher. Scholar- ship alone is but a j>art, and not necessarily the highest part, of that oqui[)inont. Strong will and force of character are great and indeed indispensa- ble endowments for a head master. Physical activ- ity and abounding hopefulness are not less needed. All these Arnold possessed. "I suppose," he once said, "the desirable feeling to entertain is always to expect to succeed, and never to tliink you have succeeded." But more is ncccssarv to make the ideal teacher. He needs an insight into chihl nature and into the ])roo('sses by whicli truth can be communicated, I'aitli in tlie bdundh'ss possibilities of good wliich lie even in the nu)st unpromising and uninteresting scholars, a deep sym])athy with every form of j'^outhful weakness excejit sin, and a genuine enthusiasm and love for work. The best tiMclier in tlie woidd nnist always I'all shoi't in some resiiects of PROFESSORSHIP OF MODERN HISTORY 147 this ideal; but it was because Arnold ever kept it in view, and strove with all his might to realize it, that his name will long remain in our history as that of a great schoolmaster, who ennobled his profession, and fulfilled, though in a way hardly anticipated by Hawkins, the remarkable prophecy tliat he "would transform the public scliools of England. One of the most gratif^'ing incidents of his life was his appointment, in 1842, to the Eegius Professorship of Modern History at Oxford. The compliment thus paid to him was peculiarly welcome. It was an honourable recognition of his eminent industry and success in his favourite field of research; it renewed his connexion with his belov^ed Oxford; it brought around him once more many of his former friends; and it served to soften, if not to obliterate, the memories of some personal controversies. A con- temporary letter of E. W. Church, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, who Avas living at Oriel, in February, 1842, describes vividly the impression left upon a young and not wholly sympathetic College don of that period. " The great lion at present is Arnold and his lectures which have created a great stir in the exalted, the literary, and the fashionable world of Oxford. He is here witli his whole family, and people look forward to his lectures in the tlieatre day after day, as they might to a play. He will be quite missed when he goes. Almost every Head goes with his wife and daughters, if he has any, and so powerful is Arnold's eloquence, that the Master of Balliol was, on one occasion, quite overcome, and foirly went — not quite into liysterics, A 148 THOMAS AKNOJJ) l)nt into tears — upon wliich tlic Provost remarkeil at a large party, that he supposed it was tlie gout." " However, they arc very striking lectures. He is work- ing out his inaugural. Everything he does, he does with life and foree, and I cannot lielp liking his manly and open way, and the great reality which he throws about such things as description of country, military laws and opera- tions, and such like low concerns. He has exercised on the whole a generous forbearance towards us and let us off with a few angular points about Priestliood and the Puritans in one lecture, while he has been immensely liberal in other ways, and I sliould tliink not to the taste of tlie Capitular body, e.g. putting with all his might the magniticent age and intensely interesting contests of Innocent III, and in allowing any one to believe, without any suspicion of super- stition, a very great many of Bede's miracles and some others besides."^ The lectures on INIodeni History, fragmentary and incomplete as they are, servi; well to illustrate the character of Arnold's iniiul. He was, as it has been said, an " insatiable reader, an active controversial- ist, in whose view every series of phenomena natu- rally crystallized into a theory." The province of history, the characteristics of historical style, mili- tary ethics, military geography, national prejudices, religious and political parties in England, are among the topics rather glanced at than discussed in these lectures. '^ His first intention was to begin with the year 1400, in the hope of doing for England a similar service to tliat wliicli (luizot had tlien undertaken to 1 ^^v■.\\\ Clnncirs /.//>■ mul Letters, p. X\. '■i F.ilhilntrijh Review, Januiiry, 184:5. LAST LECTURES — DEATH 149 do for France. He meant to trace the change of property produced by the Wars of the Roses, and the growth of the English aristocracy, as it gradually superseded in power the aristocracy of purely Xor- man descent. He afterwards abandoned the plan and began at an earlier date. The statutes required that terminal lectures on biography should be given in connexion with the historical courses, and this was a requirement peculiarly congenial to Arnold, and in conformity with his own method of instruction. He had always held that tlie Avay to vivify history and make it impressive and useful was to connect it with the lives and cliaracters of typical men. So he j^lanned a series of discourses on Gregory the Great, Charlemagne, Alfred, Dante, and other representative men of the pre-Keformation period. But these vis- ions were never realized. The first course of profes- sorial lectures proved to be his last. The end came suddenly. On the morning of Sun- day, the 12th of June, 1842, tlie day before his forty-seventh birthday, he succumbed to a sharp attack of angina pectoris, the disease from which his father had died. Of the shock and bewilderment which this event caused in his household, and throughout the little community of Rugby, Dean Stanley's pages contain a touching description, which could not properly be simplified or shortened or re- produced here. Of those Avliom he left Ijehind him, Jane, the eldest daughter, became the wife of Will- iam Edward Forster, afterwards jM.R. for Bradford and Vice-President of the Committee of Council on 150 THOMAS AUN(tLI) Education; Mattliew was tlie eldest son; Thomas, the second son, became a Fellow of his college at Oxford, and has devoted himself to literary and educational work; William Delafield Arnold was for a time director of public instruction in the Punjaub, and died on his way homewards in 1859; and Edward was a clergyman and inspector of schools. In the next generation, INIrs. Humphry Ward, the gifted daughter of Thomas, and the author of Robert Els- mere, and Mr. H. 0. Arnold Forster, M.P. for Belfast, the son of W. D. Arnold, have in different ways achieved honourable reputation. Speculation in reference to what Arnold's future career might have been were obviously fruitless. Not improbably he would have become a liberal Bishop, and it may be conjectured that in that capacity he might have grown more tolerant of extreme opinions and have found out the use which the Church may make of extreme men. But it is hardly to be be- lieved that he would have ever been reconciled to the developments of modern ritualism. Still less was he likely to be satisfied with the sacerdotal claims of the clergy, or with the belief that the Anglicanism of the thirty-nine articles represented the final stage in the development of the Christian chnrcli. There is a reiiKirkabh; ])assage in a letter of Matthew Arnold to his mother in 18(52, in whicli, speaking of the Colenso controversy and the timid and apologetic cliaracter of the orthodox defence, lie says : "I do not think it possible for a olorgyman to treat these matters satisfactorily. In Papa's tiiiii' it was so, but it is WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN 151 so, it seems to me, no longer. He is the last free speaker of the Church of England, who speaks without being sliacklcd, and without being aware that he is so and that he is in a false position in consequence : the moment a writer feels this his power is gone. I may add that if a clergyman does not feel this now he ought to feel it. The best of them, Jowett for example, obviously do feel it. I am quite sure Papa would have felt it had he been living now and thirty years younger. Not that he would have been less a Christian, or less zealous for a National Church, but his attention would have been painfully awake to the truth that to profess to see Christianity through the spectacles of a number of second or third rate men who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time (and this is what office-holders under the thirty-nine articles do), men whose works one never dreams of reading for the purpose of enlightening and edifying one's self, is an intolerable absurdity and that it is time to put the formularies of the Ciiurch of England on a solider basis." Of one thing we may be sure, that any increased influence which he might have obtained later would have been used with an honest endeavour to reconcile the working classes to the Church, and to make the giilf which separates them from what is called "society" a little narrower and less perilous. As Professor at Oxford he would doubtless have made substantial contributions to historical and biographi- cal literature, and although he would soon have ceased to be a schoolmaster, he would have continued to exercise great influence as a governor of schools, and as a speaker in conferences, in the pulpit, and possibly in the House of Lords, on subjects connected with the improvement of our public schools. Books 162 THOMAS ARNOLD on the pliilosopliy or methods of education it was not in hira to write, but lie would certainly have found means to keep in public view the principles of dis- cipline and instruction which he had sought to exemiDlify at Ilugby, The new claims of the phj-sical sciences for recognition as substantial parts of a system of liberal education in the Universities and public schools would have been received by him with >^ respect, but not with enthusiasm. They would to the last have seemed to him inferior in weight to the older claims of the " humanities " — language, letters, history, and philosophy — to form the staple of a gentleman's education. Nor can it be doubted that, had his life been pro- longed, the later developments of popular instruction would have interested him keenly, on personal as well as on public grounds. His solicitude to extend the blessings of education to the poorer classes was with him a passion, which later events and contro- versies would have done much to intensify. Kay Shuttleworth, Lord John llussell, William Allen, Lord Lansdowne, and Bishop Stanley of Norwich would have found in him an energetic ally. And none who followed with any care the discussions, in 1870, on the introduction of the Education Act, and who marked the far-seeing and generous spirit in which that measure was conducted through Parliament by ]\rr. AV. E. Eorster, tlie Vice-rresident of the Council, could fail to be conscious of the happy influence which had descended from Ilugby upon that statesman's do- mestic life. Those of us who were privileged in those LATER EDUCATIONAL MEASURES 153 days to know the interior of the (lelightfnl lionie at Wharfeside, understood well in how charuiiug and effective a way all that was best in the Arnoldian tradition had helped to shape the convictions and to control the policy of the Minister of Education. Had Arnold lived till 1870, the problem which his son-in- law was called upon to solve would have aroused his enthusiastic interest; and his guidance and encourage- ment would certainly not have been wanting in the progress of the Bill. The large tolerance which characterized that measure, its sympathy with the aspirations of the working classes for enlightenment and culture, the political insight which it exhibited, and above all the determination of its author to enlist on behalf of a system of National Education the co-operation of good men of various religious creeds, would all have appealed to Arnold's sympathy. There was thus a very real, though at first sight not obvious historical connexion between Tliomas Arnold and the memorable Education Act of 1870. A letter which I have received from the Very Rev. G. D. Boyle, the Dean of Salisbury, sums up with so much truth the impression which Arnold's life and character made upon the generation immediately fol- lowing him, that it may be fitting to insert it here: " When Dr. Arnold was suddenly taken away from the work of his great school, I think it was very soon evident from the generous appreciation of his work at Rugby and as a professor at Oxford, that he had really outlived the many severe judgments of his earlier life, and had fully justified the opinion formed of him by the Provost of Oriel, 154 THOMAS AKNOLI) Dr. Hawkins, wlicii Ik; was a candidate fur the heatl-inaster- sliij). All who had l)een at Ku<,djy under him were never weaiy in tclliii!,' (if the impression made by his earnest sermons and iiis lessons in school. But from the mo- ment that Dean Stanley's admirable life appeared, Arnold's influence, hitherto confined to his own pupils, became a moving force in English school life. I remember well how head-masters and under-masters at the old Charter- house exhorted all senior boys to read the story of Arnold's life and aim at some of the great objects so admirably de- scribed by Stanley. The late Dean Howson of Chester, who had seen Arnold very shortly before his death, told me that he thought the contagious enthusiasm of Dr. Arnold's char- acter had been fidly represented in Stanley's Life. The unfinished Roman History and the Oxford Lectures had an influence of their own. From the time when the rule of Arnold Avas fully recognized, there was a speedy attempt to introduce greater variety into the course of school lessons. ' Dr. Moberly told me that he had never known anything like the fire that was kindled by Arnold's educational work. Men, who were far from agreeing with many of Arnold's most cherished beliefs, gathered from his examjile and method lessons of the deepest importance. Arnold's edition of Thucydides enabled many, for the first time, to realize the true connexion between ancient history and modern political life. His generous estimate of Mitford's Grevve in his Ox- ford Lectures, and his hearty delight in Carlyle's French Revolution, made many a reader feel that there ought to be no divorce between classical studies and the wide accpiaintanue with modern literature and politics, so often advocated by men like the late Professor Freeman ami Dean Stanley. When I first entered the University of Oxford I found there was a disposition on the j)art of many to undervalue the leading characteristics of Kugby men. It may have been true that Arnold's ])ower was sometimes felt too keenly, and that grave problems, difficult of solution were, at times, aiti)roached by TESTIMONIES TO HIS INFLUENCE 155 young men who had hardly mastered their importance. But when I remember the earnest spirit and love of truth mani- fested by men like Walter Stirling, John Conington, Thomas Sandars, Henry Smith, Theodore Walrond, and William Bright — alas! the only survivor of that remarkable group — I seem to realize something of the true Arnoldian df- flatus." Here is a somewhat different testimony from an- other who knew and loved him. In one of Professor Jowett's letters, he says of Arnold: "His peculiar danger was not knowing the world and character, — not knowing where his ideas would take other people and ought to take himself. Yet, had he been living, how we would have nestled under his wings! " ^ There is a small side chapel in Westminster Abbey, the entrance to which is concealed by a huge cliff in tbe shape of a monument to the memory of Craggs, Addison's colleague as Secretary of State. In this enclosure the seeker may find a group of memorial busts, representing F. D. Maurice, Kingsley, Keble, Wordsworth, and Matthew Arnold. And in 1896 a marble effigy of Thomas Arnold was placed in this congenial company. The ceremony of unveiling was simple, and was appropriately performed by Dean Bradley, himself a former pupil of Arnold at Rugby. More than half a century had passed since Arnold's death, but in that time his fame and influence had steadily grown, and on tlie following day, Jul}^ 17, 189G, an accomplished writer in the Times gave 1 Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, by E. Abbott and L. Campbell. 166 THOMAS AUNOLI) expression to the national sentiment in words wliich well deserve to be reproduced here. " No one made a deeper change in education, a change wliich profited those wlio liad never been at a pubUc school. As much as any one who could be named, Arnold helped to form the standard of manly worth by wlncli Englislimcn ' judge and submit to be judged. A man of action himself, he sent out from Rugby men fit to do the work of the world. The virtues wliich his favourite Aristotle extolled — courage, justice, and temperance — were his, and the influ- ence of his character and teaching was calculated to make brave, high-niinded soldiers, zealous enlightened clergymen, lawyers with a just sen.se of the nature of their vocation, and useful and public-spirited members of the State. The width and range of his teacliing are apt to be furgottcn by those who dwell on his personal influence. If he ottered no large interpretation of life, if in his writings there are rarely 'thoughts beyund the reaches of the soul,' if as an his- torian he seems more at home in dealing with tlie geographi- cal aspects of his subject, or in clear delineation of the movements of events, than in discovering the hidden springs of action, if he never or rarely let fall a pregnant unforget- table word, he had conceptions, new in his time, fir.'