Rugby, 83 miles from London, the centre of a vast network of railways, is our
next halting place.
That is to say, First, an arm of the Midland to Leicester, to Burton, to
Derby, to Nottingham, and through Melton Mowbray to Stamford and
Peterborough; thus intersecting a great agricultural and a great
manufacturing district.
Second, the Trent Valley Line, through Atherstone, Tamworth and Lichfield, to
Stafford, and by cutting off the Birmingham curve, forming part of the direct
line to Manchester.
Third, A line to Leamington, which may be reached from this point in three-
quarters of an hour; and fourth, a direct line to Stamford, by way of Market
Harborough; which, with the Leamington line, affords the most direct
conveyance from Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, through Peterborough to
Birmingham, Gloucester, and all that midland district.
The Oxford and Rugby Line, which was one of the subjects of the celebrated
Battles of the Gauges, has not been constructed; and it may be doubted
whether it ever will.
The town lies about a mile from the station on the banks of the Avon, and
owes all its importance to Laurence Sheriff, a London shopkeeper in the time
of Queen Elizabeth, who, in 1567, endowed a school in his native village with
eight acres of land, situated where Lamb's Conduit-street, in London, now
stands, whence at present upwards of 5000 pounds a year is derived.
Rugby was long considered the most snobbish of English public schools, a sad
character in a country where style and name go so far. Some twenty years
ago, when the Rugbaeans had the "presumption" to challenge the Wykehamists to
play at football, the latter proudly answered, that the Rugbaeans might put on
worsted stockings and clouted soles, and the Wykehamists in silk stockings
and pumps would meet them in any lane in England. But, since that time, the
Harrow gentlemen, the Eton fops, the Winchester scholars, and the Westminster
blackguards, have had reason to admit that Arnold, a Wykehamist, long
considered by the fellows of that venerable institution an unworthy son,
succeeded in making Rugby the great nursery of sound scholars and Christian
gentlemen, and in revolutionizing and reforming the educational system of all
our public schools.
The following, by one of Arnold's pupils, himself an eminent example of
cultivated intellect and varied information, combined with great energy in
the practical affairs of life and active untiring benevolence, is a sketch of
"ARNOLD AND HIS SCHOOL."
In the year 1827, the head mastership became vacant of the Grammar School at
Rugby, and the trustees, a body of twelve country gentlemen and noblemen,
selected, to the dismay of all the orthodox, the Rev. Thomas Arnold, late
fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, and then taking private pupils at Laleham,
Middlesex. Transplanted from Oriel, the hotbed of strange and unsound
opinions, out of which the conflicting views of Whateley, Hampden, Keble, and
Newman, were struggling into day; himself a disciple of the suspected school
of German criticism; known to entertain views at variance with the majority
of his church brethren on all the semipolitical questions of the day; an
advocate for the admission of Roman Catholics to Parliament, for the reform
of the Liturgy and enlargement of the Church, so as to embrace dissenters;
the distrust with which he was regarded by all who did not know him may be
imagined.
It was a critical time, the year 1827; the mind of the country was then
undergoing that process of change which shortly afterwards showed itself in
the emancipation of the Roman Catholics, the passing of the Reform Bill, the
foundation of the London University, and the publications of the Useful
Knowledge Society. Old opinions were on all sides the objects of attack. At
such a period, public schools, with their exclusively classical teaching and
their "fagging" systems, were naturally regarded as institutions of the past
not adapted to the present. It seemed probable that a remodelling, or,
according to the phrase of the day, a "reform" of them, would be attempted by
the new intellectual school of which Lord Brougham was regarded as the type.
It was the views of this party which, it was anticipated, Dr. Arnold would
hasten to introduce into Rugby.
We now know that he did not do this, although he did reform not only the
school of Rugby, but gave a bias to the education of the sons of what is
still the most influential class in this country, which has lasted to the
present day, and that in a direction and in a manner which surprised his
opponents, and at one time provoked even his friends.
It may not be uninteresting to such of our readers as love to trace the
origin of those changes of opinion, which are at times seen to diffuse
themselves over portions of society from an unseen source, to learn how this
original man commenced his task of training the minds committed to him in
those peculiar tendencies, both as to feeling and thinking, which enter
appreciably into the tone of the upper classes of the present generation.
