failed to secure any degree of respect for the examination, even as proposed, resigned his place in the Senate.

* * *

Three years later, in the latter half of 1841, he received from the Prime Minister, and gladly accepted, the Regius professorship of Modern History, at Oxford. "I caught," he writes, " at any opportunity of being connected again with Oxford. In short there is nothing which the government could have given me, that would have suited all my wishes so well." We must turn to his biographer, at once the eye witness, the pupil, and the friend, for an account of Arnold's entrance upon his new labors:

On the 2nd of December he entered on his Professorial duties, by delivering his Inaugural Lecture. His school work not permitting him to be absent more than one whole day, he left Rugby with Mrs. Arnold, very early in the morning, and occupying himself from the time it became light in looking over the school exercises, reached Oxford at noon. The day had been looked forward to with eager expectation, and the usual leeture rooms in the Clarendon Buildings being unable to contain the crowds that, to the number of four or five hundred, flocked to hear him, the "Theatre" was used for the occasion; and there, its whole area and lower galleries entirely filled, the Professor rose from his place, amidst the highest University authorities in their official seats, and in that clear manly voice, which so long retained its hold on the memory of those who heard it, began, amidst deep silence, the opening words of his Inaugural Lecture.

Even to an indifferent spectator, it must have been striking, amidst the general decay of the professorial system in Oxford, and at the time when the number of hearers rarely exceeded thirty or forty students, to see a Chair, in itself one of the most important in the place, but which, from the infirmities of the late Professor, had been practically vacant for nearly twenty years,-filled at last by a man whose very look and manner bespoke a genius and energy capable of discharging its duties as they had never been discharged before; and at that moment commanding an audience unprecedented in the range of academical memory: the oppressive atmosphere of controversy, hanging at that particular period so heavily on the University, was felt at least for the time to be suddenly broken; and the whole place to have received an element of freshness and vigor, such as in the course of the lecture itself he described in his sketch of the renovation of the worn-out generations of the Roman empire by the new life and energy of the Teutonic races. But to many of his audience there was the yet deeper interest of again listening to that well known voice, and gazing on that well-known face, in the relation of pupils to their teacher,-of seeing him at last, after years of misapprehension and obloquy, stand in his proper place, in his professorial robes, and receive a tribute of respect, so marked and so general in his own beloved Oxford, of hearing him unfold with characteristic delight, the treasures of his favorite study of history, and with an emotion, the more touching for its transparent sincerity and simplicity, declare, "how deeply he valued the privilege of addressing his audience as one of the Professors of Oxford,"-how "there was no privilege which he more valued, no public reward or honor which could be to him so welcome."*-Life and Correspondence; pp. 425, 426.

Two months later, he resumed his professorial duties, by reading eight lectures, in which the general principles of his Inaugural were considered with greater details and more various points of view. A few extracts from the course will throw as much light as the limits of our article allow, upon its own character, and upon that of the lectures which were then expected to follow.

* Inaugural Lecture, p. 50, American edition.

It would require a larger space than we have already occupied, to do any thing like justice to the other labors, besides those of the teacher, in which Arnold engaged. We must direct the reader to other sources,—to Arnold's works, to Arnold's biography, if he would trace the efforts of the historian and the theologian; or if he would gain a conception of those wider prospects to which Arnold often turned as he thought of a bishopric in the colonies,-in Van Dieman's Land or New Zealand, where episcopal offices would blend with educational; where the school or the college would stand close to the chapel or the cathedral. It is hard for one who honors the subject of this sketch as the writer does, to turn from these noble aspects. Nor is it right to do so without adverting, in the way that we did at an earlier period in Arnold's career, to the strength which the aspirations of the historian, the theologian and the clergyman imparted to the teacher, invigorating his intellect, enlarging his spiritual nature, and crowning the work of the school and the university with the interest and the appreciation excited in the world of letters and of life.

In the midst of these varied works, no one of them apparently completed, Arnold suddenly died on the day preceding his fortyseventh birth-day, June 12, 1842. The circle that knew him was aghast at his loss. The circle that has known of him in the fifteen years elapsing since his death, wonders at the abrupt departure of one so active, so useful, so intent upon higher objects than any as yet attained. Early, however, as the earthly existence of Arnold was ended, it did not need a year or a day to be complete. For he died just when his life had been brought to such a point, that the memory of its exertions and of its achievements would be sure to last, sure to inspire even greater exertions and greater achievements in the future. There was or is nothing so great about this man as the example which he left, an example which could not prevail as extensively and as beneficently in life as after death.