^t and foremost liis lofty conception of education, his conception of the Church as a great agency of social amelioration, his idea of each citizen's duty to tiie State, his view of history a.s a whole, with no real division between ancient and modern, the interest, new in his time, wliich he felt in the elevation of the masses. ( )ne nuist have been at Rugby or Oxford in the thirties to apjirecriate the etti'ct of Arnold's sermons on generous, su.sceptible youth. Even in tlie voIuuKj-ef national life as it flows to-day, there may be detected the efleet of the pure, bracing stream which long ago joined it." CHAPTER VIII Matthew Arnold — The materials for his biography — His wishes — The main facts of his life — His letters — His character — His inspectorship — Distaste for official routine — His relations to managers — A school manager's recollections — The office of a School Inspector — Its opportunities of influence — The Revised Code — Arnold's methods of work — Testimony of his assistant Dr. Arnold's eldest son, IVIatthew, lias since occupied a larger s])ace in the eyes of his contem- poraries than the father had ever filled. He is known to the world as a litterateur of singular charm and insight, as a poet of unquestioned genius, and as one who criticised with keenness, but Avith a deli- cate and playful humour all his own, the literature, the social life, the religious world, and the political events of his day. In all these resjDects his career and influence differed substantially from those of his father. During thirty-five years of his life his official position was that of an Inspector of Schools, and the influence he exerted on public education was necessarily large. None hated more heartily than he the hybrid word "educationist," or would sooner have disavowed it as a designation for himself; but it was as an educationist that a large section of the public insisted on regarding him, and it is with his share in the history of public instruction, and in the formation of public opinion upon it, that we are here chiefly concerned. 157 \fi '' MATtrtE^' ARNOLD It w.ls* his express wish tliat lie miglit not be made the subject of a biography. That wish has been res'pl^CtecI by his surviving relatives, and implies an equally binding obligation upon all those who knew and loved him. But it has not been held by those most competent to judge to be a reason for withhold- ing the publication of a selection of his letters, wliicli form, in fact, an autobiography. The two volumes of letters, published in 1895 under the skilful and sympathetic editorship of Mr_. _GfOorge Russell, cover, in fact, the whole period of Arnold's "a^ctivity, from 1848 to the end of his life, and disclose as fully as any biography could do the main inci- dents of his career. From tliese volumes, from of- ficial reports which are jmhlici juris, and from his numerous writings, aided in some small degree by my personal recollections of a colleague during nearly thirty years, it is not difficult to attempt some esti- mate of the influence which he exerted on his generation. He was born in 1822, at Laleham, his father being then, as we have already seen, a clergyman without a benefice, occupied in preparing young pupils for the University. In 183G he was sent to "Winchester, the school of which his father always retained grate- ful recollections, the" head master being Dr. Moberly, afterwards Bisliop of Salisbury. In the following year he was removed to Rugby, where he lived in his father's house. In 1840 he won an open scholarsliip at Balliol, and in 1841 a school exhibition. During his rosidonco at Oxford he succeeded in ubtainin'' the APPOINTMENT AS INSPECTOR 159 Hertford scliolarsliip and the Newdigate prize for his poem on Cromwell. One who knew him well, and was his constant companion at Oxford, said of him in those days : " His perfect self-possession, the sallies of his ready wit, the humorous turn which he could give to any subject that he handled, his gaiety, exuberance, versatility, audacity, and unfailing com- mand of words, made him one of the most popular ancl^M|b|sful undergraduates that Oxford has ever knd^^^KIe took his degree in the Second Class in the f^ml Classical Schools in 1844, and obtained a fellowship at Oriel in the following year, just thirty years after the election of his father. Among his colleagues at Oriel were Dean Church, Dean Burgon, Fraser afterwards Bishop of Manchester, Buckle afterwards Canon of Wells, Earle afterwards Pro- fessor of Anglo-Saxon, and Arthur Hugh Clough. After leaving Oxford, there was a brief period in which he assisted in the classical teaching at Rugby, and he was then appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Lord President of the Council in 1847. In 1851 Lord Lansdowne offered him an Inspectorship of Sq^ools under the Privy Council, and in the same year he married Frances, daughter of Mr. Justice Wightman. This post he held up to the year 1886, when he retired from the public service. But on three several occasions, as we shall see hereafter, he was detached from the regular duties of the inspectorship for special ser- vices, and inquiries into the state of education in foreign countries. Of the public duties which lie 160 MATTHEW ARNOLD undertook outside that of tlie Council Office, tlie most important were the Trofessorsliip of Poetry at Oxford, wliicli lie held during two periods of five years each, from 1857 to 18G7, and the lecturing tour he undertook in America in 1883. He did not long .survive his retirement from the public service, but died suddenly on tlie 15th of April, 1888, a victim to an affection of the heart not unlike that whicli had proved fatal to his father and grandfatlier. ^^^^ Tlie two volumes of letters,* from which^^^^pcts can 1)6 gleaned, have been edited with judi^^^and pious care by Mr. George AV. E. Russell. They will hardly add much to Arnold's ZtVerar^ rejuitation; and, interesting as they are, they do not suffice to place him in the ranks of the great letter-writers. The pecu- liar charm Avhich has in different ways given to the epistles of Cicero, of Erasmus, of Pope, of Cowper, of Madame de Sevigne, of Chesterfield, of Charles Lamb, and of Byron their right to a permanent place in Epistolary literature, can scarcely be said to be pos- sessed by these letters. They Avere evidently not written with even a remote view to their possible publication. Tliey deal only incidentally and in a small degree with matters of public and historical interest, and they do not, to nearly tlie same extent as his father's, reveal his more matureTl and serious views on groat questions. Tlwy disclose only the vie intime, and are addressed mainly to his motlier, his wife, sisters, and daughters. Very few of them are 1 Letters of Matthew Aniold, 1S48-1SS8. Coll.-cte.l ami arraii^'o.l by Goorge W. E. RusseU. HIS LETTERS 161 addressed to public men or colleagues. Letters of this latter kind doubtless exist, and would have added much to the value of the book had the editor felt at liberty to use them. But Mr. Eussell, whose own fine insight, his literary gifts, and his affection- ate relations with the writer of the letters would have specially qualified him to write a full biogi-aphy, has treated tlie wishes of his friend as sacred; and valjflj^^ are the materials wliich he has collected, tli^^^^Bli only an inadequate picture of Matthew Arnofl^T life. Yet that picture is one of singular attractiveness. The letters enable the reader to trace the successive stages of a career of steadily increasing honour and public usefulness. They re- veal a tender and home-loving nature, great fortitude under • disappointment and losses, remarkable intel- lectual activity, a keen enjoyment of social life and of foreign travel, strong interest in public events, and an unaffected delight at the reception with which his own writings were welcomed by the reading public, and at the influence and fame which they brought to him. The letters show also how singularly happ}' he was in his domestic relations, how mother, wife, sisters, and children were specially gifted with the power to evoke what was best in him, and to cheer and ani-j^ mate his life; and how the memor}- of his father, who had so early been removed from them, continued to hover over the home, to give a sacredness and dignity to the whole of the family history, and to ennoble the aims of all who were nearly connected with him. 162 MATTHEW AllNOLD Incidentally, also, the letters disclose features of liis cliaracter which would otherwise have been less clearly known. His delight in natural scenery, and particularly in flowers, his fondness for pet animals, the avidity with which in his travels he seized upon and appreciated any incidents which threw light on the history or social characteristics of foreign peo- ples, the patient and thorough study which he de- voted to the preparation of any work in^^Bk he was engaged, — all stand revealed in his ^^^Hbnd are all the more clearly visible because of th^m'ivet^ of these private utterances, so different in many respects from the account lie gives of himself in his published writings. As one reads " Arminius," and some of the less serious articles which Arnold wrote, one is apt to regard the writer as an amiable trifler, who wrote easily, and played lightly with the super- ficial aspect of great questions. But the reader of his letters will see that every lecture he delivered and every article he wrote was a real task to him, and Avas carefully thought out and finished. One learns also in his letters from abroad, as in those of his father, that he seems to be very little attracted by what are called the fine arts. He is impressed by the Duomo of Florence,' and by the splendour and historical associations of that beautiful o>iW; but of the pictures in tlie Ufiizi and the Titti .Gallery, or indeed of any art collection in Europe, ho has hardly a word to say. Sculpture, paintinf^^ and architecture do not arouse in him the critical faculty. Nor did tlH> modern triuniplis of iirventiveness and cnttM-prise HIS OFFICIAL WORK 163 ill the application of science affect liini mucli. Every man who is good, for anything has limitations to his tastes and sympathies ; and it is interesting to notice all through his letters the supreme place which let- ters, philosophy, and history occupied in his ideal of human development and culture, and the com- paratively low place he assigned to material interests and progress. An#(Jier limitation, less pleasant to dwell upon, becoi|^ very manifest as the reader makes the per- sonal acquaintance of the writer of these familiar and cliarming letters. He speaks constantly of his official work in terms Avhich shoAv that it was dis- tasteful to him, and that he regarded it as drudgery ; e.g. "It is a long, tedious business hearing the stu^ dents give specimen lessons at the Training Schools, j There is little real utility in it and a great deal of j claptrap, and that makes the expenditure of time the | more disagreeable ''to "me. However, I get a good many notes, written, and odds and ends of things ) done."^ Throughout the letters appear constant references to his official work as uncongenial and wearisome. It was not a profession he would have chosen had he been free to choose. When Lord Lansdowne offered him the post, he accepted it, as he used frankly to say afterwards, because he wished -^.^ to marry, and because'an assured inoome was.neces- sary for him. Having,-. however, be^ appointed to the office, he conscientiously 'soiight to perform its 1 Letter, Nov. 15, 1870. 164 MATTHKW ARNOLD duties, ami at first he expected to find tlie work more interesting than it proved to be. " I think," he said, " I shall get interested in the schools after a little time ; the effeets on the ciiiklren are so immense, and their future effects in civilizing the next generation of the lower classes who, as things are going, will have most of the political power of the country in their hands, may be so important. It is really a fine sight in Manchester to see the anxiety felt about them, and the time and mo»y the heads of the cotton manufacturing population arc willing to give them. In arithmetic, geography, and history the excellence of the schools I have seen is quite wonderful, and almost all the children have an equal amount of informa- tion ; it is not confined, as in schools of the richer classes, to the one or two cleverest boys." As time went on, however, his official work became less attractive than he liad hoped to find it. In 1854, in a letter to his mother, he says: "I more and more have the feeling that I do not do my inspecting work really well and satisfactorily, but I liave also had a stronger wish than usual not to vacillate and be help- less, but to do my duty, whatever that may be ; and out of tliat wish one may always hope to make some- thing." When the proposal was made to him in 185*.) that he should go out as Foreign Commissioner, the relief was peculiarly welcome to him. " You know," he writes to his sister, "that I have no special interest in the subject of public education, but a mission like this appeals even to the general interest which every educated man cannot help feel- ing in such a sul»ject. 1 sliall for live months get ROUTINE 165 free from the routine work of it, of which I some- times get very sick, and be dealing with its history and principles." ^ Again, in 1862, he writes : " I sometimes grow impatient of getting old amidst a press of occupa- tions and labour for which, after all, I was not born. The work I like is not very compatible with any other. Bat we are not here to have facilities found us for doing the work we like, but to make them." When superintending the business of making out statistical returns in 1871, with a view to setting the Education Act in motion, he was supplied with an assistant, of whom he says: " He has done his work very Avell and likes all the bustle and the business of connnunioating with school managers, and they also like to be communicated with. I like to set my man in motion, lay out for him the range of the infor- mation I want, sufler him to get it in his own way and at whatever length best suits him and the managers, hear his story and often decide on the recommendation to be made. There are a few points of real difficulty sometimes in mak- ing a recommendation, and here I think I am useful. There is no difficulty in all the rest ; others can do it quite as well as I can, and I am glad not to spend myself upon it. It is, however, what I have generally been spent upon for the last twenty years so for as public education is concerned." ^ This extract is characteristic, for, while it shows his real interest in any question where principle or policy was concerned, it also betrays his repugnance 1 Letter, Feb. Ifi, 1859. 2 Letter, Nov. 28, 1871. M-! 166 MATIIIKW Ai;.\t>M) to the uiere ik-tuils of olHcial iidiuiiiistnitioii. Ilear- iug the lessons of students of the Tniiuing Colleges, and estimating their goodness or badness, for exam- ple, appeared to him the most wearisome drudgery. Here is a playful sketch of his inspectorial work : " I must go back to my chaniiiiig occui)ation of hearing students give lessons. Here is my i)rograrnme for this after- noon : Avalanches, the Steam Engine, tlie Thames, Indian Rubber, Bricks, the Battle of Poictiers, Subtraction, the Reindeer, the Gunpowder Plot, the Jordan. Alhuing, is it not? Twenty minutes each, and the days of one's hfe arc only threescore years and ten ! " ^ Under all these playful yet half -pathetic grum- blings, there was concealed more of real interest in the duties of liis office than he actually acknowle'dged. And, in truth, it may be doubted if any other labori- ous and responsible post in the public service would have suited him better. A secretaryship, or any office which condemned him to sit for six hcmrs a day at a desk, minuting documents and "having tlie honour to be," would have proved intolerable to liim. The inspectorship, at least, offered him more freed(jm, more variety, greater power of adjusting his duties to his own convenience, and, it must be owned, in his case at least, larger leisure for literary pursuits than he fould have otherwise obtained. Like Charles Lamb, JuhnMni, and Henry Taylor, ho chaft'd occasionally under the restraints of ottieial nnitine. But on the whole the jmblie has dealt imlulgi'iitly with tliose of its servants who have reflected lustrt; TEKSONAL INFLUENCE 167 on official life by the repute they have gained in the world of letters; and Arnold was alwaj's ready to acknowledge that he had been permitted to bear the yoke lightly, and that his colleagues and official superiors, who were all proud of him, did their best to relieve him from work which he disliked. It is needless to say that his visits to managers were peculiarly welcome, on personal grounds, and that incidentally, though without any show of official authority, he often helped them mucli in showing the direction which their own efforts ought to take. For example, the Dean of Salisbury, in his inter- esting Recollections, speaks warmly of tlie intense refreshment and pleasure he had when IMatthew Arnold came to inspect a school at Kidderminster. " I once," he adds, " heard a ftimous preacher at Oxford compare a student's first acquaintance with Beugel's Com- mentary to the admission of a ray of light when a shutter was opened in a darkened room. The arrival of Matthew Arnold at my lodgings was something like this. He brought with him a complete atmosphere of culture and poetry. He had something to tell of Sainte-Beuve's last criticism, some new book like Lewes' Life of Goethe to recommend, some new political interest to unfold, and, in sh.ort, he carried you away from the routine of every-day life with his enthusiasm and his spirit. He gave me most valuable advice as to the training of pupil teachers. ' Open their minds,' he would say, 'take them into the world of Shakespeare, and try to make them feel that there is no book so full of poetry and beauty as the Bible.' He had something to tell me of Stanley and Clough, and it is really difficult to say what a 1 dehglitful tonic effect his visits produced. . . . One of his 168 MATTllKW AIJ.NnM) pleasantcst clmr;u-tcvi.stic.s was his perfect reailiiiess to dis- cuss with complete coimiiaiid of temper, views ami opinions of his own which he knew I did not share and thought dan- gerous. All who knew him constantly regretted that a man of such wonderful gifts sliouhl have to spend his life in the laborious duties of a School Inspector." ^ To Dr. Boyle, as a school manager, naturally anxious about the record of "passes" and the amount of the government grant, tlie School Inspector was apt to seem a state functionary only, a hardened official, condemned to routine and absorbed in the mechanical duty of examining young children and in tilling up schedules and returns, liut neitlier he nor any of Arnold's many admirers, who used to describe his work as that of one "cutting blocks with a razor," ever took due heed of the manifold interests witli which a School Inspector comes in contact, or the many opportunities which his office presents of pub- lic usefulness and intellectual influence. And it must be owned that Arnold himself hardly realized the value of such opportunities or the impor- tance of the functions which he was called on to discharge. Every official post in the world has in ir possibilities which are not easily visible to the outside critic, and which cannot be measured by the merely technical requirements laid down by author- ity. . And this is true in a very sj)ecial sense of sucli an office as Inspector of Schools, when the holder of the office likes and enjoys his work and seeks ampliare 1 liecoUcctioiis of J)can Itoijlv, y>. 