Dr. Arnold, from the day on which he first took charge of the school, adopted
the course which he ever after adhered to, of treating the boys like
gentlemen and reasonable beings. Thus, on receiving from an offender an
answer to any question he would say, "If you say so, of course I believe
you," and on this he would act. The effect of this was immediate and
remarkable; the better feeling of the school was at once touched; boys
declared, "It is a shame to tell Arnold a lie, because he always believes
you;" and thus, at one bold step, the axe was put to the root of the
inveterate practice of lying to the master, one of the curses of schools. In
pursuance of the same views, when reprimanding a boy, he generally took him
apart and spoke to him in such a manner as to make him feel that his master
was grieved and troubled at his wrong-doing; a quakerlike simplicity of mien
and language, a sternness of manner not unmixed with tenderness, and a total
absence of all "don-ish" airs, combined to produce this effect. Nor were his
personal habits without their effect. The boys saw in him no outward
appearance of a solemn pedagogue or dignified ecclesiastic whom it was a
temptation to dupe, or into whose ample wig javelins of paper might with
impunity be darted; but a spare active determined man, six feet high, in duck
trousers, a narrow-brimmed hat, a black sailor's handkerchief knotted round
his neck, a heavy walking-stick in his hand,--a strong swimmer, a noted
runner; the first of all the masters in the school-room on the winter
mornings, teaching the lowest class when it was his turn with the same energy
which he would have thrown into a lecture to a critical audience, listening
with interest to an intelligent answer from the smallest boy, and speaking to
them more like an elder brother than the head master. {67} They soon
perceived that they had to deal with a man thoroughly in earnest, acute,
active, and not easily deceived; that he was not only a scholar but a
gentleman, who expected them to behave as the sons of gentlemen themselves.
Their attention was awakened, and, although their fears were somewhat
excited, their sympathies and interest were at the same time aroused. This
was a good commencement; but Arnold was ready with other means no less
effectual for engaging their thoughts. He opened out to them at once "fresh
fields and pastures new," in the domain of knowledge; he established
periodical examinations, at which (if a tolerable proficiency in the regular
studies was displayed) a boy might offer to be examined in books on any
subject he might prefer, and prizes were awarded accordingly. The offer was
eagerly seized; modern history, biography, travels, fiction, poetry, were
sought after; the habit of general reading was created, and a new
intellectual activity pervaded the school. The writer well remembers the
effect produced on him when he heard that Arnold had lent one of the boys
Humphrey Clinker, to illustrate a passage in his theme. He felt from that
time forth that the keys of knowledge were confided to him, and, in proof of
this, his own little library, and those in the "studies" of many of his
neighbours, shortly doubled their numbers. French, German, and mathematics,
were encouraged by forming distinct classes on these subjects, and by
conferring for high standing in them some of the privileges as to exemption
from fagging, which previously had only attached to a similar standing in
classics. Modern history was also introduced as a recognised branch of
school study. The advantage of this was, that many of the boys, who, from
deficient early training or peculiar turn of mind, were unable to bring
themselves to proficiency in the regular Latin and Greek course of the
school, and consequently were idle and listless, found other and more
congenial paths in which intelligence and application would still meet with
their reward.
By these simple means, now generally adopted in classical schools, but up to
that time supposed to be incompatible with high accomplishments in classical
learning, the standard of intelligence and information was incalculably
raised, and the school, as a place of education in its wider sense, became
infinitely more efficient.
We should have stated that Dr. Arnold's skill as a teacher was unrivalled; he
imparted a living interest to all he touched, to be attributed mainly to his
habit of illustrating ancient events by "modern instances." Thus, Thucydides
and Napier were compared almost page by page; thus the "High Church party" of
the Jews was pointed to as a type of "the Tories." By means of his favourite
topic, physical geography, he sought to bring the actual theatre of events
before his pupils. Thus he would describe (when living at Laleham), the
Vatican and Janiculum hills of Rome, as being "like the hills on the right
bank of the Thames behind Chertsey;" the Monte Marie as being "about the
height and steepness of Cooper's Hill," and "having the Tiber at the foot of
it like the Thames at Anchorwick."
