A R N OLD captured by his poetry expected to find a man whose Literature, published in 1867, were full of subtle and sensitive organism responded nervously to every uttered brilliant if not of profound criticism. So were the tAvoword as an /Kolian harp answers to the faintest breeze. series of Essays in Criticism, the first of which appeared What they found was a broad-shouldered, manly almost in 1865, and the second, edited by Lord Coleridge, in burly—Englishman with a fine countenance, bronzed by 1888. His poetic activity almost ceased after he left the the open air of England, wrinkled apparently by the sun, chair of poetry at Oxford. He was several times sent by wind-worn as an English skipper’s, open and frank as a Government to make inquiries into the state of education fox-hunting squire’s—and yet a countenance whose finely in France, Germany, Holland, and other countries; and chiselled features were as high-bred and as commanding his reports, with their thorough - going and searching as Wellington’s or Sir Charles Napier’s. The voice they criticism of Continental methods, as contrasted Avith he had heard was deep-toned, fearless, rich, and frank, and yet English methods, showed how conscientiously 1 modulated to express every nuance of thought, every devoted some of his best energies to the work. In 1883 1 movement of emotion and humour. In his prose essays the The following appreciation of Arnold’s educational work is humour he showed was of a somewhat thin-lipped kind ; kindly contributed by Sir Joshua Fitch, one of his colleagues in the in his more important poems he showed none at all. It was Education Office:— The fame of Matthew Arnold as a poet and a literary critic has somehere, in this matter of humour, that Arnold’s writings were specially misleading as to the personality of the man. what overshadowed the fact that he was during thirty-five years of his life—from to 1886—employed in the Education Department as Judged from his poems, it was not with a poet like the one of H.M.1851 Inspectors of Schools. His literary work was achieved in writer of “The Northern Farmer,” or a poet like the such intervals of leisure as could be spared from the public service. At writer of “ Ned Bratts,” that any student of poetry would the time of his appointment the Government, by arrangement with the have dreamed of classing him. Such a student would religious bodies, entrusted the inspection of schools connected with the of England to clergymen, and agreed also to send Roman actually have been more likely to class him with two Church Catholic inspectors to schools managed by members of that communion. of his contemporaries between whom and himself there Other schools—those of the British and Foreign Society, the Wesleyans,. Avere but few points in common, the “ humourless ” and undenominational schools generally—were inspected by laymen, of William Morris and the “humourless” Rossetti. For, whom Arnold was one. There were only three or four of these officersfirst, and their districts were necessarily large. It is to the experisingularly enough, between him and them there was this at ence gained in intercourse with Nonconformist school managers that one point of resemblance: while all three were richly we may attribute the curiously intimate knowledge of religious sects endowed with humour, while all three were the very which furnished the material for some of his keen though good-humlights of the sets in which they moved, the moment they oured sarcasms. The Education Act of 1870, which simplified the system, abolished denominational inspection, and thus took pen in hand to write poetry they became sad. It administrative greatly reduced the area assigned to a single inspector. Arnold took would almost seem as if, like Rossetti, Arnold actually charge of the district of Westminster, and remained in that office until held that poetry was not the proper medium for humour. his resignation, taking also an occasional share in the inspection of No wonder, then, if the absence of humour in his poetry training colleges for teachers, and in conferences at the central office. His letters, passim, show that some of the routine which devolved did much to mislead the student of his work as to the upon him was distasteful, and that he Avas glad to entrust to a skilled real character of the man. assistant much of the duty of individual examination and the making After a year at Winchester, Matthew Arnold entered up of schedules and returns. But the influence he exerted on schools,, Rugby School in 1837. He early began to write and on the Department, and on the primary education of the whole counprint verses. His first publication was a Rugby prize try, was indirectly far greater than is generally supposed. His annual of which more than twenty Avere collected into a volume poem, Alaric at Rome, in 1840. This was followed in reports, by his friend and official chief, Sir Francis (afterAvards Lord) 1843, after he had gone up to Oxford in 1840 as a Sandford, attracted, by reason of their freshness of style and thought, scholar of Balliol, by his poem Cromwell, which won the much more of public attention than is usually accorded to BlueNewdigate prize. In 1844 he graduated with second- book literature ; and his high aims, and his sympathetic appreciation of efforts and difficulties of the teachers, had a remarkable effect in class honours, and in 1845 was elected a fellow of Oriel the raising the tone of elementary education, and in indicating the way to College, where among his colleagues was A. H. Clough, his improvement. In particular, he insisted on the formative elements of friendship with whom is commemorated in that exquisite school education, on literature and the “humanities,” as distinguished elegy Thyrsis. From 1847 to 1851 he acted as private from the collection of scraps of information and “ useful knoAvledge ” ; he sought to impress all the young teachers Avith the necessity of secretary to Lord Lansdowne; and in the latter year, and broader mental cultivation than was absolutely required to obtain after acting for a short time as assistant-master at the Government certificate. In his reports also he dAvelt often and Rugby, he was appointed to an Inspectorship of Schools, forcibly on the place which the study of the Bible, not the distinctive a post which he retained until two years before his death. formularies of the churches, ought to hold in English schools. He that besides the religious and moral purpose of Scriptural teachHe married, in June 1851, the daughter of Mr Justice urged ing, it had a literary value of its own, and was the best instrument Wightman. Meanwhile, in 1848, appeared The Strayed in the hands even of the elementary teacher for uplifting the soul and Reveller, and other Poems, by A, a volume which gained refining and enlarging the thoughts of young children. On three occasions Arnold was asked to assist the Government by a considerable esoteric reputation. In 1852 he published another volume under the same initial, Empedocles making special inquiries into the state of education in foreign counThese duties Avere especially welcome to him, serving as they on Etna—as undramatic a poem, perhaps, as was ever tries. did as a relief from the monotony of school inspection at home, and Avritten in dramatic form, but studded with lyrical beauties as opportunities for taking a Avider survey of the whole subject of' of a very <high order. Other poems accompanied this. education, and for expressing his views on principles and national In 1853 Arnold published a volume under his own name. aims as well as administrative details. In 1859 he prepared for the of Newcastle’s Commission a report which Avas afterwards reThis consisted partially of poems selected from the two Duke printed in a volume entitled Popular Education in France, with Notes previous volumes. A second series of poems was pub- of that of Holland and Switzerland. In 1865 he was again employed lished in 1855. So great was the impression made by as assistant-commissioner by the Schools Inquiry Commission under these in academic circles that in 1857 Arnold was elected Lord Taunton; and his report on this subject was subsequently reunder the title Schools and Universities on the Continent. professor of poetry at Oxford, and he held the chair for printed Twenty years later he was sent by the Education Department to make ten years. In 1858 he published his classical tragedy, special inquiries on certain specified points—e.g. free education, the Merope. Nine years aftenvards his New Poems were status and training of teachers, and compulsory attendance at schools. published. While he held the Oxford professorship he The result of this investigation appeared as a parliamentary paper in 1886. He also contributed the chapter on “Schools” to the second published several series of lectures, which gave him a high volume of Mr Humphry Ward’s Reign of Queen Victoria. place as a scholar and critic. The essays On Translating All these reports form substantial contributions to the history and Homer, published in 1861, and On the Study of Celtic literature of education in the Victorian age. They have been quoted 076