180. THE INSrECT(.)R'S DUTIES 1G9 jurisdictionem, and to turn to the most l)eii(mcial yt^Q the means at his command and the authorifl^^'Plnch his office gives. His first dut}-, of conrse, is to verify the conditions on which public aid is offered to schools, and to assure the Department that the nation is obtaining a good equivalent for its outlay. But this is not the whole. He is called upon to visit from day to day schools of very different types, to observe carefully the merits and demerits of each, to recognize with impartiality very various forms of good work, to place himself in symjiathy with teachers and their difficulties, to convey to each of them kindly suggestions as to methods of discipliu and instruction he has observed elsewhere, and t leave behind him at every school he inspects some stimulus to improvement, some useful counsel to managers, and some encouragement to teachers and children to do their best. There are few posts in the public service which offer larger scope for the benefi- cial exercise of intellectual and moral power, or which bring the holder into personal and influential relations with a larger number of people. It will be an unfortunate day for the Civil Service if ever the time comes when an office of this kind is regardetf as one of inferior rank, or is thought unworthy of the acceptance of men of high scholarship and intel- lectual gifts. To hundreds of schools in remote and apathetic districts, the annual visit of an experienced public officer, conversant Avith educational Avork and charged with the duty of ascertaining how far the ideal formed at headquarters and under the authority '^ 170 MATTHEW ARNOLD of Parliament has been fulfilled, is an event of no small importance. And it matters much to the civilization of the whole district whether this duty is entrusted to pedants and detectives who confine their attention to the routine of examination, or to men whose own attainments command respect, and who are qualified by insight, enthusiasm, and breadth of sympathy to advise local authorities, and to form a just judgment both of the work of a school and of the spirit in which the work is done. He whose OAvn thoughts and tastes move habitually on the higher plane is the best qualified to see in true per- spective the business of the lower plane, and to recog- nize tlie real meaning and value of the humblest detail. " For most men in a brazen prison live, Where in the sun's hot eye, With heads bent o'er their toil, they languidly Their lives to some unmeaning task-work give. Dreaming of nouglit beyond tlieir jtrison wall. And as year after year Fresh products of their barren labour fall From their tired hands, and rest Never yet comes more near. Gloom settles slowly down over their breast ; And while they try to stem The waves of mom-nful thought by wliioh they are prest, Death in tlieir prison reaches them Unfreed, liaving seen notliing, still unblcst." * This was not an ideal of life which satisfied Arnold. But I am unable to agree witli those who think his 1 A Sluuuier Niuli-. rUNIVERJIT HIS ESTIMATE OF A SCHOOlNv^o^^,|^pj^,,^^^ great gifts were thrown away upon a thankless and insignificant office. It is true, he regarded many of its duties as mere task-work, and that he reserved the best of himself for literary and other employ- ments more congenial to him. But it is also true that his influence on the schools was in its own way far more real and telling than he himself supposed. Indirectly, his fine taste, his gracious and kindly, manner, his honest and generous recognition of any\ new form of excellence which he observed, all tended / to raise the aims and the tone of the teachers with| whom he came in contact, and to encourage in them j self-respect and respect for their work. /^ From the official point of view, he was not, it milst be owned, an exacting Ins pecto r. If he saw little children looking good and happ}^, and under the care of a kindly and sympathetic teacher, he would give a favourable report, without inquiring too curiously into the percentage of scholars who could pass the " standard " examination. He valued the elementary schools rather as centres influence than as places number of children to spe given number of sums without a mistake. Hence he was never in sympathy with the drastic and revolutionary policy recommended by the Duke of Newcastle's Commission in 1861, under which the only measure of the efficiency of a school was to be the number of "passes" in reading, writing, and arithmetic it could contrive to score. This policy was afterwards known as "Payment by Results," He valued the elementary of civilization and refining ) for enabling the maximum I pell and write, and to do a ^ j\ lie ne^ 'I to enc 172 MATTHEW AKNOLD and was adopted by Parliament at the instance of Mr. Robert Lowe, then Vice-President of the Council, who defended the princiide Avith great ability, and who embodied it pitilessly and in its most unquali- fied form in the celebrated Revised Code of 1862. Arnold was willing to admit that the application of this rather wooden and statistical test to school work really protected a great many of the less promising scholars from neglect, and brought up a larger num- ber of them than before to a certain level of pro- ficiency in the mere rudiments of instruction. But never ceased to complain that the system tended -_ encourage mechanical and unintelligent methods of teaching, to leave out of view the best results of intellectual discipline and moral training, and to lower the conception of teachers in regard to the true office and work of a good school. There can be no doubt that the Revised Code did much to increase his distaste for his official duty and to make him feel that he was working under unfavourable conditions. It will be seen hereafter that Avhen opportunity offered, he showed a frank courage all the more creditaljle to one whose reports were pre- sented to his official superiors, and that he pointed out with clearness and force the inadequacj^ of the system and its impoverishing effect on the instruc- tion. His valued assistant, Mr. Thomas Healing, who wrought with him among the AVestminster Schools for several years, thus describes his methods of work: MR. HEALING'S TESTIMONY 173 " I was struck by bis i^erfect frankness and candour in all bis educational relationsbips. He never pretended to be an oracle in metbods of instruction, and tberefore never attempted to prescribe to teacbers tbe precise metbods tbey sbould use, tbougb be would often kindly criticise a teacber's mode of bandbng a subject if it lacked simplicity or breadtb of treat- ment. For example, tbe multiplication of mere topograpbical details in geograpby, neglect to arrange facts in illustration of great general princiijles, or wandering among points of little practical value in grammar, wbile tbe main facts and rules bearing upon tbe construction of sentences were over- looked. Sucb errors in metbod always drew from bim an adverse judgment, because be was particularly open to admire logical arrangement, clearness, tbe marsballing of matter in view of a definite end. But even in sucb cases be rarely suggested tbe metbod tbat sbould be adopted. He claimed " free play for tbe Inspector " and accorded tbe same to tbe teacber, being always ready to acknowledge and praise origi- nality of treatment, and to allow bim full liberty to gi^-e any turn to the instruction for wbicb bis special tastes and acquirements qualified bim. "Xeitber did lie pose as a specialist in tbe matter of scbool-fittings and architecture. Some of bis judgments on tbese topics, a.s contained in bis reports (e.g. tbe use and abuse of galleries, tbe Old Britisb tripartite system), are most reasonable and sound ; but they are rather the opinions of an educated outsider, speaking from tbe fiicts brought under his notice, than of tbe specialist. He knew and highly esteemed those of bis colleagues, who, in tbese technical matters, could speak with authority. " In tbe Elementary Schools be did much to improve tbe reading books. He complamed of many of them as filled 'with the writing of second or third rate authors, feeble, incorrect, and colourless,' or 'with dry scientific disquisi- tions, which are tbe worst possible instruments for teaching 174 MAI TIIKW ARNOLD to read, and wliieh spoil the scholar's taste when they are nearly his only means for forming it.' I happen to know of cases in which books were recast, owing to his influence, and their matter substantially improved. "Mr. Arnold frequently drew attention to the want of culture in the case of both pupil teachers and Training-College students, as evidenced by their inability to paraphrase a plain passage of prose or poetry, without totally misapprehending it, or tailing into gross blunders of taste and expression. He states his opinion that the study of portions of the best English authors and composition might with advantage be made a part of their regular course of instruition to a greater degree than prevailed at the time. His anxiety that the children should feel the refining influence of letters led him, as the best means to attain that end, to promote the higher education of teachers, and especially to direct them to the study of literature. He iu^^pired many a young teacher with the desire to work in the direction of obtaining a London degree, and even those who did not succeed were permanently benefited by the eff"orts they made. If he found a young man of promise in a school, he generally had with him some serious and sympathetic talk on this subject ; and some have told me in the after years that they would never have attempted a work of such difficulty but for the stimulus applied by Mr. Arnold. In the same direction was his advocacy of the teaching of French and Latin to the more advanced scholars. He thought the stutly of an inflecteil language would prove helpful in studying granmiatical i)rin- ciples, and that Latin would give an insight into the mean- ing of many English words, and help to widen the vocabulary. His advice in the matter of languages was not taken to any large extent, though something was done ; and Mr. Arnold gave an aiunial ])rize to be competed for by the i)upil teach- ers of his district in elementary French. "His ideal of excellence was high. His own eminence in litciature, and his earnest belief in the power of lettei-s, as HIS METHOD OF INSPECTION 175 . interpreted by himself, to huinanize and elevate men and to make them reasonable, led him to take the steps I have indi- cated for teachers and scholars to come under its influence. In a school, he looked for indications of the operation of this power, as shown in the performance of recitation with due intelligence and expression and, if possible, with feeling ; in grammar wdien marked by accurate thinking and correct application of rules ; and in composition by appropriate use of words. He expected that orderly thiidving and the habit of stating things clearly should be shown in other subjects of instruction, valuing these exc^ellences for above mechanical accuracy or stores of crude information. Though endowed with deficient musical fixculty, he appreciated tasteful singing, and highly estimated its refining influence. " In striving to arrive at a just estimate of the state of the instruction in a school, he would often examine in elementary subjects the Second Standard, as giving some measure of the accuracy of the spelling and arithmetic ; and then the read- ing, recitation, and grammar of the upper division, thus gaug- ing the extent to which anything approaching culture had penetrated. His usefulness as an Inspector, a])pears to me, lay very much in his success in bi'inging some tincture of letters into the curriculum of the Elementary School. " As an eminent critic and man of letters, possessing a great knowledge of the state of education at home in its broader aspects throngh a most extensive acquaintance witli writers, and with the clergy, the scholastic and legal professions, and a similar fomiliarity with continental education through his employment on European educational commissions, he brought to the study of all educational problems an enlightened judg-, ment and a power of comparison possible to very few. Con- sequently, his views and conclusions were such as would in most cases command the assent of the great public of cidt- ured men — of the University and literary class lie knew so well." CHAPTER IX Arnold ,as an officer of the Education Department — His official reports — Inspection and examination — Formative studies — Leariiinji of poetry — Grammar — Latin and French in tlie pri- mary scliool — Science teacliin^j and I^^titio-kimde — Distrust of pedagogic rules — (General aim ami scope of an elementary school — The teacher's personal cultivation — Religious instruc- ticm— The Bible in the common school — Arnold's attempt at a school reading-book with extracts from Isaiah — The failure of this attempt Matthew Arnold's position as an officer of the Education Department was exceptional and, in some respects, unique. When he was first appointed, there was a concordat between the Council Office and the various religious bodies, in virtue of Avhich none but clergymen were cliarged witli the duty of inspecting Church of England scliools. In like manner Komam Catholic inspectors were cliarged with tlie inspection of Catholic schools. His own duty, tlierefore, as a lay In- spector, was to visit the schools connected witli the British and Foreign School Society, "Wesleyan, and other Protestant schools not connected with the Churcli of England. As these schools were far less numerous than others, the district assigned to him at first was very large, comprising nearly one-third of England. After the Education Act of 1870, the system of denominational inspection was necessarily, and very properly, abandoned; districts became smaller, and HIS OFFICLVL DUTIES 177 the official Inspector was required to visit all the schools which received Government aid in the area assigned to him. From this time his official work became less laborious, and was practically limited to one of the easiest divisions of the metropolis, — the borough of Westminster, — a district so well provided with voluntary denominational schools that for a long time there was in it only one school provided by the London School r>oard. As a Chief Inspector he had the nominal super- vision of his colleagues in the southeastern Division; but the plans which were adopted under the Vice- Presidency of Mr. Mundella, in 1882, for making this supervision effective, and for co-ordinating and harmonizing the work of the District Inspectors by means of visitation and by conferences with their chief, hardly came to maturity during Arnold's term of office, and practically his opportunities for inter- course with his colleagues were not numerous. He was never actually a member of the well-known Code Committee; for, as it has been said, the details of administration, the framing of S3dlabuses and sched- ules, and the laying down of the legal conditions under which the public grant should be assessed and distributed, were tasks not to his mind. But when questions of principle were involved, he was fre- quently consulted, and we who Avere his colleagues received from him at times very weighty and prac- tical suggestions. I remember well the discussion when the question arose, "Should the teaching of English be a compulsory subject, or should it re- 178 MATTHEW ARNOLD main optional, say between geography or elementary science?" On that point he was emphatic. Every- thing else taught in an elementary school might, he said, be made a matter of memory or routine, but good exercises in the vernacular language, and in the meaning, formation, and right use of words, repre- sented the one kind of knowledge in which " cram " was impossible, and which must, if acquired at all, be gained by an effort of thought. He regarded any system of popular education incomplete which did not provide for instruction in the right use of the mother-tongue, as a condition precedent to the acqui- sition of all else. He dreaded overloading the curriculum of the elementary school with too numer- ous or pretentious subjects ; and was well content to limit the imniber of optional subjects which might be selected by a teacher from a list containing geog- raphy, history, and various branches of science. But some insight into the grammar and literature of the English language was in his view indispensable, and should, in the higher classes at least, be invariably insisted on. But the chief means at his disposal for impressing these and otlier views on elementary education upon the Department, teachers, and managers, and upon the public generally, were his annual repiu'ts, which were widely read by persons Avho seldom cared to consult Blue Books. From 