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Page 23
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The mystery is partly explained, in a fashion of no little
biographical importance, by the statement in Mr Arnold's first general
report for the year 1852, that his district included Lincoln,
Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, Salop, Hereford, Worcester, Warwick,
Leicester, Rutland and Northants, Gloucester, Monmouth, _all_
South Wales, most of North Wales, and some schools in the East and
West Ridings. This apparently impossible range had its monstrosity
reduced by the limitation of his inspectorship to Nonconformist
schools of other denominations than the Roman Catholic, especially
Wesleyan and the then powerful "British" schools. As the schools
multiplied the district was reduced, and at last he had Westminster
only; but the exclusion of Anglican and Roman Catholic schools
remained till 1870. And it is impossible not to connect the somewhat
exaggerated place which the Dissenters hold in his social and
political theories (as well as perhaps some of his views about the
"Philistine") with these associations of his. We must never forget
that for nearly twenty years Mr Arnold worked in the shadow, not of
Barchester Towers, but of Salem Chapel.
[2] "I have papers sent me to look over which will give me to the 20th
of January in _London_ without moving, then for a week to
_Huntingdonshire_ schools, then for another to London, ...and
then _Birmingham_ for a month."
[3] There are persons who would spell this _moral_; but I am not
writing French, and in English the practice of good writers from
Chesterfield downwards is my authority.
[4] The letters are full of pleasant child-worship, the best passage
of all being perhaps the dialogue between Tom and "Budge," at vol. i.
p. 56, with the five-year-old cynicism of the elder's reply, "Oh this
is _false_ Budge, this is all _false_!" to his infant brother's
protestations of affection.
CHAPTER III.
_A FRENCH ETON_--_ESSAYS IN CRITICISM_--_CELTIC LITERATURE_--_NEW
POEMS_--LIFE FROM 1862 TO 1867.
The period of Mr Arnold's second tenure of the Poetry Chair, from 1862
to 1867, was much more fertile in remarkable books than that of his
first. It was during this time that he established himself at once as
the leader of English critics by his _Essays in Criticism_ (some
of which had first taken form as Oxford Lectures) and that he made his
last appearance with a considerable collection of _New Poems_. It
was during this, or immediately after its expiration, that he issued
his second collected book of lectures on _The Study of Celtic
Literature_; and it was then that he put in more popular, though
still in not extremely popular, forms the results of his
investigations into Continental education. It was during this time
also that his thoughts took the somewhat unfortunate twist towards the
mission of reforming his country, not merely in matters literary,
where he was excellently qualified for the apostolate, but in the much
more dubiously warranted function of political, "sociological," and
above all, ecclesiastical or anti-ecclesiastical gospeller. With all
these things we must now deal.
No one of Mr Arnold's books is more important, or more useful in
studying the evolution of his thought and style, than _A French
Eton_ (1864). Although he was advancing in middle-life when it was
written, and had evidently, as the phrase goes, "made up his bundle of
prejudices," he had not written, or at least published, very much
prose; his mannerisms had not hardened. And above all, he was but just
catching the public ear, and so was not tempted to assume the part of
Chesterfield-Socrates, which he played later, to the diversion of
some, to the real improvement of many, but a little to his own
disaster. He was very thoroughly acquainted with the facts of his
subject, which was not always the case later; and though his
assumptions--the insensibility of aristocracies to ideas, the
superiority of the French to the English in this respect, the failure
of the Anglican Church, and so forth--are already as questionable as
they are confident, he puts them with a certain modesty, a certain
[Greek: epieikeia], which was perhaps not always so obvious when he
came to preach that quality itself later. About the gist of the book
it is not necessary to say very much. He practically admits the
obvious and unanswerable objection that his _French Eton_,
whether we look for it at Toulouse or look for it at Sor�ze, is very
French, but not at all Eton. He does not really attempt to meet the
more dangerous though less epigrammatic demurrer, "Do you _want_
schools to turn out products of this sort?" It was only indirectly his
fault, but it was a more or less direct consequence of his arguments,
that a process of making ducks and drakes of English grammar-school
endowments began, and was (chiefly in the "seventies") carried on,
with results, the mischievousness of which apparently has been known
and noted only by experts, and which they have chiefly kept to
themselves.
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