Read that example aright, and the teacher who would be one in deed as well in name will learn two truths of inestimable moment. One is that the teacher must be a Christian, not merely a Christian man, but a Christian teacher; that he must see nothing so great, devote himself to nothing so entirely, as to the religion that constitutes at once the foundation, the substance and the crown of education. There is to be nothing vague about his convictions, nothing superficial about his teachings as a Christian instructor; he is to know what religious instruction means, and in what it consists; he is to seek it and to give it in the simplest and in the vastest studies, amid the lispings of the child and the maturer utterances of the man. If

public opinion, or the sentiments of his own society are against him, he must be strong; place must be resigned, emoluments sacrificed, ease and facile labors exchanged for trials and wearing anxieties, rather than that he falter for one instant in his allegiance. If fail he must, he will not, he can not altogether fail. He will have taught himself, if he has taught none besides, that the true scholar is the true Christian; that the real man of intellect is the real man of heart; loftier intellectually, because lofty spiritually; profounder in the learning that is of man, because profound in the learning that is of God.

The other truth involved in Arnold's example is this, that the teacher must be more than a teacher merely. If teaching is the end, It is not there must be something besides teaching for the means. necessary to be precisely what Arnold was,-a theologian and a historian, a master of a school and a professor in a university; it is given to few to enter upon spheres so various and so wide. But there must be no clinging to a single spot or to a single office; no dependence upon any one work as the solitary employment of the teacher's days. He must be a student, he must be a writer, or a man of public relations; he must be learning if he would teach, working if he would teach, and living a life of service to men if he would live one of service to his pupils.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR.

Rev. W. Lucas Collins, author of the Visit to Rugby School in Blackwood's Magazine, since collected into a volume entitled The Public Schools, thus notices one of Dr. Arnold's assistants in the work of religious instruction and influence-a pupil, but a pupilteacher of the highest order. We also introduce remarks by the same author on Dr. Arnold's personal influence, and his successors in the mastership:

Spencer Thornton.

Spencer Thornton, late Vicar of Wendover, entered Rugby School in 1829, and as a boy did almost an apostle's work in the school. It was around him that younger boys, whose religious feelings were earnest, gathered for counsel and encouragement. That Arnold recognized this-that he supported and encouraged Thornton by every means in his power-is to say little more than that he acted like any other Christian schoolmaster. Two more dissimilar types of religious character than presented themselves in the boy and his master it might be difficult to find. Spencer Thornton's views were ultra-evangelical; they might in these days be called narrow, if any could find it in their heart to qualify by such a grudging epithet what was so real and sincere. Arnold's creed was liberal and comprehensive: the books which the pupil loved, the phraseology which he had learned in childhood, the master would in many cases have smiled or frowned at, according to his mood; but to both, religion and life were ideas inseparable; and each, in the case of the other, soon felt and recognized it. It is not too much to say that there were some things in

which the teacher himself would not have scorned to learn from his pupil. 'I would stand to that man,' he once said, in speaking of him, 'hat in hand.' We scarcely know to which of the two characters those words were most honorable. But Arnold never spoke of him otherwise than with regard and respect, as 'a blessing to the school.' 'Your son has done good to the school to an extent that can not be calculated '—were his words in a letter to the parents on Spencer Thornton's departure for Cambridge; and few who heard it will ever forget the noble tribute which he paid to him—though of course not by name -after he had left the school, in one of his sermons. The influence which a boy of strong will, self-possessed bearing, and indomitable courage obtains over his school-fellows, whether for good or evil, and especially on points of religion, is even greater than any master, however conscientious and energetic, can hope to obtain. Spencer Thornton was naturally adapted to secure this influence, and to a great extent he did. 'Straightforward, manly, and upright—as one of his most distinguished school-fellows well describes him—he won respect even where he failed to excite imitation. There was an open honesty in his countenance which would strike any one with the feeling that he was all that he professed to be.' Many were his friends who were not his converts. In this respect, his example had something of the effect upon the little world of Rugby School which Christianity has had upon the world at large: very many were de-heathenized who were not made Christians. Boys who had little sympathy with his religious views, and still less with the peculiar phraseology in which they were sometimes set forth, had still good enough in them to honor the boldness and consistency with which they were maintained; and, often and often, an oath was checked or a ribald jest left unspoken, because he was there to hear. 'Rugby School owes a great debt of gratitude to Spencer Thornton,' writes one of the masters to the father of another boy; 'he has done so much in putting down swearing and bad conduct.' Great, no doubt, was the effect of those remarkable sermons which for so many years 'seized and held three hundred boys, dragging them out of themselves, willing or unwilling, for twenty minutes on Sunday afternoons,' and which stand alone to this day as appeals to a school-boy audience; but even greater, if possible, and more effectual, was the preaching of the daily life of one among themselves.