1852 to 1882 these lie- ports, interrupted only by his occasional emplo^'ment on foreign service, illuminated the official records of tlie Committee of ('ouiicil on Kdiu-alion and attracted HIS ANNUAL REPORTS 179 much public attention. Much of what he said dealt necessarily Avith statistics, with changes in the Code, and with matters of ephemeral controversy. But he availed himself of the opportunity which these reports offered to state with some fulness his own views on many subjects of abiding interest, and he has thus contributed to render the future aims of our primary-school system clearer, and to make the work of his successors easier. For example, he formed from the first a just con- ception of the duty of the Inspector in respect to th frank and fearless exposure of faults. Very early ir his^official life, he says : "An Inspector's first duty is that of a simple and foithful reporter to your Lordships ; the knowledge that imperfections in a school have been occasioned, wholly or in part, by peculiar local difficulties, may very properly restrain him from recom- mending the refusal of grants to that school, but it ought not to restrain him from recording the imperfections. It is for your Lordships to decide how far such imperfections shall subsequently be made public ; but that they should be plainly stated to you by the Inspector whom you employ, there can be, I think, no doubt at all. . . . "A certain system may exist, and your Lordships may offer assistance to schools established under it ; but you have not surel)^, on that account, committed yourselves to a faith in its perfect excellence ; you have not pledged yourselves to its ultimate success. The business of your Inspector is not to make out a case for that system, but to report on the con- dition of public education as it evolves itself under it, and to supply your Lordships and the nation at large witli data for determining how far the system is successful. If, for fear of discouraging voluntary effort, Inspectors are silent respecting 180 MATTHEW ARNOLD the deficiencies of schools, respecting the feeble support given to one school, the imperfect accommodations in another, the faidty discipline or instruction in a tliird, and the failure of all alike to embrace the jxjorest class of children, — if every- thing is represented as hopeful and prosperous, lest a mana- ger should be disappointed or a subscriber estranged, — then a delusion is prolonged in the public mind as to the real character of the present state of things, a delusion which it is tlie very object of a system of public inspection exercised by agents of the Government on behalf of the country at large to dispel and remove. . . . "It is an ungrateful task to seem to deprecate, under any circumstances, consideration and indulgence. But consiil- eration and indulgence, the virtues of the private man, may easily become the vices of the public servant." ' Lest, however, the teachers should think his criti- cisms implied harshness or want of sympathy, he added : " No one feels more than I do how laborious is tlieir work, how trying at times to the health and spirits, how full of difficulty even for the best ; how much fuller for those, whom I too often see attempting the work of a schoolmaster, men of weak health and studious habits, who betake tliemselves to this profession as affording the means to continue their favourite pursuits. . . . Still, the quantity of work actually done at present by teachers is immense ; the sincerity and devotedness of much of it is even affecting ; they themselves will be the greatest gainers by a system of reporting which clearly states what they do, and what they fail to do, not one which drowns alike success and failure, the able and the inefficient, in a common flood of vague approbation." His conception of the Inspector's duty caused liini, as we have already said, to view with extroino dis- 1 Report to the Coiniiiittee of Council, 1S54. INSPECTION AND EXAMINATION 181 favour tliat change in the character of school examiua- tioiis which was a necessary sequel to the llevised Code. He thought that the adoption of a lower and less intelligent standard of excellence in the schools implied and rendered necessary a lowering in the Inspector's office, and he thus contrasted the older system, which estimated the work of a school by inspection, with the newer system of formal indi- vidual examination. " Inspection under the old system meant something like the following: The Inspector took a school class by class. He seldom heard each child in a class read, but he called out a certain number to read, picked at random, as specimens of the rest; and when this was done he questioned the class with freedom, and in his own way, on the subjects of their instruction. As you got near the top of a good school, these subjects became more numerous ; they embraced English grammar, geography, and history, for each of which the Inspector's report contained a special entry, and the exami- nation then often acquired much variety and interest. The whole life and power of a class, the fitness of its composition, its handling by the teacher, were well tested; the Inspector became well acquainted with them, and was enabled to make his remarks on them to the head teacher, and a powerful means of correcting, improving, and stimulating them was thus given. . . . " The new examination groups the cliildren by its stand- ards, not by their classes; and however much we may strive to make the standards correspond with the classes, we can- not make them correspond at all exactly. The examiner, therefore, does not take the children in their own classes. The life and power of each class, as a whole, the fitness of its composition, its handling by the teacher, he therefore does 182 MATTHKW AKN'oi.D not test. He hoars every child in the groups before him read, and so far his examination is more complete than the old inspection. But he does not question them; he does not, as an examiner under the rule of the six standards, go beyond the three matters, — reading, writing, and arithmetic, — and the amount of tliese three matters which the standards themselves prescribe. Indeed, the entries for grammar, geog- raphy, and history have now altogether disappeared from the forms of report furnished to the Inspector. Tlie nearer, therefore, he gets to the top of the school, the more does his examination in itself become an inadequate means of testing the real attainments and intellectual life of the scholars before him. Boys who have mastered vulgar fractions and decimals, who know something of physical science and geometry, a good deal of English grammar, of geograpliy, and history, he hears read a paragraph, he sees write a paragraph, and work a couple of easy sums in the compound rules or practice. As a stimulus to the intellectual life of the school — and the intellectual life of a school is the intellectual life of its higher classes — this is as inefficient as if Dr. Temple, when he goes to inspect his fifth form at Rugby, were just to hear each boy construe a sentence of delectus, conjugate one Latin verb, and decline two Greek substantives. . . . The whole school felt, under the old sj'stem, that the prime aim and object of the Inspector's visit was, after insuring the fulfilment of certain sanitary and disciplinary condition-s, to test and quicken the intellectual life of the sciiool. The scholars' thoughts were directed to this object, the teachers' thoughts were directed to it, the Inspectors' thoughts were directed to it. . . . The new examination is in itself a less exhausting business than the old inspection to the pei-son conducting it, and it does not make a call as that did upon his spirit and inventiveness ; but it takes up much more time, it throws upon him a mass of minute detail, and severely tasks hand and eye to avoid mistakes.'"' 1 General Report for lS(i3. FORMATIVE STUDIES 183 Arnold always insisted on the neeessit}' of including in the course of even the elementary school some ingredients which, though they might have no visible and immediate bearing on the industrial career of the pupil, were what he called "formative." "Sewing, calculating, writing, spelling," he said, "are neces- sary; they have utility, but they are not formative. To have the power of reading is not in itself for- mative." Hence he urged the importance of better reading-books. He admitted that for the mere attain- ment of the mechanical art of reading, the common reading-book, with its promiscuous variety of con- tents, was well enough. But as literature, as means of forming the taste and judgment of the pupil, they were contemptible. He had a special horror of that "somewhat terrible character, the scientific '' educator," who wanted to make school reading-books the vehicles for imparting stores of scientific, geo- graphical, and other information. " Good poetry, , however," he said, "is formative; it has, too, the precious power of acting by itself and in a way suggested by nature." Hence he always nrged the importance of learning choice extracts of poetry. Learning by heart is often called disparagingly learning by rote, and is treated as an old-fash- ioned, unintelligent exercise and a waste of time. But he attached great value to this exercise. " I believe that even the rhythm and diction of good poetry are capable of exercising some formative effect, even though the sense be imperfectly understood. But of course the good of poetry is not really got unless the sense of the 184 MA'ITIIKW ARNOLD words is thoroughly U-arnt and known. Thus we are reme- dying what I have noticed as the signal mental defect of our school children — their almost incredible scantiness of vocabulary." ^ Even this counsel of perfection was capable, as he afterwards found, of being interpreted in an unsat- isfactory w^ay. Fragments of long poems, such as Scott's Lady of the Lake, and other narratives, were often selected, and as these fragments had no unity of their own, and were learned by those who had never read the poems as a whole, the acquisition appeared to him to be very worthless. The ex- perience of one of our colleagues, who reported that on asking the children of an upper class, "Who Shakespeare was," he received for answer that he was a writer of the time of Elizabeth and the author of two works, Hubert and Arthur and the Trial Scene at Venice, illustrates w^ell the mischievous effect of the common practice in dealing with frag- ments of great literary masterpieces. He always urged tliat scholars who offered to recite one or two hundred lines sliould be made to show that they knew sometliing about the contents of the poem of which the extract formed a part, and should at least have read it throtigh as a whole, and seen tlie rela- tion in which that extract stood to the rest. He then lays down the conditions which should be ob- served in the selection of passages f. (J. THE BII5LE IN THE SCHOOL 197 and Hermon, Sharon is their Tempe; these and the like Bible names can reach their imagination, kindle trains of thought and remembrance in them. The elements with which the literature of Greece and Rome conjures, have no power on them; the elements with which the literature of the Bible conjures, have. Therefore I have so often insisted, in reports to the Education Department, on the need, if from this point of view only, for the Bible in schools for the people. If poetry, philosophy, and eloquence, if what we call in one word letters, are a power and a beneficent wonder- working power in education, through the Bible only have the people much chance of getting at poetry, philosophy, and eloquence. Perhaps I may here quote what I have at former times said : ' Chords of power are touched by this instruction which no other part of the instruction in a popular school reaches, and chords various, not the single religious chord only.' The Bible is for the child in an elementary school almost his only contact with poetry and philosophy. "What a course of eloquence and poetry (to call it by that name alone) is the Bible in a school which has, and can have, but little eloquence and poetry ! and how much do our elementary schools lose by not having any such course as part of their school programme ! All who value the Bible may rest assured that thus to know and possess the Bible, is the most certain way to exteml the power and efficacy of the Bible." ^ In further vindication of his choice of the final chapters of the book of Isaiah as an exercise for school reading, he goes on to say : " To make a great work pass into the popular mind is not easy, but our series of chapters have one quality which facilitates this jjassage for them — their boundless exhilaration. "Much good poetry is profoundl}' melancholy ; now the Bible Reading for Schools, p. 10. 198 MATTHEW ARNOLD life of the people is such that in literature they require joy. If ever that 'good time coining* for which they long, was presented with energy and mag- nificence, it is in these chapters. It is impossible to read them without catching its glow.''^ In a private letter to me about this little book, he says, " It is the educational side of the question that I particularly care for. It does not much matter whether or no one thing more or less is produced whicli in literature is happy and brilliant, there is so much of this in literature already; but whether the people get hold of a single thing in high litera- ture, this point of education is of immense matter." Arnold was not sanguine in reference to the effect of his effort to produce a reading-book for schools, and indeed its reception was very cold, and I have never heard of a school in which tlie book was used. There is something pathetic, however, in his evident consciousness that the effort would fail, and yet in his faitli that his effort would bear fruit in the future. " For anyone who behoves in the civihzing power of letters, and often talks of tliis behef, to tliink that he has for more tliaii twenty years got his living by inspecting schools for tlie people, has gone in and out among them, has seen that tlie power of letters never reaches them at all, anition lure and winch counts for more than a like mastery (Kh-s witli us. Perhaps, becau.se it does not count for so nnu-h 1 Kcporl l«) ComniissioiuTS, note to p. 4(;2. COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS 217 with us, a like mastery is, in fact, scarcely ever attained in England, certainly never at school." ^ It will be seen that Arnold's attention in these for- eign inquiries was more directed to matters of organi- zation, and to the economical and political aspects of the educational problem, than to the details of pedagogic method. Nevertheless, incidentally and occasionally, he dealt Avith some topics having a special bearing on the interior work of schools and on matters of policy, on which the minds of teachers are not yet wholly made up. Among these we can only refer to two, of wdiicli one is the well-worn topic of entrance scholarships by competition. " The French It/ct'es, however, are guiltless of one pre- postei'ous violation of the laws of life and liealth connnitted by our own great schools, which have of late years thrown open to competitive examinations all the places on their foundations. The French have plenty of examinations, but they put them almost entirely at the right age for examina- tions — between the years of fifteen and twenty five wdien the candidate is neither too old or too young to be examined with advantage. To put upon little boys of nine or ten the pressure of a competitive examination for an object of the greatest value to their jjarents, is to offer a premium for the violation of nature's elementary laws, and to sacrifice, as in the poor geese fatted for Strasburg pies, the due develop- ment of all the organs of life to the premature hypertrophy of one. It is well known that the cramming of the little human victims for their ordeal of comiDetition tends more and more to become an industry with a certain class of small schoolmasters who know the secrets of the process, and who 1 Letters, Vol. I., p. 264. 