standard of public opinion. But to mitigate the ill effects of leaving boys quite to themselves, which is sure to end in the absolute despotism of the strongest, the system of fagging is introduced; that is, the boys of the highest class in the school, who are sometimes called prefects, sometimes prepositors, sometimes monitors, are allowed to exercise a lawful and recognized authority over the boys of the junior classes. This authority does not extend to the class immediately below themselves, the boys of which form a kind of aristocracy, exempted from the burdens of their inferiors, but not possessed of the powers of their superiors. On the Continent the practice is widely different. There the boys are usually subjected to a considerable degree of supervision, not only at lesson time, but also at their amusements and their meals. Fagging is here not needed, and consequently is not permitted. The advantages of the English system are these—that as the school becomes under it a scene of moral probation much like the actual world, boys of firm, upright, and vigorous character become earlier trained to self-control, to the sense of responsibility, and to the intelligent exercise of power, than they would under any other. On the other hand, boys of weak or unfixed character become infected by the example and awed by the ridicule of vicious boys, who may be older or more determined than themselves; and then the school influences become on the whole injurious rather than beneficial, and however much their intellect may be developed, such boys are morally worse when they leave the school than when they entered it. The accidental evils which Arnold found existing in the public school system were partly moral, arising from indifference or unskilfulness on the part of schoolmasters, in respect of the moral culture of their scholars; partly connected with the intellectual training, such as the undue preference commonly given to elegant scholarship over the knowledge of the real life and mind of the ancients; the total disregard with which modern languages, modern literature, and science of every kind were commonly treated; and generally, the exaltation of showy and ornamental over sound and useful knowledge.
Now, how did Arnold, when made the head-master of a public school, meet and grapple with these evils? He knew well that if he retained the English system in its main features (and he did not see his way clear to changing it), evils of the first class, though they might be mitigated, could not be entirely removed; and he accordingly bent the whole force of his powerful mind to the task of reducing them to a minimum. To bring the boys under a stricter discipline, he gradually weeded out all the old boarding-houses which he found existing in the town, and obliged all to live in the houses of the different under-masters. The sixth or highest form, to which the powers of fagging were intrusted, came under his own immediate instruction, and he spared no pains to imbue them, collectively and individually, with a portion of the conscientious and devout spirit, and the deep sense of responsibility, with which he himself was animated, in order that through them similar influences might gradually permeate the whole mass. But perhaps his chief weapon in the warfare which he never ceased to wage against moral evil, was the pulpit of the school chapel. He prevailed upon the trustees to appoint him chaplain soon after his arrival, declining the salary which had till then been attached to the office; and thenceforward, Sunday after Sunday, in those plain but telling discourses, which those who heard them can never forget, and which will probably never be surpassed as models in their peculiar kind, he spoke to the boys beneath him of their besetting sins or failings, their peculiar temptations, their daily duties, and their eternal destiny, in language level to the capacity of the youngest, and in that tone of sincerity which never fails to carry conviction with it. Another very effective moral engine, was the power which he claimed from the first, and always unhesitatingly exercised when he thought it necessary, of removing from the school "unpromising subjects;" that is, boys who, though not radically vicious, nor so misconducting themselves as to merit expulsion, were yet from various causes incapable of deriving good from the system themselves, while their influence upon others was decidedly pernicious. This was the most delicate and difficult part of his system of discipline, and the uncompromising way in which he carried it out frequently caused him to incur great odium; yet he stood firm, maintaining always that without such a rule he would neither hold office himself nor could justify the existence of the public school system in a Christian country. Still, with all this, he felt that the uncontrolled and unwatched association of the scholars together was the weak point of the system, and that the moral ruin to which it sometimes led was fearful. To use his own words (Life by Stanley, sixth edition, p. 88)—"Of all the painful things connected with my employment, nothing is equal to the grief of seeing a boy come to school innocent and promising, and tracing the corruption of his character from the influence of the temptations around him, in the very place which ought to have strengthened and improved it." And although in the case of Rugby his extraordinary personal qualities, particularly his firmness in regard to removing boys, neutralized to a great degree its inherent evils, yet it cannot be said that his example proves the superiority of the English system in itself. His own success was personal; and it cannot be expected that the ordinary run of schoolmasters will ever possess, in an equal degree, the insight, courage, and force of character which in his case accomplished such great results.
With regard to the accidental evils of the public school system, we have shown what steps he took to remove those which related to discipline and moral training. And that his example has here been of immense advantage is strikingly proved by a letter from Dr. Maberly, head-master of Winchester school, given at page 144 of the Life. Dr. Maberly says:—"A most singular and striking change has come upon our public schools—a change too great for any person to appreciate adequately who has not known them in both these times. This change is undoubtedly part of a general improvement of our generation in respect of piety and reverence; but I am sure that to Dr. Arnold's personal earnest simplicity of purpose, strength of character, power of influence, and piety, which none who ever came near him could mistake or question, the carrying of this improvement into our schools is mainly attributable." The deficiencies of the system on the intellectual side were more easily counteracted. The study of the modern languages and mathematics was introduced by him, and extended to a large portion of the school; examinations and prizes were multiplied; history and geography became prominent subjects of instruction. Above all, the influence of his own fresh and ever-active mind, still accumulating fresh stores of knowledge, while making the most of the old, communicated the generous love of learning and the zeal for self-culture, first to his own immediate pupils—the sixth form—then through them to the whole school.
In 1835, the Whig ministry appointed him a fellow in the senate of the new university of London. He eagerly embraced this opportunity of introducing, as he hoped, a decidedly Christian element into the course of study adopted in this institution. With this view he proposed, at first successfully, that a knowledge of the Scriptures should be required of all candidates for the degree in arts. The dissenters, however, took the alarm; the council of University college in Gowerstreet remonstrated vehemently against the measure; and the senate finally determined that examination in the Scriptures should be voluntary merely, not compulsory. Finding his darling aim thus baffled, and feeling also that the distance at which he lived from London must always prevent him from being actively useful in the senate, he resigned his fellowship at the end of 1838. Although often thus practically convinced, when it came to the point, that he had little really in common with any one political party more than another, Arnold always sided with the Whigs, and always considered himself a decided Liberal. He himself thus sketches the history of his early political opinions (Life, p. 508):—"I was brought up in a strong Tory family. The first impressions of my own mind shook my merely received impressions to pieces, and at Winchester I was well nigh a Jacobin. At sixteen, when I went up to Oxford, all the influences of the place, which I loved exceedingly, your influence above all,"—he is writing to Judge Coleridge,—"blew my Jacobinism to pieces, and made me again a Tory. I used to speak strong Toryism in the old Attic Society, and greedily did I read Clarendon with all the sympathy of a thorough Royalist. Then came the peace, when Napoleon was put down, and the Tories had it their own way. Nothing shook my Toryism more than the strong Tory sentiments that I used to hear at Canons," (the seat of Sir Thomas Plumer, then master of the rolls,) "though I liked the family exceedingly. But I heard language at which my organ of justice stood aghast," &c. From that time forward he attached