Personal Influence of Dr. Arnold.

The personal influence of Dr. Arnold over his scholars was less, perhaps, than some of his biographers would represent. Dean Stanley, in his 'Life,' admits very fairly that to many-the majority-he was but little known in his inner character, and could not therefore impress them as he did the few who were brought into more immediate connection with him. With all his great qualities, he was not always successful in winning the love of those who knew him only in his character of head master; it was, perhaps, not in the nature of the circumstances that it should have been so. He was respected, and he was feared. No doubt, in after life, the views we take of those who once had authority over us undergo, in many cases, a wholesome change; we see much in them to love and to admire, to which our selfish wills once blinded us; but the question is now of Arnold's actual personal influence over the mass of his scholars at the time, not of their estimate of him in after life. His direct appeals to the conscience of individual boys on religious matters were few: he knew, and perhaps

rather over estimated, because he so dreaded it and hated it, the danger of producing unreality. None could be more ready than he was with words of kindly counsel or hearty sympathy if it was sought, or if peculiar circumstances gave opportunity for it; and in a large school it would often be difficult, and in some cases might not be thought advisable, to do more. But it might be gathered from some expressions of Dr. Arnold's more enthusiastic eulogists that every boy in the school was of necessity brought into personal contact with him, and had the opportunity of that appeal from heart to heart which from such a man was invaluable. Whether this has ever been successfully attempted by any head master of any public school, may well be questioned; it is certainly an injustice to assume it in the case of Dr. Arnold to the implied discredit of others. On one point of his school discipline especially, there has always been a great misapprehension in the public mind. It is not uncommon to see ascribed to him the whole system-with its evil as well as its good-of governing the school by an aristocracy of its own members, the præpostors of the Sixth form. Some unfortunate occurrences in another public school were at the time attributed openly to the importation there of 'Arnold's system' by one of his pupils. The præpostorial or monitorial form of government was no more Arnold's invention than Rngby School was. He found it existing there, certainly ever since Dr. James's accession, most probably long before. He strengthened and encouraged it; he inspired into his own Sixth form much of his own manly principle and love of truth; and he upheld, through evil report and good report, the institution of fagging, as the only possible protection in a large public school against 'the evils of anarchy, or, in other words, the lawless tyranny of physical strength.' In the same spirit, and with the same disregard of popular squeamishness, he maintained corporal punishment as a stern necessity; protesting against 'that proud notion of personal independence which is neither reasonable nor Christian,' which 'encourages a fantastic sense of the degradation of personal correction.'

Dr. Arnold's Successors.

To Dr. Arnold succeeded Archibald Campbell Tait, Tutor of Balliol College (now Bishop of London), for eight years; then Dr. Goulburn for seven and a half, when he also resigned; and in 1858 Dr. Temple, (now Bishop of Exeter), was elected. In more than one case, in these elections, the claims of Rugbeian candidates were set aside, wisely or unwisely, by the trustees. The prosperity of the school, on the whole, under the men of their choice, has been their best justification. But these governments are too modern to be critically discussed in these pages. Even 'de mortuis,' it has been sought here to speak 'nil nisi bonum;' and a discreet silence may well be preserved in the case of living bishops and dignitaries. Only let us not forget Rugby's annus mirabilis under Goulburn; when the school carried off, in 1857, nearly every open university scholarship both at Oxford and Cambridge; or that Dr. Tait raised the numbers to the highest point which had been yet reached-493; or that Dr. Temple, to his great credit, abolished the 'goal-keeping' at football, which made a cold winter half holiday a misery to many small boys who are now men. The time may come when their own pupils will speak of their days as the golden age of Rugby, even as the scholars of Arnold do now: all honor to the generous and scholar-like spirit which will see no failing in the old master or the old school!