218 MATTHEW AKN(»L1) are led by self- interest to select in the first instance their own chiMren for it. Tiie foundations are no gainers, antl nervous exhaustion at fifteen is the price which many a clever boy pays for over-stimulation at ten ; and the nervous exhaustion of a number of our clever boys tends to a broad reign of intellectual deadness in the mass of youths from fifteen to twenty whom the clever boys, had they been rightly developed and not unnaturally forced, ought to have leavened. You can hardly put too great a pressure on a healthy youth to make him work between fifteen and twenty- five ; healthy or unhealthy you can hardly put too light a pressure of this kind before twelve." ' On another topic, that of leaving examinations abiturientem examen, the experience furnished by Ger- many seemed to Arnold especially valuable. He discusses the use which was made of such an exami- nation by the State as a qualification for the public service. The course followed with the Reahchulen and with the higher Burgher Schools is thus described : " For entrance to the different branches of the public ser- vice, the leaving certificate of the classical .school had, up to 18.32, been retjuired. For certain of tiicsc brandies it was determined, in 1832, to accept henceforth the certificate of the Renhrhule or the higher Burgher School instead of that of the gymnasium. Different departments ma mid- dle class, while imbued with tiio ideas in wliii-li tliey wore most defective, loving as he did the beauty and tlie fresh- PURITANISM 225 ness of Oxford, the logical clearness and belief in ideas in France, the devotion to truth and philosophical thorough- ness of Germany, the sight of the dogged British Philistine was to him a perpetual grievance." Here is a passage from Friendship' s Garland which tells its own story : "What makes me look at France and the French with inexhaustible curiosity and indulgence is this : their faults are not of the same kind as ours, so we are not likely to catch them ; their merits are not of the same kind as ours, so we are not likely to become idle and self-sufficient from studying them. I find such interest and instruction in con- sidering a city so near London, and yet so unlike it. It is not that I so envy the Frenchman his cafe-haiinting, domino- playing boim/eois. But when I go through Saint Pancras I like to compare our vestry-haunting, resolution-passing bourgeois with the Frenchman, and to say to myself, ' This, then, is what comes of not frequenting cafds nor playing dominoes! My countrymen here have got no cafds, and have never learnt dominoes, and see the mischief Satan has found for their idle hands to do ! ' Still I do not wish them to be the cafe-haunting, domino-playing Frenchmen, but rather some third thing, neither the Frenchmen nor their present selves." No one who knows England well can deny that there is much truth in this kind of criticism. Matthew Arnold's diagnosis of some of our moral ailments was undoubtedly keen and just. T>nt it wn,s incomplet e^ He hardly ever did full justice to the many good and solid elements of nat ional char acter which the English peo ple owe to Purita nism. The case was in fact one of what Charles Lamb was wont to call " imperfect 226 MATTHKW AUXoLD sympathies." Neitlier the British Philistine nor liis critic ever fully understood or ajjpreciated tlie otlier. Arnold, with his lofty air of distiuctiou and his high- bred manners, sometimes appeared to those whom he criticised a rather dandified and supercilious cynic, going through the world as one who held a moral smelling-bottle at his nose, and exacting an impos- sible standard of life from a busy and strenuous people who had their living to get. And he, on tlie other hand, never ceased to call attention to their want of taste, their intellectual poverty, their groat need of culture, of beauty, and "of sweetness and of liglit." This last phrase was seized upon by the public and often quoted as a proof of his superfine and unpractical ideals. When he went to receive the honorary degree of l^.C.L. at Oxford, some wits suggested that Lord Salisbury, the Chancellor of the University, should address him Vir dulcissime et luciclissime. But beneath this famous and much criticised formula, Arnold liad a real meaning and conviction, which was not without a serious signifi- cance for his countrymen. It has been truly said that Arnold's criticisms did not manifest an adequate sense of what the religion of the lilnglish middle class had really been to it, what a source of vitality, energy, and persistent force. " They wlio wait on the. Lord," says Isaiah, in wtu-ds not less true than they are noble, ^^ shall renew their strength," and the English middle class owes to its religion not only comfort in the jiast, but also a vast latent store of unworn life and strength for future WHAT ENGLAND OWES TO THE PHILISTINES 227 progress. There was defective insight and some injustice in his failure to recognize this fact. A closer study of history would probably have modified the contempt, half-amused and half-serious, with which Arnold regarded the English middle class. There was a time in the latter half of the seventeenth century when a great wave of irre- ligion and profligacy burst over English society, and, if we are to form our judgments solely from books of history, would appear to have well-nigh sub- merged all the best elements of the national charac- ter. But, after all, the vices of the Restoration period affected the Court and the upper ranks mainly ; they touched the surface only of our social life. Down deeper lay the great solid mass of Puritan England, and in this the inbred probity, self-respect, and sense of righteousness remained for the most part uninflu- enced by the wildness and licentiousness of the aris- tocracy. In like manner the eighteenth century saw in the Church of England decorum, learning, and many estimable qualities, but also coldness and a notable absence of religious fervour or of strong conviction. And it was to Wesley and Whitfield, and not to ecclesiastics in high places, that Ave owe the evangelical revival of that century. We have, as a nation, been in fact saved from moral corruption in the seventeenth century, and from religious apathy and indifference in the eighteenth, not by the influence of the educated and privileged classes, but by the great and stedfast qualities of that very class of British Philistines against whom 228 MATTHEW AKNOLD Matthew Arnold directed all liis earnest condem- nation and all the lighter artillery of his sarcasm and his wit. There is another consideration which, in reading Cnlture caul Anarchy, and books of tlie like kind, we are in some danger of overlooking. The Act of Uniformity of KJGU, and the series of similar acts which constitute what is called the Clarendon Code, — Corporation Act, Test Act, Conventicle Act, and Five-Mile Act, — had been designed to stamp out Nonconformity and had made it a penal offence for a Dissenter either to preach in a chapel or to teach in any private or public school. Tor many years those who objected to sign the Articles and to conform to the Avorship of the Church of England were subject to heavy disabilities, as Avell as to irritating social exclusion. The Schism Act of 1713 enacted that "no person in Great Britain shall keep any public or private school, or act as tutor, that has not lirst sub- scribed the declaration to conform to the Church of England and obtained a licence from the diocesan, and that upon failure of so doing the i)arty may be committed to i)rison witliout bail; and that no such licence shall be granted before the i)arty produces a certificate of having rec(uved the sacrament according to the communion of the Church of England within the last year, and also subscribed the oaths of alle- giance and supremacy." Until the year 1770 it continued to be illegal for a dissenter to act as a schoolmaster. Tlie Test and Corporation Acts sur- vived till the year ISL".), and tests on admission to NONCONFORMIST DISABILITIES 229 degrees in the Universities were not finally abolished. by Parliament till 1871. Thus it is scarcely just or generous on the part of cliurchiuen, whose zeal for uniformity of belief has caused tlrem during three centuries to exclude Dis- senters from the Universities, from schools, from the higher professions, and from the public service, to reproach their fellow-countrymen with want of culture and with an ignoble ideal of education. If the' Eng- lish Xonconformist exhibited a Avatchful and habitual dread of State interference, it was because he and his ancestors had suffered much from such interference in~ ~~ days gone by. And if he was deficient in the graces, the accomplishments, and the tastes which are the products of a high and generous education, it ought at least to be remembered in his defence that the means of obtaining such education had been for many generations deliberately placed out of his reach. Probably if Arnold ever fully recognized the weight of these and the like considerations, some of his judg- ments would have been less severe, and he would have wounded and irritated the Xonconformists less. That he Avas not insensible to the value of much of the work Avhich they had done, or unmindful of the efforts they have made on behalf of education, many passages from his reports abundantly prove. Here is a sonnet which he wrote after meeting in the East End a well-known Congregational minister, the Rev. W. Tyler, whom as school manager and energetic Avorker in social improvement he had often encoun- tered on his inspecting tours: I TT XT T -.7 T' o" -:■ T n 230 MATI'llKW AH. NOLI) " 'Twa« Au^^'iist, and tin.' fierce sim overhead Smote on tlie squalid streets of Bethnal Green, And the pale weaver, through Ids windows seen In Spitalfiekls, look'd tlirice dispirited. " I met a prcaclier tiiere I knew, and said : ' 111 and o'erwork'd, how fare you in this scene 1 ' — ' Bravely ! ' said he : ' for I of late have been Much eheer'd with thoughts of Christ, the Hviivj bread* *' O liumau soul ! as long as thou canst so Set up a mark of everlasting light. Above the howling senses' ebb and flow — To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam — Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night ! Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home." On his favourite theme, the need of a better sys- tem of secondary education, he wrote copiously. He thought the ideal prevalent among Englishmen of what a school ought to be and to do Avas often mean and ignoble. "I have this year," he says in a letter to me in 1880, ''been reading Ddoid Copperfield for the first time. Mr. Creakle's school at lilackheath is the type of our ordinary middle-class schools, and our mid- dle class is satisfied that so it should be." And in another letter in 1881, referring to a pro- ject for a sort of trades' union among secondary and private teachers, designed partly for inqiroving their own qualifications and status, but mainly for the pro- tection of their ])i'or(\ssional interests, he tells me: "I have seen the prospectus and will have nothing to do with it. It is just the sort of makeshift the Knglisli like, in order to escape a jircssing necessity, such as the total PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS 231 reform of their middle class education. But a uiakeshift of this kind is not what is wanted. My whole use consists in standing out for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about our wretched middle class education and its needs." By way of illustrating tbe difference between the position. of a teacher responsible only to a recognized public body, and one whose sole business was to sat- isfy and to flatter ill-educated parents, he once wrote : " The stamp of plainness and the freedom from charlatan- ism given to the instruction of our primaiy schools, through the public character which in tlie last thirty years it has received, and through its having been tlius reserved, in great measure, from the influences of private speculation, is per- haps the best thing among them. It is in this respect that our primary schools compare so favourably with the private adventure schools of the middle class, that class which Mr. Bright says is perfectly competent to manage its own schools and education. The work in the one is appraised by impar-"~"i tial educated persons ; in the other, by the common run of / middle-class parents. To show the difference in the result, , I will conclude by placing in juxtaposition a letter written in school by an ordinary scholar in a public elementary school in my district, a girl of eleven years old, with one written by a boy in a private middle-class school, and fur- nished to one of the Assistant-Commissioners of the Schools Inquiry Commission. The girl's letter I give first : " * Dear Fanny. — I am afraid I shall not pass in my examination ; Miss C says she thinks I shall. I shall be glad when the Serpentine is frozen over, for we shall have such fun ; I wish you did not live so far away, then you could come and share in the game. Father cannot spare Willie, so I have as much as I can do to teach him to cipher nicely. I am now sitting by the school fire, so I 232 MATTHEW AUNOLD assure you I am very warm. Father and mother are very well. 1 hope to see you on Christmas Day. Winter is coming: don't it make you shiver to think of? Shall yi)U ever come to snwjky old London again? It is not so bad, after all, with its bustle and business and noise. If you see Ellen T will you kindly get her address for me? I must now conclude, us I am soon going to my reading class : so good bye. " ' From your allectiouate friend "'M.' "And now I give the boy's : " 'My T)e.\r Parents. — The anticipation of our Christ- mas vacation abounds in peculiar delights. Not only that its "festivities," its social gatherings and its lively anmse- ments crown the old year witli happiness and mntli, but that I come a guest commended to your hospitable love by the performance of all you bade me remember when 1 left you in the glad season of sun and flowers. And time has sped tioetly since reluctant my departing step croased the threshold of tliat home whose indulgences and endearments their temporary loss has taught me to value more and more. Yet that restiaint is salutary, and tliat self-reliance is as easily learnt as it is laudable, the propriety of my conduct and the readiness of my services shall ere long aptly illus- trate. It is with confidence I j)romise that tlie close of every year shall find me advancing in your regard by con- stantly observing the precepts of my e.xcellont tutors and the example of my excellent parents. '"We break up on Tiuusday the lltii of DecembtT instant, and my impatience of the sliort delay will assure my dear iKirents uf the filial sentiments of " ' Theirs very sincerely, '"N. '"P. S. We shall reassemble on the 19th (.f January. I\Ir. and Mrs. P. present their respectful couiplinients.' SECTIONAL AND CLASS SCHOOLS 233 " To those who ask what is the difFerenee between a pub- lic and a private school, I answer, It is this." ^ There was one class of English schools for ^vhieh Arnold entertained a special dislike — schools erected by private, sectarian, or professional bodies for the sep- arate instruction of their own children — e.g. schools for Clergy orphans, for sous of Freemasons, of Com- mercial Travellers, of otticers in the Army, of Wes- leyaus, or of the Society of Friends. Mutatis mutandis these institutions were open to the same objections wliich api)ly to Poor Law schools, or to Eagged schools. They are filled in each case with scholars who have had the same antecedents and are drawn from the same class. Whatever disabilities attach to the class, whatever professional narrowness or preju- dices belong to the homes from w'hich they come, are intensified and rendered more mischievous by bring- \ ing the children together into an artificial community j of this kind. What such children need most is the freer air, and the more varied conditions, which char- acterize a good school recruited from different classes of society. The happiest thing iov a soldier's orphan, for example, is to be placed in a school with other children who are not orphans and whose fathers were not soldiers. On this point Arnold spoke fre(|uently and with much emphasis. For exami^le, he thus contrasted the public character of some German middle schools under crown patronage, with the sectional and quasi-jDrivate establishments so common at home. 1 Report to Education Department, 1867. 234 MATTIIKW AltNOLl) "But in England liow diffrront is the pait wliicli in this matter our governors are accustomed to phiy ! The Licensed Victuallers or the Commercial Travel- lers propose to make a school for their children, and I suppose, in the matter of schools, one may call the Licensed Victuallers, or the Commercial Travellers, ordinary men, with their natural taste for the bathos still strong. And a sovereign with the advice of men like Wilhelm von Humboldt or Schleiermacher may, in this matter, be a better judge, and nearer to right reason. And it Avill be allowed, probably, that riglit reason would suggest that to have a sheer school of Licensed Victuallers' children, or a sheer school of Commercial Travellers' children, and to bring them all up, not only at honu' but at school too, in a kind of odour of licensed victualism or bagnumism, is not a wise training to give to these children. And in Germany, I have said, the action of the national guides or governors is to suggest and provide a better. ]^ut, in England, the action of the national guides or governors is, for a IJoyal Prince or a great minister to go down to the opening of the Licensed Victuall(M's' scliudl, or of tlit^ Cituuiiercial Travellers' scliool, to lake tlic chair, to extol Ww energ}'' and self-reliance of the Licensed Victuallers or the Com- mercial Travellers, to be all of their way of think- ing, to predict full success to their schools, and never so much as to hint to them that they are probably doing a very foolish thing, and that the right way to go to work with their children's education is (]uite different.'' ' 1 Culltiir (inil Aiiurcfti/. HY^NS 235 Although, as we have seen, Arnold attached great value both to religion and poetry as factors in national education, there is one particular attempt to combine the two for which he had a curiously strong, but not unintelligible, aversion. He greatly disliked the ordinary hymns in use in our places of worship, and thought the national taste was degraded by the use we are accustomed to make of them. "Our German kinsmen and we are the great people for hymns. The Germans are very proud of their hymns, and we are very proud of ours ; but it is hard to say which of the two, the German hymn-book or ours, has least poetical worth in itself, or does least to prove genuine poetical power in the people producing it. . . . Only the German race, with its want of quick instinctive tact, of delicate, sure per- ception, could have invented the hymn as tlie Germans and we have it: and our non-German turn for style — style, of which the very essence is a certain happy fineness and truth of poetical perception — could not but desert us when our German nature carried us into a kind of composition which can please only when the perception is somewhat blunt. Scarcely any one of us ever judges our hymns fairly, because works of this kind have two sides — their side for religion and their side for poetry. Everything wliich has helped a man in his religious life, everything which associates itself in his mind with the growth of tiiat life, is beautiful and venerable to him ; in this way, productions of little or no poetical value, like the German hymns and ours, may come to be regarded as very precious. Their worth in this sense, as means by which we have been edified, I do not for a moment hold cheap ; but there is an edification proper to all our stages of development, the highest