be coaxed or lectured or preached into taking as large a dose as possible of culture, of respect for true science and genuine thought, is really one of the most pressing of problems. Some look on with despair, doubting only by whatever particular process we shall be crushed into a dead level of monotonous mediocrity. I do not suppose that Arnold or any one else could give any solution of the great problems; what he could do, and did, I think, more effectually than any one, was to wake us out of our dull complacency—to help to break through the stolid crust, whatever seeds may be sown by other hands. Perhaps this explains why he is read in America, where the Philistine is a very conspicuous phenomenon and the ugly side of middle-class mediocrity is even more prominent than here.
I have reserved to the last, in order that I may pass lightly, the point which to Arnold himself doubtless appeared to be the most important part of his teaching—I mean, of course, the criticism of religion, to which he devoted his last writings. In his last books, Arnold preached a doctrine which will hardly find many followers. He seemed even to be taking pains to get into a position scarcely intelligible to people who take