To philology even, the deadly science of dead languages, and the great
business of public schools, he contrived to impart life by continually
pointing out its bearing on the history of the races of mankind. The
interest thus given to study was something before unknown in schools.
So far we have confined ourselves to the effect of Arnold's system on the
mind, but the source of his most anxious thoughts and constant solicitude lay
deeper than this; it related to the spiritual condition, or, according to the
German phrase, "the inner life," of the boys. With his usual indifference to
personal labour he assumed the preachership of the chapel, declining however,
also, with characteristic disinterestedness, the salary attached, hitherto
given to increase the stipend of a junior master, and his famous "quarter of
an hour" sermons, into which he threw all the power of his character and his
intellect, no doubt gave him an opportunity of confirming, on certain minds,
that influence which was primarily due to his earnest acts of heart and head.
We here approach a portion of his career on which difference of opinion must
always exist. Impressed with an abiding conviction that all earthly things
were subordinate to the relation between man and his Maker; keenly
appreciating all that was "of good report," and impatient of evil, or what
seemed to him to be of evil tendency, even to intolerance, it must be
admitted that in Arnold there was something of the zealot. With his acute
sense of responsibility as to the spiritual state of the boys, it was natural
that he should seek to impress those with whom he was brought in contact, and
he did so. The personal notice he bestowed on boys of serious tendencies,
asking them to his house and conversing with them on solemn subjects had this
effect, and soon engendered "a sect" in the school. Now, the boys who were
thus susceptible and formed this sect, were generally of the milder order of
character, and not of that precocious virility which always gives influence
in a great school; hence arose among the natural leaders of the school, the
strong in character and the stout in heart and hand, a reaction against
Arnold and against Arnold's views, as being opposed to the traditional
notions of the school. This reaction was strengthened by the peculiar nature
of some of these views, such, for instance as those on the subject of the
code of honour. Arnold, although himself a man actuated by a nice sense of
honour, felt it his duty to set himself strongly in words against the code of
honour; it was the constant object of vituperation on his part, even from the
pulpit. His notions on this point, however, never gained ground with his
hearers, who could not be brought to believe that their master (himself as
true a knight errant as ever drew sword or pen,) was serious when he told
them that the spirit of chivalry was "the true Antichrist."
The attempt to introduce a more highly-wrought tone of religious feeling than
was perhaps of wholesome growth in very young minds was, therefore, not
without its drawbacks; the antagonism to some of his own views which it
called forth, combined with the utter disregard to established views which
characterized his own teaching, and which the school caught from him, told
upon the boys' minds. The direct and indirect effect of Arnold's school of
thought may indeed, now, we think, be traced in the general distrust of
hitherto received opinions, which, but little tinged in England it is true
with either licentiousness or irreverence, is nevertheless characteristic of
the present generation.
These effects are also more manifest now that Arnold's personal influence can
no longer be exercised. So long as he was at his post, his earnest
simplicity of character, his purity of life, his intellectual vigour, his
fearless seeking after truth, carried away the sympathies of all who were
brought in contact with him; not one of whom but will say, on looking back to
the impression he left on them, "Behold an Israelite indeed in whom there was
no guile!"
Thus the reform introduced into Rugby by Arnold, and indirectly into other
public schools through him, was then very different from that which was
anticipated from him. He did, it will be seen, none of the things he was
expected by his party to do. He strenuously inculcated the views of
Christian doctrine most opposed to those of the Latitudinarian party. {71} He
stoutly adhered to the system of "fagging," as being the best mode of
responsible government for the school "out of school," founding his opinion
on his own experience at Winchester, on which he often dwelt. He raised and
improved the standard of classical learning in its wider sense, so that the
scholars of Rugby gained a high standing at the universities; and by showing
that this was attainable consistently with acquirements in other branches of
learning, and with the utmost amount of intelligent interest in the knowledge
of the day, he confirmed that opinion in favour of the advantage of classical
learning, as a sound philosophical means of training the faculties for
worldly affairs, which we have seen lately advocated and applauded even in
the heart of Manchester itself, at the opening of Owen's College.
The change he introduced was thus more thorough, more deep and comprehensive,
than any which the suggestions of his partisan supporters would have
accomplished. It was a change in the very spirit of education, reaching
beyond the years of boyhood or the limits of school walls.