as well as the lowest, and it is for man to press on towards the highest stages of his development, with the certainty that for those stages, 236 MATTHKW ARNOLD too, means of education will not be found wanting. Now certainly it is a higher state of development when our poetical perception is keen than when it is blunt." * And later he says with more decisiou : " Hymns, such as we know them, are a sort of composi- tion which I do not at all admire. I freely say so now, as I have often said it before. I regret their ])revalence and popularity amongst us.. Taking man in his totality and in the long run, bad music and bad poetry, to whatever good and useful i)urposes a man may often manage to turn them, are in themselves mischievous and deteriorating to him. Somewhere and somehow, and at some time or other, he has to pay a penalty and to suffer a loss for taking delight in them." Dr. Johnson had in his life of Watts and elsewhere expressed the opinion that religious truths and wor- ship were not the proper subjects for poetic treatment, and that all devotional poetry was for this reason more or less unsatisfactory. "-The paucity of its topics enforces perpetual repetition, aiul the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative dic- ti(jn. It is sufficient for Watts to have done better than others what no man has done well." Matthew Arnold, though not entirely for the same reason, disliked the current hymnology. lie not only thought it contained bad poetry, but his fastidious lit- erary taste and his sense of humour revolted against both its form and its substance. And in truth there is much in modern hymn-books to justify his criticism. In many hymns there is evident a i>ainful attempt 1 Study (./ CfUic Ltliratnrc. RELIGIOUS POETRY 237 to pack as much tlieology as possible, rather than to raise religious emotion and to express devout aspi- ration. In many others the language put into the worshipper's mouth is sadly unreal and exaggerated, expressive of a warmth and rapture which is not likely to be actually felt, and which it is therefore confusing and benumbing to the possessor of a healthy conscience to pretend to feel. And a still larger number of hymns will be found to be disfigured by false metaphors, by prosaic and commonplace expres- sions, and by a complete absence of rhythm and poetry. Yet I think his rather indiscriminate and almost con- temptuous judgment on religious poetry carried him too far. The Psalms of David, the mediaeval Latin hymns, such as sol salutis and the Dies irce, the devotional poetry of Wither, of Herbert, of Milton, of Cowper, of Doddridge, of Charles Wesley, and of Keble, have in successive ages of the Church done too much in raising and ennobling the religious aspi- rations of men to be so summarily dismissed. Even John Henry Newman, long after his conversion to the Eoman Church, thus commented on the influence of Keble's Christian Year: " His poems became a sort of comment upon the formu- laries and ordinances of the Anglican Church, and almost elevated them into the dignity of a religious system. It kindled hearts towards his Church ; it gave a something for the gentle and forlorn to cling to, and it raised up advocates for it among those who otherwise, if God and their good Angel had suffered it, might have wandered away into some ■sort of philosophy and acknowledged no Church at all." ^ 1 Newmau's Essay Critical and Historical, Vol. II., p. 441. 238 MATI'lli:\V AK.NOLI) In fact, religious truth must ever be touclietl with emotion if it is to become a really vital force in tlie world, and when pure and unworldly strivings after a higher life are associated with musical words and a true poetic instinct, the hymn becomes a real fac- tor in the religious life and education of the race. YoY example : "O God, our liolp in ages past, Our hope for years to come, Our shelter from the stormy blast, And our eternal home." And these musical lines tvom the Stabat Mater : "Fac ut ardeat cor mourn, In amando Christum Deum, Ut sibi coniplaceam." But for all the intellectual and moral ailments which he observed and denounced in our social sys- tem, for the false taste, the bleakness, and the dulness of middle-class life, and for tlie absence of lofty ideals, he had, as is well known, one cure to urge. It was not a panacea. Ihit it was the best and most potent, and at the same tinn^ the most readily available, cor- rective he knew. If our middle-class education was the worst in the world, if it lacked dignity, thonuigh- ness, and refinement, the remedy Avas to ennoble our secondary schools, and the only possible instru- ment for effecting this object was the agency of the State. From his official iiupiiries in foreign countries he had, as we have seen, come back with no horror of bureaucracy or of a symmetrical system of jiulilic PORRO UNUM EST NECESSARIUM 239 instruction. He thouglit that Englishmen had car- ried their love of freedom and of local and voluntary- initiative in this matter too far, and that we were all suffering for it. He believed that the ideal of a good and generous education likely to be formed by respon- sible statesmen and enlightened administrators at headquarters was likely to prove in the long run higher and truer than that formed by vestries, town councils, sectarian committees, and local boards. The phantom of centralization did not frighten him, pro- vided that State agency maintained a due regard to the genius, the feelings, the history and traditions and religious convictions, of the community. So in season and out of season, with a voice like that, as he was wont to confess, "of one crying in the wilder- ness," he constantly insisted on the need of attention to our great national defect. " Porro umoii est neces- ff sarium. One thing is needful. Organize your sec-. ondary education." The powers, he was fond of saying, which contribute to build up human civilization are the power of con- duct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power of beauty, the power of social life and manners. Expansion, conduct, science, beauty, manners, — here are the conditions of civilization, the claimants which man must satisfy before he can be humanized. He was not sanguine about the immediate result of his preaching on this subject. In his well-known lecture, " Ecce convertimur ad gentes," addressed to the members of a Workingmeu's College, he says mournfully that "the one step towards that general 240 MATTHEW AliXOLl) improvement in our civilization which it is the object of all cultivating of our intelligence to bring about, the establishment of a genuine municipal system for the whole country, will hardly perhaps come in our time ; men's minds have not yet been sufficiently turned to it for that." J hit subsequent events have shown that he undervalued the force and influence of his own crusade. In all later educational controversies, in Parliament, at the Universities, at Congresses, in meetings of teachers, and in the evidence and reports issued by Royal Commissions, his words have been con- stantly quoted, his facts referred to, and his authority invoked. Notably, the Report of the Royal Commis- sion on Secondary Instruction, which was issued in 1895, proceeds to a large extent on lines which he was the first to trace, and recommends a policy which would have gone far to realize his hopes. And in the near future when English statesmen rouse themselves to a ])erce})tion of the need of a coherent and well-ordered system of secondary schools, in which due regard shall be had not only to tlie claims of active life, but to the liigher claims of tlie inner life for expansion and for l)uritication, the result will be largely owing to the stimulus which his writings afforded and to the high and generous conception he had formed of the ends which ought to be attained in a liberal education, and of the sjnrit in which we ought to pursue them. CHAPTER XII Arnold as a literary critic, a humorist, and as a poet — Criticism and its functions — Comparison with Sainte Beuve — Examples of his critical judgments — Homer, Pope, and Dryden, Byron, Words- wortli, Kurke, Tennyson, Charlotte Bronte, and Macaulay — The gift of humour indispensable to a critic — English newspapers — The Tcl''f/r Late editor of the Kdinburyh « Tlie late Bishop Will)erforce. livvU'to. * The late Dean Stanley. (UNIVERRI' SAINTE BEUVE V C^l^rORNlA- ential, accomplished, and distinguished ; and then, some fine morning, a dissatisfection of the public mind with this brilliant and select coterie, a flight of Corinthian leading articles, and an irniption of Mr. G. A. Sala. Clearly this is not what will do us good. The very same faults — the want of sensitiveness of intellectual conscience, the disbelief in right reason, the dislike of authority — which have hin- dered our having an Academy and have worked injuriously in our literature, would also hinder us from making our Academy, if we established it, one which would really correct them."^ But in the absence of any such recognized authority he regarded the function of the literary critic as one of high value. One of the most interesting acquaint- ances he ever made was that of Sainte Beuve, the accomplished author of the Ccmiieries de Lnndi, whose works he greatly admired and whom he met more than once in Paris. Of him he says in one of his letters: " Sainte Beuve gave me an excellent dinner and was in full vein of conversation, which as his conversation is about the best to be heard in France w^as chai'ming. ... I staid with him till midnight, and. would not have missed my evening for the w^orld. I think he likes me, and likes my caring so much about his criticisms and appreciating his extraordinary delicacy of tact and judgment in literature." Later, when Arnold contributed to the Encyclopedia Britannica a memoir of his friend, he used language which with little qualification might not inappropriately be ap- plied to himself: 1 Culture and Anarchy. 244 MAlllIEW AKNnLl) " He was a critic of measure, not exuberant, of the centre, not provincial, of keen industry and curiosity, with Trutii (the word engraved in English on his seal) for his motto ; moreover, with gay and amiable temper, liis manner as good as his matter — the ''critique muriant,' as in Monselet's dedi- cation to him he is called. It so happens that tlie great place of France in the world is very nuicli due to her eminent gift for social life and development, and tliis gift French litera- ture has accompanied, fashioned, perfected, and continues to reflect. This gives a special interest to Frencli literature, and an interest independent even of the excellence of indi- vidual French writers, high as that office is. And nowhere shall we find such interest more completely and charmingly brought out than in the Causerits ile Lumli of this con- summmate critic. As a guide to bring us to a knowledge of the Frencli genius and literature, he is unrivalled, i)erfect — so far as a poor mortal critic can be perfect — ■ in judg- ment, in tact and tone." ' There was much in the serene intellectual detach- ment of Marcus Aurelius which to the last ai)pealed powerfully to Arnold's sympathy. "We are all," says the Imperial Philosopher, " working together to one end, some with knowledge and design, and others without knowing what they do. r>ut men co-operate after dirfcrcnt fashions and even those co-operate abundantly who hnd fault with what happens and those who try to oppose it, and to hinder it; for the Universe hath need of such men as these." . . . " Reverence that which is best in the Universe, and in like manner reverence that which is best in thyself." Herein we are reminded of the apostolic injunc- ' Kncycloprilht liritunuica. POETIC CRITICISM 245 tion : " Covet earnestly the best gifts ! " This was the gist of Aruokl's teaching in regard to literature. And he devoted much of his keen insight and line and somewhat fastidious taste to the task of helping his countrymen to distinguish the good from the bad, the noble from the ignoble, the ephemeral from the endur- ing, in what they read. And if in doing this he made us profoundly dissatisfied with ourselves and with much of our current literature, he could not help it, and would not have helped it if he could. His lect- ures delivered at Oxford on Translatinrj Homer, and his Study of Celtic Literature, are full of just and subtle criticism, and of comparisons between ancient and modern writing, which are not always flattering to ourselves, but are always worth remembering. For example, take these remarks on Homer and the grand style : " The ballad-manner and the ballad-measure, whether in the hands of the old ballad poets, or arranged by Chapman or arranged by Mr. Newman, or even arranged by Sir Walter Scott, cannot worthily render Homer. And for one reason, Homer is plain, so are they ; Homer is natural, so are they ; Homer is spirited, so are they ; but Homer is substantially noble, and they are not. Homer and they are both of them natural, and therefore touching and stirring ; but the grand style which is Homer's is something more than touching and stirring ; it can form the character ; it is edifying. The old English balladist may stir Sir Philip Sidney's heart like a trumpet, and this is much ; but Homer, like the few artists in the grand style, can do more ; they can refine the raw natural man ; they can transmute him. So it is not without cause that I say and say again to the translator of 246 .MATllIKW AKNol.l) Hoincr: never for :i iiioinent siitter yourself to forget our fiindainental i)roi>o.sition, Homer is iKible. 'For it is seen how large a share this nobleness has in producing that general effect of his, which it is the main business of a translator to ?-eprocluce." ' What, too, can be happier than some of his critical judgments? For example, this on Wordsworth and Byron : from his Essays in Criticism. " Wordsworth has an insight into permanent sources of joy and consolation for mankind which Byron has not ; his poetry gives us more which we may rest upon than Byron's — more which we can rest upon now, and which men may rest upon always. I i)lacc Wordsworth's poetry, therefore, above Byron's on the whole, although in some jwints he was greatly Byron's inferior, and although Byron's jwetry will always, probably, find more readers than Wordsworth's, and will give pleasure more easily. But these two, Words- worth and Byron, stand, it seems to me, first and jjre-eminent in actual performance, a glorious pair, among the English poets of this century. Keats had probably, indeed, a more consummate ])octic gift than either of them ; but he died having produced too little, and being as yet too iuunature to rival them. I for my part can never even think of equalling with them any other of their contemporaries, — either Cole- ridge, j)oet and phi]()soj)lier, wrecked in a nnst of opium ; or Shelley, beautifid and ineffectual angel, beating in tlie void his luminous wings in vain. Wordsworth and Byron stand out by themselves. When the year 1900 is turned, ai:d our nation comes to recount her ])oetic glories in the century wliicii has just ended, the first names will be these.'' Dryden and Pope he regarded with admiration, but rather as skilful versifiers and the founders of classic 1 Oil Tninslafiiir/ Homer, Locluro II., p. W. DRYDEN, rOPE, BYRON, WORDSWORTH 247 prose than as inspired poets. He saw clearly their limitations AVhen he came to compare them with Chaucer, with Milton, or with Wordsworth. " AVe are to regard Dryden as the i^uissant and glorious founder, Pope as the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our excellent and indispensable eigh- teenth century. For the purposes of their mission and des- tiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable. Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is not good 1 " 'A milk-white Hind immortal and unchanged, Fed on tlie lawns, and in the forest ranged.' I answer : Admirable for the purposes of an inaugurator of an age of prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost where you will, is not good ? " ' To Hounslow Heath, I point, and Banstead Down, Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.' I answer : Admirable for the purposes of a high priest of an age of prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from men with an adequate poetic criti- cism of life? from men whose criticism of hfe has a high seriousness, or, even without that high seriousness, has poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity 1 Do you ask me whether the application of ideas to life in the verse of tliese men, often a powerful application, no doubt, is a pow- erful poetic application ? Dcy you ask me whether the poetry of these men has either the matter or the inseparable manner of such an adequate poetic criticism ? whether it has the accent of " 'Absent thee from felicity awhile . . .' or of " ' And what is else not to be overcome . . .' or of " ' martyr souded in virginitee ! ' 248 MATIIIKW AUNoM) I answer: It lias nut, and can lutt have them; it is the poetry of the buiklers of an age of prose and reason. Though they may write in verse, thougli tliey may in a cer- tain sense be masters of the art of versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry : they are classics of our prose." Of Gray, too, his appreciation is as guarded aud careful as it is generous and just. " Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age. The position of Gray is singular and demands a word of notice here. He has not the volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the great poets ; he lived, above all, with the Greeks, though perpet- ually studying and enjoying tliem ; and he caught their poetic point of view for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The jjoint of view and the manner are not self- sprung in him, he caught them of otiicrs, and he had not the free and abundant use of them. But whereas Addison and Pope never liad the use of them, Gray had tlie use of them at times. He is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a classic."' To another poet, Arthur Hugh Clough, whose early promise was never fully realized, but to whose genius Arnold's own was in nuiny respects akin, lie pays in Thyrsis an affectionate tribute, which after Lycidas is one of the noblest elegiac poems in our language. He also makes in one of his lectures a critical refer- ence especially worth transcribing here, because it indicates his own exalteil conception of the aims of the true poet. i Estiuijs in Criticism, Second Series. MILTON 249 "He possessed two iuvaluable literary qualities — a true for his object of study and a siugle-hearted care for it. He had both : but he had the second even more eminently than the first. He greatly developed the first through means of the second. In the study of art, poetry, or phi- losophy, he had the most undivided and disinterested love for his object in itself and the greatest aversion to mixing up with it anything accidental or personal. ^His interest was in literature itself, and it was this which gave so rare a stamp to his character, which kept him so free from all taint of littleness. In the saturnalia of ignoble personal passions, of which the struggle for literary success in old and crowded communities offers so sad a spectacle, he never mingled. He had not yet traduced his friends, nor flattered his enemies, nor disparaged what he admired, nor praised what he despised. Those who knew him well had the con- viction that even with time, these literary arts would never be his. His poem has some admirable Homeric qualities — out of door freshness, life, naturalness, buoyant rapidity. Some of the expressions in that poem Dangerous Corrie- vreckan come back to my ear now with the tiiie Homeric ring. I But that in him of which I think oftenest is the Homeric simplicity of his literary life.'' Arnold's estimate of Milton also is characterized by a generous appreciation and by keen critical dis- cernment. For example : " Milton's true distinction as a poet, for example, is un- doubtedly his unfailing level of style. Milton has always the sure, strong touch of the master. His power both of diction and of rhythm is unsurpassable, and it is character- ized by being always present — not depending on an access of emotion, not intermittent, but, like the pace of Raphael, working in its possessor as a constant gift of nature. . . . Shakespeare himself, divine as are his gifts, has not, of 250 IMAITIIEW AKNOLD the marks of the nnister, this one - perfect surenoss of hand in his style. Alone of English poets, alone of Eng- lish art, Milton has it. He is our great artist in style, our one first-rate master in the grand style. He is sus truly a master in this style as the great Greeks are, or Virgil, or Dante. The number of such masters is so limited that a man acquires a world rank in poetry and art, instead of a mere local rank, by being counted among them. But Milton's importance to us Englishmen, by virtue of this dis- tinction of his, is incalculable. The charm of a master's unfailing touch in diction and in rhythm, no one, after all, can feel so intimately, so profoundly, as his own country- men. Invention, plan, wit, patho.s, thought — all of them are in great measure capable of being detached from the original work itself, and of being exported for atlmiration abroad : diction and rhythm are not." ' In a striking letter to M. Fontanes there is an inci- dental allusion to Burke, which will show how power- fully Arnold had been impressed with the grave wisdom, and yet with what appeared to him to be the somewhat limited foresight, of that statesman. " Burke, like Wordsworth, is a great force in that epoch of concentration, as I call it, which arose in England in opposition to the epoch of expansion declaring itself in the French Revoluticm. The old order of things had not the virtue which Burke supjiosed. The Revolution had not the banefulness which he su{)posed. But neither wa.s the Revolution the conunencement, as its friends su|)i>o.sed, of a reign of justice and virtue. It was much ratlier, as Scherer has called it, ' un dechainement d'instincts confus, un aveugle et immense besoin de renouvellement.' An e])och of concentration and of resistance to the crude and violent 1 Mixed Essays. BURKE, TENNYSON 251 people who were for imposing their ' renouvellement ' on the rest of the world by force was natural and necessary. Burke is to be conceived as the great voice of this epoch. He carried his country with him, and was in some sort a provi- dential person. But he did harm as well as good, for he made concentration too dominant an idea with us, and an idea of which the reign was unduly prolonged. The time for expansion must come, and Burke is of little help to us in presence of such a time. But in his sense of the crudity and tyranny of the French revolutionists, I do not think he was mistaken."^ Scattered up and down his writings and his familiar letters are many passages of this kind, showing a genuine and hearty appreciation of excellence in style or in thought. But the reader will often find to his surprise some outspoken dissent from the popu- lar estimate even of the most admired of modern authors. For example, he never indulges in any rapt- ures about Tennyson, the beauty and finish and the musical quality of whose verse did not reconcile Arnold to a certain thinness and want of force in his writings. "The fault I find with Tennyson in his Idylls of the King, is that the peculiar charm and aroma of the Middle Ages he does not give in them. . . . The real truth is that Tennyson, with all his temperament and artistic skill, is deficient in intel- lectual power, and no modern poet can make very much of his business unless he is pre-eminently strong in this."^ Thackeray he did not regard as a great writer, and of Charlotte Bronte's ViUette he 1 Letters, Jan. 21, 1880. 2 Letter, Dec. 17, 1860. 252 MATTHEW ARNOLD expressed liimself witli unwonted severity. " No fine writing can hide her faults. These will be fatal to her in the long run." ^ And of Macaulay's style he says : " Its external characteristic is a liard metallic movement, with nothing of the soft play of life, and its internal char- acteristic is a perpetual semblance of hitting the right nail on the head without the reality." - " Macaulay's view of things is, on the whole, the view of them which the middle-class reader feels to be his own also. Tlie persons and causes praised are tho.se which he himself is disposed to admire ; tlie persons and causes blamed are those with which he himself is o\it of sympathy. The rhetoric employed to praise or to blame them is animating and excel- lent. Macaulay is thus a great civilizer. In hundreds of men he hits their nascent taste for tlie things of tlie mind, possesses himself of it and stimulates it, draws it power- fully forth and confirms it. . . . At this stage rhetoric, even when it is so good as Macaulay's, di.ssatisfies. And the number of people who have reached this stage of mental growth is constantly, as things are now, increasing ; in- creasing by the very same law of progress which plants the beginnings of mental life in more and more persons who, luitil now, have never known mental life at all. 80 that while the number of those wlio are delighted with rhetoric such as Macaulay's is always im-reasing, the number of tliDSc wiio arc dissatislicd with it is always increasing too." ^ On tlie whole it may be safely said that of all the literary critics of our time, none have done more tlian Arnold to purify the national taste, to help lucii in 1 Letter, .\\>\\\ ID, isr,:\. - Fri<-iits, and he sought 1 Mr. (!. W. K. Russell's " iiiciiioi-iiil skcU'li." THE TIMES NEWSPAPER 255 to pick out of tlieir writings that Avork whicli was of finest quality and which best deserved to survive. Wlien rebuked by one of his critics for the light raillery and vivacity with which he often treated serious subjects, he replied: "We are none of us likely to be lively much longer. My vivacity is but the last sparkle of flame before we are all in the dark, the last glimpse of colour before Ave all go into the drab, the drab of the earnest, prosaic, practical, austerely literal future. Yes, the world will soon be the Philistines, and then with every voice not of thunder silenced, and the whole earth filled and ennobled every morning by the magnificent roaring of the young lions of the Daily Telegraph, we shall all yawn in one another's faces with the dismallest, the most unimpeacha])le gravity." ^ After a discussion of the meaning of tlie Zeit- geist, and the tendencies of the modern movement, halting and uncertain as it is, towards perfection and a higher life, he thus speaks of England'* favourite oracle, the Times newspaper : " What is the ' Times ' ? — a gigantic Sancho Panza fol- lowing by an attraction he cannot resist that poor, mad, scorned, suffering, subhnie enthusiast, the modern spirit; following it, indeed, with constant grumbling, expostvdation, and opposition, with airs of protection, of compassionate superiority, witli an incessant by-play of nods, shrugs, and winks addressed to tlie spectators ; following it, in short, with all the incurable recalcitrancy of a lower nature, but still following it." ^ 1 Essays in Criticism. ^ FrieiuJshiifs Garland. 256 MATTIIHW ARNOLD Notable, too, is the delicate j^^rsijlage with which he referred to Frederick Maurice, for whom, never- theless, he had a real admiration, as one who was " for ever beating the bush with profound emotion, but never starting the hare," and to some of the forms of what he called "pugilistic dissent," as exhibited in the arena of Birmingham. Even ortho- dox Churchmen were more amused tlian scandalized by the well-known sentences in which he summed up his investigation of the meaning and history of the three Christian creeds; "The Apostles' as popular science, the ' Nicene ' as learned science, and the 'Athanasian ' as learned science with a strong dash of temper in it." Many of liis severest judgments were passed u})on contemporaries whose names have already faded into oblivion, but who seemed to him representatives of some passing and censurable phase of morals or poli- tics. Though liberal in his convictions, he was not a party man, and his satire was directed impartially to the policy of both the great parties in the State; since botli of them were liable, lie thought, to be enslaved by claptrap or by the claims of faction. With him, it has been said, liberalism was not a creed, but a habit of mind. Some of tlie illustrations of modern liberalism and its tendencies whicli were afforded in the United States of America particularly interested him. His first impressions before visiting that coun- try wer(! gathered from books and newspapers alone, and were not favourable. He said: "Whereas our society in Englaiul distributes itself into Uarbarians, AMERICA 257 Philistines, and Populace, America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and the Populace nearly." To him, it thus seemed that the American community formed one gigantic middle class, with many of the faults which he had so often and so un- mercifully exposed in the British Philistine. He said of the Americans that they were not an "in- teresting" people. And when, after much delay and-, hesitation, he determined to go on a lecturing tour in America, he said in a letter to me : " I don't like going. I don't like lecturing. I don't like living in public, and I wish it was well over. I shall bei glad, however, to see an American common school with my own eyes." In fact, he saw much else be- sides common schools in his two visits to America. He was received with characteristic warmth and kind- ness by the leading men in the States; and like all others who have crossed the Atlantic and been admitted into the interior of many beautiful and \ delightful homes, his prejudices were greatly softened, \ and his admiration for the enterprise, the bright in- telligence, the boundless faith in the future, and the splendour of the public institutions which character- ized America and her people was greatly increased. A Word more about America and Civilization in the United States, and the volumes of Discourses in America will enable a reader to trace the gradual alteration which his actual transatlantic experience produced, and will account for the warmth with which he always acknowledged how much he had learned from his visits to the States. 258 MATTHEW AUXOLD Of the personal clianu of liis maiuier, of the air of distinction which always characterized hijn, and of the generosity of his nature, it is difficult to convey an adequate impression to those who did not know him intimately. Professor Max IMiiller has said of him: "lie was beautiful as a young man, strong and manly, yet full of dreams and schemes. His Olympian manners began even at Oxford; there was no harm in them; they were natural, not put on. The very sound of his voice and the wave of his arm were Jove-like." At the Council Office, his colleagues were wont to look ui)ou his visits as Adam and Eve regarded those of the "affable archangel" when he partook of their simple fare. He derived genuine pleasure from any favourable recognition of his liter- ary work. If he thought it was good work, he would honestly admire it himself, and would not stoop to the affectation of pretending that it was a trifle, or of trying to extort a compliment from others by dis- paraging his own performance. " Have you read that article of mine in the Contemporary?" he would say. " Good, isn't it ? " On one occasion I remember that there was an unusually savage and contemptuous article in the Saturday Review on a book he liad just written. Meeting him a day or two later, he said to mo: "Have you seen tliat article about my book?" I was unable to iXvwy that I hail read it. imd simply re[)lie(l that 1 had been sori'V to read what was so unfa.ir, and that. I hoped it had not vexed him. "Why should it vex nui';*" he answered. '* \'ou see one's Irieiids enjoy these things so nuich." MR. JOHN MORLEY'S TRIBUTE 259 Mr. John Morley lias ou this point said with equal force and fairness : " It is true that Arnokl talked, wrote, aud tlioiiglit much about himself, but not really much more than most other men and women who take their particular work and purpose in life seriously to heart. He was not the least of an egotist in the common ugly and odious sense of that terrible word. He was incapable of sacrificing the smallest interest of anybody to his own ; he had not a spark of envy or jealousy; he stood well aloof from all the bustlings and jostlings by which selfish men push on ; he bore life's disappointments — aud he was disap- pointed in some reasonable hopes and anticipations — with good-nature and fortitude ; he cast no burdens upon others, and never shrank from bearing his own share of the daily load, to the last ounce of it; he took the deepest, sincerest, aud most active interest in the well-being of his country and his countrymen. Is it not absurd to think of such a man as an egotist, simply because he took a child's pleasure in his own performance and liked to know that somebody else thought well of his poetry, or praised his lecture, or laughed at his wit ? " ^ Mr. Augustine Birrell, in one of his clever and charming essays, shows a like generous and discrimi- nating estimate of his friend's chief characteristics. " He was most distinctly on the side of human enjoy=' ment. He conspired and contrived to make things pleasant. Pedantry he abhorred. He was a man of this life and this world. A severe critic of the world 1 Nineteenth Century, December, 1895. 260 MATTHEW AKNoLl) he indeed was, but tindiug lumsoli m it, and nut precisely knowing wliat is beyond it, like a brave and true-hearted man he set himself to make the best of it. Its sights and sounds were dear to him. The 'uncrumpling fern,' the 'eternal moon-lit snow,' 'Sweet William with its homely cottage-smell,' 'the red grouse springing at our sound,' the 'tinkling bells' of the 'high-pasturing kine,' the vagaries of men, women, and dogs, their odd ways and tricks, whether of mind or manner, all delighted, amused, tickled him. Human loves, joys, sorrows, human relationships, ordinary ties, interested him. " The help in strife, The thousand sweet still joys of such As hand in hand fiice earthly life." " In a sense of the words which is noble and blessed, he was of the earth, earthy. ... His mind was based on the plainest i)ossible things. What he hated most was the fantastic, — the far-fetched, all elabo- rated fancies and strained interpretations. He stuck to the beaten track of human experience, and the broader the better. He was a plain-sailing man. This is his true note." * Jowett, the Master of Balliol, who know him well, said afterwards, " The world has been pleased to say many comi)limentary things of him since his death, but they have searcely done him justice because they did not understand his serious side — hard work, in- 1 Bes Judicata;, w. 1G5-1(}7. ARNOLD'S POEMS 261 dependence, aud the most loving and careful fulfil- ment of all the duties of life." ^ Another comment, that of a later poet, Mr. William Watson, is, though from a different point of view, worthy to be remembered : " It may be overmuch He shunned the common stain and smutch, From soilure of ignoble touch Too grandly free, Too loftily secure in such Cold purity. But he preserved from chance control The fortress of his stablished soul, In all things sought to see the Whole ; Brooked no disguise, And set his heart upon the goal. Not on the prize." ^ dll rest \ ; gs. In K But, after all, Arnold's permanent fame will rather on his poems than on his prose writings the coming generations, when the educational politics of our day shall have become obsolete aud have ceased to interest men; when the ephemeral literature, the sociology, and the personal controversies have passed out of view, his name will stand out conspicuously Avith those of Tennyson and Browning, the three rep- resentative poets of the latter half of the nineteenth century. The future historian of literature who seeks a key to the moral condition of the England of our time, to its intellectual unrest, and to its spiritual 1 L\fe of Be7ijamin Jov;ett, Vol. II., p. 338. 