ARNOLD, MATTHEW. 



41 



ARXOLD, MATTHEW, English critic, born in 

 Laleham, near Staines, England, Dec. 24, 1822; 

 died in Liverpool, England, April 15, 1888. He 

 was the eldest son of Dr. Thomas Arnold, au- 

 thor of a " A History of Panne. 1 ' who became 

 master of Rugby School in 1827. and there in- 

 troduced new methods of discipline and in- 

 struction that created an epoch in the edu- 

 cational history of England. The son, after 

 spending some years in a private school, was 

 sent to Winchester College for a year in order 

 to become familiar with the traditional system 

 of English public schools. He then entered 

 Rugby in 1837, and in 1841 came out near the 

 head of the school, having in 1840 won a schol- 

 arship at Balliol College, Oxford. His auda- 

 cious wit and brilliant conversation won the 

 admiration of his fellow-students. Under the 



MATTHEW ARXOLD. 



despotic but practical mastership of Dr. Jenk- 

 ins, Balliol had become the hardest working 

 college at Oxford; but, says Andrew Lang, 

 " the Oxford of Mr. Arnold's undergraduate 

 years was very much what Oxford had always 

 been, a place for boating, cricket, and loung- 

 ing." In his poem entitled ''The Gipsy Schol- 

 ar," he has embalmed the memories of those 

 pleasant days. While he was at Balliol, Oxford 

 was stirred with theological discussion. John 

 Henry Newman was in the fullness of his popu- 

 larity, and Arnold's intimate friend, Arthur 

 Hugh Clough " took these things too hardly for 

 his happiness." Mr. Arnold won a scholarship 

 for proficiency in Latin the first year, and gained 

 the Newdigftte prize with an essay on " Crom- 

 well" in the second, but obtained only a sec- 

 ond class at graduation. In 1845 he was elect- 

 ed a fellow of Oriel College. His friendship 

 with Arthur Hugh Clough of the same college 

 is embalmed in the elegiac poem of u Thyrsis." 

 Not desiring to take holy orders or to follow 

 the life of a college tutor, he became private 

 secretary of Lord Lansdowne, a leader of the 

 Whigs, in 1847. In 1848 he published under 



his initial " A.,'' a volume called u The Strayed 

 Reveler, and other Poems," which shows his 

 inherited love of Greek sentiment and form, 

 and his early devotion to Wordsworth. These 

 poems include ' The Forsaken Merman," the 

 exquisite pagan poem " Resignation," and "The 

 Sick King of Bokhara," an admirable picture 

 of Eastern life in Central Asia. Three years 

 later, in 1851, after teaching at Rugby as assist- 

 ant master for a short time, he married a daugh- 

 ter of Justice Weightman, and was appointed 

 to the office of lay inspector of schools, with 

 supervision over the schools of the British and 

 Foreign School Society, representing the Non- 

 conformists. The laboriousdutiesof a school in- 

 spector were the regular occupation of his life, 

 and only ceased two or three years before he 

 died. Many of his reports are preserved in the 

 annual Blue Book issued by the Committee of 

 the Council on Education. In these he urged, 

 with the force of his epigrammatic and lumi- 

 nous style, the elevation of elementary educa- 

 tion by such steps as existing conditions and the 

 example of more progressive countries showed 

 to be practicable. In 1859 he was sent to the 

 Continent as foreign assistant commissioner to 

 study the French, German, and Dutch systems 

 of primary education. Eventually William E. 

 Forster, who married Arnold's elder sister, 

 framed a measure that established a much 

 more rational, complete, and effective system of 

 elementary instruction. In 1865 Mr. Arnold 

 went on another official tour to examine into 

 the state of secondary education abroad. His 

 observations were embodied in ''Schools and 

 L'niversities on the Continent," which ap- 

 peared in 1867. From that time he was pos- 

 sessed with the idea that the lack of organized 

 middle-class education, such as exists in Ger- 

 many and France, and the consequent ignorance 

 of art, languages, and literature, and indifference 

 to their refining influences, were the explanation 

 of the dullness, vacuity, sordid instincts, blind 

 prejudices, and moral obtuseness th;tt charac- 

 terize the middle classes of English society. He 

 made it his task to hold up for reprobation the 

 faults that he grouped under the name of " Phi- 

 listinism," and to prove that it can be remedied 

 by wider and better education. Five years after 

 the publication of his first volume of poems, 

 which were remarkable for classic finish, and 

 therefore unattractive to the general public, he 

 issued a second under the title of "Empedocles 

 on Etna, and other Poems," but, soon becom- 

 ing dissatisfied with the leading poem, he sup- 

 pressed almost the whole edition. In 1854 he 

 published under his name a volume containing 

 some poems that were new and some that had 

 appeared in the former collections, and this 

 was followed soon afterward by another vol- 

 ume. These established his reputation among 

 scholars, and in 1857 he was cal'ed to the chair 

 of Poetry at Oxford. In 1858 appeared a tragedy 

 after Greek models, named "Merope," which 

 of itself was not so well received as was the 

 remarkable essay on the principles of criticism 



