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'a place of really Christian education'。 The boys were to work

out their own salvation; like the human race。 He himself;

involved in awful grandeur; ruled remotely; through his chosen

instruments; from an inaccessible heaven。 Remotely and yet with

an omnipresent force。 As the Israelite of old knew that his

almighty Lawgiver might at any moment thunder to him from the

whirlwind; or appear before his very eyes; the visible embodiment

of power or wrath; so the Rugby schoolboy walked in a holy dread

of some sudden manifestation of the sweeping gown; the majestic

tone; the piercing glance; of Dr。 Arnold。 Among the lower forms

of the school his appearances were rare and transitory; and upon

these young children 'the chief impression'; we are told; 'was of

extreme fear'。 The older boys saw more of him; but they did not

see much。 Outside the Sixth Form; no part of the school came into

close intercourse with him; and it would often happen that a boy

would leave Rugby without having had any personal communication

with him at all。



Yet the effect which he produced upon the great mass of his

pupils was remarkable。 The prestige of his presence and the

elevation of his sentiments were things which it was impossible

to forget。 In class; every line of his countenance; every shade

of his manner imprinted themselves indelibly on the minds of the

boys who sat under him。 One of these; writing long afterwards;

has described; in phrases still impregnated with awestruck

reverence; the familiar details of the scene: 'the glance with

which he looked round in the few moments of silence before the

lesson began; and which seemed to speak his sense of his own

position''the attitude in which he stood; turning over the

pages of Facciolati's Lexicon; or Pole's synopsis; with his eye

fixed upon the boy who was pausing to give an answer''the

pleased look and the cheerful 〃thank you〃; which followed upon a

successful translation''the fall of his countenance with its

deepening severity; the stern elevation of the eyebrows; the

sudden 〃sit down〃 which followed upon the reverse'and 'the

startling earnestness with which he would cheek in a moment the

slightest approach to levity'。



To be rebuked; however mildly; by Dr。 Arnold was a Potable

experience。 One boy could never forget how he drew a distinction

between 'mere amusement' and 'such as encroached on the next

day's duties'; nor the tone of voice with which the Doctor added

'and then it immediately becomes what St。 Paul calls REVELLING'。

Another remembered to his dying day his reproof of some boys who

had behaved badly during prayers。 'Nowhere;' said Dr。 Arnold;

'nowhere is Satan's work more evidently manifest than in turning

holy things to ridicule。' On such occasions; as another of his

pupils described it; it was impossible to avoid 'a consciousness

almost amounting to solemnity' that; 'when his eye was upon you; 

he looked into your inmost heart'。



With the boys in the Sixth Form; and with them alone; the severe

formality of his demeanour was to some degree relaxed。 It was his

wish; in his relations with the Praepostors; to allow the Master

to be occasionally merged in the Friend。 From time to time; he

chatted with them in a familiar manner; once a term he asked them

to dinner; and during the summer holidays he invited them; in

rotation; to stay with him in Westmorland。



It was obvious that the primitive methods of discipline which had

reached their apogee under the dominion of Keate were altogether

incompatible with Dr。 Arnold's view of the functions of a

headmaster and the proper governance of a public school。 Clearly;

it was not for such as he to demean himself by bellowing and

cuffing; by losing his temper once an hour; and by wreaking his

vengeance with indiscriminate flagellations。 Order must be kept

in other ways。 The worst boys were publicly expelled; many were

silently removed; and; when Dr。 Arnold considered that a flogging

was necessary; he administered it with gravity。 For he had no

theoretical objection to corporal punishment。 On the contrary; he

supported it; as was his wont; by an appeal to general

principles。 'There is;' he said; 'an essential inferiority in a

boy as compared with a man'; and hence 'where there is no

equality the exercise of superiority implied in personal

chastisement' inevitably followed。



He was particularly disgusted by the view that 'personal

correction';as he phrased it; was an insult or a degradation to

the boy upon whom it was inflicted; and to accustom young boys to

think so appeared to him to be 'positively mischievous'。 'At an

age;' he wrote; 'when it is almost impossible to find a true;

manly sense of the degradation of guilt or faults; where is the

wisdom of encouraging a fantastic sense of the degradation of

personal correction? What can be more false; or more adverse to

the simplicity; sobriety; and humbleness of mind which are the

best ornaments of youth; and offer the best promise of a noble

manhood?' One had not to look far; he added; for 'the fruits of

such a system'。 In Paris; during the Revolution of 1830; an

officer observed a boy of twelve insulting the soldiers; and

'though the action was then raging; merely struck him with the

flat part of his sword; as the fit chastisement for boyish

impertinence。 But the boy had been taught to consider his person

sacred; and that a blow was a deadly insult; he therefore

followed the officer; and having watched his opportunity; took

deliberate aim at him with a pistol and murdered him。' Such were

the alarming results of insufficient whipping。



Dr。 Arnold did not apply this doctrine to the Praepostors; but

the boys in the lower parts of the school felt its benefits; with

a double force。 The Sixth Form was not only excused from

chastisement; it was given the right to chastise。 The younger

children; scourged both by Dr Arnold and by the elder children;

were given every opportunity of acquiring the simplicity;

sobriety; and humbleness of mind; which are the best ornaments of

youth。



In the actual sphere of teaching; Dr。 Arnold's reforms were

tentative and few。 He introduced modern history; modern

languages; and mathematics into the school curriculum; but the

results were not encouraging。 He devoted to the teaching of

history one hour a week; yet; though he took care to inculcate in

these lessons a wholesome hatred of moral evil; and to point out

from time to time the indications of the providential government

of the world; his pupils never seemed to make much progress in

the subject。 Could it have been that the time allotted to it was

insufficient? Dr。 Arnold had some suspicions that this might be

the case。 With modern languages there was the same difficulty。

Here his hopes were certainly not excessive。 'I assume it;' he

wrote; 'as the foundation of all my view of the case; that boys

at a public school never will learn to speak or pronounce French

well; under any circumstances。' It would be enough if they could

'learn it grammatically as a dead language。 But even this they

very seldom managed to do。 I know too well;' he was obliged to

confess; 'that most of the boys would pass a very poor

examination even in French grammar。 But so it is with their

mathematics; and so it will be with any branch of knowledge that

is taught but seldom; and is felt to be quite subordinate to the

boys' main study'。



The boys' main study remained the dead languages of Greece and

Rome。 That the classics should form the basis of all teaching was

an axiom with Dr。 Arnold。 'The study of language;' he said;

'seems to me as if it was given for the very purpose of forming

the human mind in youth; and the Greek and Latin languages seem

the very instruments by which this is to be effected。' Certainly;

there was something providential about it from the point of

view of the teacher as well as of the taught。 If Greek and Latin

had not been 'given' in that convenient manner; Dr。 Arnold; who

had spent his life in acquiring those languages; might have

discovered that he had acquired them in vain。 As it was; he could

set the noses of his pupils to the grindstone of syntax and

prosody with a clear conscience。 Latin verses and Greek

prepositions divided between them the labours of the week。



As time went on he became; he declared; 'increasingly convinced

that it is not knowledge; but the means of gaining knowledge

which I have to teach'。 The reading of the school was devoted

almost entirely to selected passages from the prose writers of

antiquity。 'Boys;' he remarked; 'do not like poetry。' Perhaps his

own poetical taste was a little dubious; at any rate; it is

certain that he considered the Greek Tragedians greatly

overrated; and that he ranked Propertius as 'an indifferent

poet'。 As for Aristophanes; owing to his strong moral

disapprobation; he could not bring himself to read him until he

was forty; when; it is true; 

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