2 In Laleham Churchyard. 262 MATTHEW ARNOLD aims and tendencies, will find it liere. Mattliew Arnold will never be a popular poet in tlie ordi- nary sense of the term. He has not the smoothness, the finish, and the music of Tennyson, and does not choose for the subjects of his verse familiar and superficially attractive topics. Some of his best work, such as the Strayed Reveller and Empedodes on Etna and Dejaneira, presupposes a more or less schol- arly acquaintance with classical forms and modes of thought on the part of the reader, and carries him into a region remote from modern life and associations. To many of his metres, too, the ear of the average reader is not yet attuned. In fact, he does not spe- cially challenge the attention of average readers at all. /His ear was often at fault; a few of his lines are not easy to read aloud or to scan. And even in poems which are full of beauty aftd of noble emotion, one is sometimes irritated by such cacophony as occurs in the final line of the sonnet already quoted : "Thou mak'st tlie heaven thou liop'st indeed thy home."' Moreover, his poems are for the most part overcast with thought which at least is serio\is and not often exhilarating. He was wont to say that for the higher purpose of literature the i)eople required joy. But his own muse was somewhat sombre and introspec- tive, and he was heavily weighted with a sense of the mystery and gloom and disappointment of human life. The vastness and intricacy of the problems which yet remain unsolved, and our inability to solve 1 Sujini, p. 2;!0. SERIOUSNESS OF HIS MUSE 263 them, sometimes oppressed liim. Of England and her destiny he said : " The weary Titan with deaf Ears and labour-dimmed eyes, Regarding neither to right Nor left, goes passively by Staggering on to her goal ; Bearing on shoulders immense, Atlanteiin, the load Well-nigh not to be borne, Of the too vast orb of her fate." ^ Readers of In Memoriam and of Christmas Eve and Easter Day will be reminded, as they take up Arnold's poems, of the fact that all three — Tennyson, Brown- ing, and Arnold — had been greatly influenced by the modern critical spirit in relation to many venerable and consecrated beliefs. Yet these writers did not approach modern thought and speculation in the same spirit. There is in Arnold little of the rather help- less lament over an unforgotten but irrecoverable belief, such as is to be found in In Memoriam, Avhere weak faith is seen trying to come to the aid of weak doubt; but a sane and manly recognition of the truth that while some changes in the form of men's reli- gious life are inevitable, the spirit and the power of the Christian faith are sure to survive. Nor does Arnold express often the strong scorn for some of the conventional beliefs which shows itself not less in the exasperating ruggedness of Browning's verse than in the less serious scepticism of Shelley's Queen 1 Heine's Grave. 264 MATTHEW AliNUl.D 3lab. In such poems as Obermann mid Staiaas from the Grand Chartreuse we have evideuee of Arnokl's oppressive sense of the burden of life, and of the need of restfuluess, affection, and calm. "Awhile let me with thought have done, And as this briuim'd uiiwriiikled Rhine, And that for ])uri)lc mountain-Hne, Lie sweetly in the look divine Of tlic slow-sinking sun : " So let me lie, and, calm as they, Let beam upon my inward view Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue — Eyes too expiessive to be blue. Too lovely to be grey. "Ah ! Quiet, all things feel thy balm ! Those blue hills too, this river's flow, Were restless once, but long ago. Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow ; Their joy is in their calm." ^ His appreciation of Wordsworth was not confined to such criticism as we have already quoted, but expressed itself gracefully in verse. " Raised arc the dripping oars. Silent the boat ! — the lake. Lovely and soft as a dream. Swims in the sheen of the moon. The mountains stand at its head Clear in tlie pure June night, Rut the valleys are Hooded with haze. Rydal and Fairfield are there ; 1 On t/,r li/iinr. THE WORDS WORTHIAN SPIRIT 265 In tlie shadow Wordsworth lies dead. So it is, so it will be for aye. Nature is fresh as of old, Is lovely ; a mortal is dead. " The spots which recall him survive, For he lent a new life to these hills. The Pillar still broods o'er the fields Which border Ennerdale Lake, And Egremont sleeps by the sea. The gleam of The Evening Star Twinkles on Grasmere no more, But ruin'd and solemn and grey The sheepfold of Michael survives ; And, far to the south, the heath Still blows in the Quantock coombs, By the favourite waters of Ruth. These survive — yet not without pain, Pain and dejection to-night. Can I feel that their poet is gone, * * * * " Well may we mourn w'heu the head Of a sacred poet lies low In an age which can rear them no more ! The complaining millions of men Darken in labour and pain ; But he was a priest to us all Of the wonder and bloom of the world, Which we saw with his eyes, and were glad. He is dead, and the fruit-bearing day Of liis race is past on the earth ; And darkness returns to our eyes." ^ That he had caught the spirit of Wordsworth is manifest in many of his poems. The experiences of 1 The Youth of Nature. 266 MATTHEW ARNOLD a starry night, his solemn musings on the magnitude and richness of the visible world, had a tranquillizing effect upon him. For example : " 'Ah, once more,' I cried, 'ye stars, ye waters, On my lieart your mighty charm renew ; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you Feel my soul becoming vast like you ! ' " From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven. Over the lit sea's unquiet way, In the rustling night air cower are best shown in liis story of Sohrab and liustum and in Tristram ami 1 Self-dependence. STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE 267 Iseult. His lyric poems, notably Philomela and the Fragment of an 'Antigone,' show how thoroughly satu- rated his mind was with Greek thought and traditions, and how admirably he could unite the sensibility and intellectual experience of a modern Englishman with the luminousness and simplicity which characterized the forms of Greek poesy. His Merope is, with the possible exception of Mr. Swinburne's Atalanta in Calydon, the best reproduction since Samson Agonistes of both the spirit and the form of the Greek tragedy, its ethical purpose, its massive dignity, and the solemn, overhanging sense of the greatness of man's destiny, whether seen in warring against adverse cir- cumstances, or even in being subdued by them. One extract more will serve to illustrate his descrip- tive power. It was suggested by his visit to the great Carthusian monastery in Switzerland, STANZAS FROM THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE The silent courts where night and day Into their stone-carved basins cold The splashing icy fountains ijlay ; The humid corridors behold ! Where, ghostlike in the deepening night, Cowl'd forms brush by in gleaming white. The chapel where no organ's peal Invests the stern and naked prayer — With penitential cries they kneel And wrestle ; rising then, with bare And white uplifted faces stand, Passinff the Host from hand to hand : 268 MATTHEW A1{X(»LD Each takes, and tlien lii.s visage waa Is buried in his cowl once more. The cells ! — the suttering Son of Man Upon the wall ! — the kuee-worn floor — And where they sleep, that wooden bed, Which shall their coflin be when dead ! The library where tract and tome Not to feed priestly pride are there, To liyinn the conquering march of Piome, Nor yet to anuise, as ours are ! They paint of souls the inner strife. Their drops of blood, their death in life. The garden overgrown — yet mild ; See, fragrant herbs are flowering there ! Strong children of the Alpine wild Whose culture is tlie brethren's care ; Of human tasks their only one. And cheerful works beneath the sun. No just estimate of Matthew Arnold's influence on English education is possible without taking into due account his position and work in the outside world, and especially in the world of letters, lie himself would have been the first to admit that i)ublic educa- tion, important as it is, was only one of the interests, and not the paramount interest of bis life. Vet it is surely not a small episode in the history of education in England that for thirty years, one of the chief administrative ottices in the lUireau of public instruction should have been filled by one of her most illustrious poets. Unconsciously and indirectly his influence over his colleagues, over the teachers, and THE TWO ARNOLDS 269 over the children was all the greater because he was a poet; for he saw them all with the clear and pene- trating eye of genius and not with that of a pedant or a merely industrious official. For example, some readers of his latest foreign report Avere a little puz- zled to interpret a sentence in which he said of some German schools, " Again and again I find written in my notes, The children are human." It is not of course to be supposed that he meant to imply that in English schools the children were not human; but ouly that speaking as a poet, he recognized in some German schools the presence of other influences than those of ordinary lessons, the freedom and the naturalness which can come only from a true sympathy between teacher and taught. He rests in the quiet graveyard of Laleham, close to his early home, side by side with his three sons, Thomas, Basil, and Trevenen, and a little grandchild. Over him is the inscription : — There is S2)rung iqi a light for the righteous and joyful gladness for such as are true-hearted. Thus it has been attempted to show that Thomas and Matthew Arnold, father and son, have both played a conspicuous and influential part in the improvement of English education and in the shaping of English thought. They did this in different ways. They approached the educational problem from very differ- ent points of yiew. One saw it with the eyes of a poet and a philosopher, the other with those of an earnest Christian teacher and moralist. But they 270 MATTllKW AKNOLI) were alike in many respects. To both the formation of character was an object of more importance than the acquisition of knowledge. To both it seemed that "conduct was three-fourths of life." Both were disposed to measure a man or boy rather by what he is than by what he believes and knows. Both believed in the supreme importance of letters, language, and the discipline of thought as the instruments for attain- ing the desired end. Both attached high value to religious and moral training; but neither identified that training with the enforcement of human formu- laries and creeds. To both it seemed that reverence for the past and a sympathetic acquaintance with the best that has been written and thought in the world constituted the most valuable preparation a scholar could have for his present duties and for his future development. To both the attainments which helped a man to live a noble and intelligent life wei-e of higher value than those which helped him to ' get a living, ' however successfully. Both tried to emanci- pate themselves from whatever hindrances conven- tional and traditional modes of thinking placed in the way of a fearless pursuit of truth. It must be owned that both set before themselves a higher ideal than any we have yet attained, aiul that we are following after it with halting and feeble steps. But if either now or in the days to come our great public schools assume a higher tone, and our whole system of national instruction is organized on a noble and enduring basis; if commercial pros- perity is no longer licld by an}' of us to satisfy the RUGBY CHAPEL 271 claims of the spiritual and social life ; if the stauclard of literary excellence becomes more exalted and more pure; and if the splendid triumphs of physical science do not succeed in beguiling us into a neglect of the older and humaner studies, — the future historian will be able to attribute these results in large measure to the influence of the two Arnolds. For each of them in his own way sought to illuminate the conscience of his fellow-countrymen, to make them profoundly discontented with what was mediocre and unreal in their lives and in their literature, and to enlarge their conception of a liberal education so that it should include not book-learning only, but "whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, what- soever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely and whatsoever things are of good report." The characters of both men are well revealed in these extracts from a memorable poem which the son wrote in Xovember, 1867, on visiting the scene of his father's work. RUGBY CHAPEL strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now ? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain ! Somewhere, surely, afar, In the souHfling labour-house vast Of being, is practised that strength, Zealous, beneficent, firm ! 272 MATTHEW ARNOLD i Yes, in some far-.sliiniiig sphere, Conscious or not of the past, ; Still thou pcrformest the word ! Of the Spirit in whom thou dost live — ' Prompt, unwearied, as here ! Still thou upraisest with zeal Tlie humble good from the ground. Sternly ropresscst the bad ! Still, like a trumpet, dost rouse Those who with half-open eyes \ Tread the border-land dim 'Twixt vice and virtue ; reviv'st, i Succourest I — this was thy work, This was thy life upon earth. * * * * If, in the paths of the world. Stones might have wounded thy feet, Toil or dejection have tried Thy spirit, of that we saw Nothing — to us thou wast still Cheerful, and helpful, and firm ! Therefore to thee it was given Many to .save with thy.self ; And, at the end of thy day, faithful shepherd ! to come, Bringing thy sliecji in thy hand. And through thee I believe In the noble and great who are gone; Pure souls honour'd and blest By former ages, who else — Such, so soulless, so poor, Is the race of men whom I see — Seem'd but a dream of the heart, Seem'd but a cry of desire. Yes ! I believe that there lived RUGBY CHAPEL Others like thee in the past, Not like the men in the crowd Who all round nie to-day Bluster or cringe, and make life Hideous, and arid, and vile ; But souls temper'd with fire, Fervent, heroic, and good, Helpers and friends of mankind. Servants of God ! or sons, Shall I not call you 1 because Not as servants ye knew Your Father's innermost mind, His, who unwillingly sees One of his little ones lost — Yours is the praise, if mankind Hath not as yet in its march Fainted, and fallen, and died ! See ! In the rocks of the world Marches the host of mankind, A feeble, wavering line. Where are they tending ? A God Marshall'd them, gave them their goal. Ah ! but the way is so long ! Years they have been in the wild ! Sore thirst plagues them, the rocks. Rising all round, overawe ; Factions divide them, their host Threatens to break, to dissolve. — Ah, keep, keep them combined ! Else, of tlie myriads who fill That army, not one shall arrive ; Sole they shall stray ; in the rocks Stagger for ever in vain, Die one by one in the waste. 274 MATTHEW AKNoLD Then, in such hour of need Of your fainting, dispirited race, Ye, like angels, appear. Radiant with ardour divine ! Beacons of hope, ye appear ! Languor is not in your heart, Weakness is not in your word, Weariness not on your brow. Yc alight in our van ! at your voice Panic, despair flee away. Ye move through the ranks, recall The stragglers, refresh the outworn, Praise, re-inspire the brave ! Order, courage, return. Eyes rekindling, and prayers, Follow your steps as you go. Ye fill uj) the gaps in our files. Strengthen the wavering line, Stablish, continue our march. On, to the bound of the waste, On, to the City of God. ^^E LIBRA, (university \^.cauf«rn^ / INDEX Academy, the French, 242. America, 257. American secular schools, 210. Aristotle, 7, 35, 103. Avnokl, Matthew, his estimate of his father, 150; his life and letters, 158 ; his appointment to an inspectorship, 159; his letters, KiO; his work as in- spector, 1G7 ; his foreign jour- neys, 200; his reports, 210; his literary criticisms, 241 ; his poems, 250. Arnold, Thomas, his parentage and early life, 3; school, 4, 9; the University, 4, 11, 15, 1(5; Laleham, 18; his aims and studies, 19; election to Rugby, 22; his scheme of school work, 33; his relation to his staff, 71; his preaching, 84; his fa- vourite pursuits, 110; his de- light in nature, 113; Oxford controversies, 138; lectures, 148 ; death, 149. Ascham, .30. Assistant masters, 69. Athletics, 103. Bacon, 45, 49, 52. Barbarians, the, 221. Biblical teaching in the common schof>l, 194. Biography, 2, 59. Birkbeck, Dr., 125. Birrell, Mr. Augustine, quoted, 251). Bowyer, 4G. Boyle, Dean, quoted, 153, 167. Bradley, Dean, 155. British history, early, 63. Bronte, Charlotte, 251. Brown's, Tom, School Days, 104. Brougham, Lord, 124, 126. Browning, 6. Browning, Mr. Oscar, quoted, 66, 103. Buckland, Mr., of Laleham, 18. Burke, 250. Busby, 30. Butler, Bishop, 12. Byron, 246. Campbell, Thomas, and the London University, 126. Carlyle, 2, 66, 107. Christian Knowledge Society, 130. Church, Dean, 136, 142, 147. Cicero, 46, 65. Civil service examinations, 207. Classical studies vindicated, 35. Clerical schoolmasters, 97. Clongh, A. H., 83, 248. Coleridge, Mr. Justice, 8, 10. Coleridge, S. T., 6, 7, 46, 55, 141, 246. Colet, Dean, 26. Comenius, 30. Competitive examinations, 218. Composition exercises, 38. Construing, 43. Continental schools, 213. Copleston, 16. Cowardice, 87. Cowper, 6. Crabbe, 6. Criticism and its functions, 242. Darwin, 52. Davison, 16. Delafield, Miss, 3. Democracy, 203. Demosthenes, 45, 46. De Tocqueville, 202. 275 276 INDEX Diffusion of Fsefiil Knowledj^c, The Society for, 125, 128, 13(t. Dryden, G, 246. Edinburgh Review, 72, 148. Eiidt)wmeuts, in France, 215. English literature studies, 4