Rugby Days. 47 



Landor, a contemporary of " Nimrod," has 

 left it on record that, having learnt nothing 

 at Rugby, he was obliged to leave Trinity 

 College, Oxford, without taking his degree. 



It was the most fortunate circumstance of 

 "The Druid's" life that the school which he 

 entered in 1838, at the mature age of sixteen, 

 was the best for educational purposes that 

 England or any other country had ever 

 known down to that date. " Those," says 

 Dean Stanley in his celebrated " Life of Dr. 

 Arnold," " who look back upon the state of 

 English education in 1827 must remember 

 how the feeling of dissatisfaction with exist- 

 ing institutions, which had begun in many 

 quarters to display itself, had already directed 

 considerable attention to the condition of 

 public schools. The range of classical read- 

 ing, in itself confined, and with no admixture 

 of other information, had been subject to 

 vehement attacks from the Liberal party, 

 generally on the ground of its alleged narrow- 

 ness and inutility ; while the more undoubted 

 evil of the absence of systematic attempts 

 to give a directly Christian character to the 

 education of the English gentry, was becom- 



