versities. It was now that the intercourse which at school had been so broken, and as it were stolen by snatches, was at last enjoyed between them to its full extent. It was sometimes in the few parting words-the earnest blessing which he then bestowed upon them that they became for the first time conscious of his real care and love for them. The same anxiety for their good which he had felt in their passage through school, he now showed, without the necessity of official caution and reserve, in their passage through life. To any pupil who ever showed any desire to continue his connexion with him, his house was always open, and his advice and sympathy ready. No half-year, after the four first years of his stay at Rugby, passed without a visit from his former scholars: some of them would come three or four times a year; some would stay in his house for weeks. He would offer to prepare them for their University examinations by previous examinations of his own; he never shrunk from adding any of them to his already numerous correspondents, encouraging them to write to him in all perplexities. To any who were in narrow circumstances, not in one case but in several, he would at once offer assistance, sometimes making them large presents of books on their entrance at the University, sometimes tendering them large pecuniary aid, and urging to them that his power of doing so was exactly one of those advantages of his position which he was most bound to use. In writing for the world at large, they were in his thoughts," in whose welfare," he said, "I naturally have the deepest interest, and in whom old impressions may be supposed to have still so much force, that I may claim from them at least a patient hearing." (Serm. vol. iv. Pref. p. lv.) And when annoyed by distractions from within the school, or opposition from without, he turned, he used to say, to their visits as "to one of the freshest springs of his life."

They on their side now learned to admire those parts of his character which, whilst at school, they had either not known or only imperfectly understood. Pupils with characters most different from each other's, and from his own-often with opinions diverging more and more widely from his as they advanced in lifelooked upon him with a love and reverence which made his gratification one of the brightest rewards of their academical studieshis good or evil fame, a constant source of interest and anxiety to them his approbation and censure, amongst their most practical motives of action-his example, one of their most habitual rules of life. To him they turned for advice in every emergency of life, not so much for the sake of the advice itself, as because they felt that no important step ought to be taken without consulting him. An additional zest was imparted to whatever work they were engaged in, by a consciousness of the interest which he felt in the progress of their undertaking, and the importance which he attached to its result. They now felt the privilege of being able to ask him questions on the many points which his school teaching had suggested without fully developing-but yet more, perhaps,

they prized the sense of his sympathy and familiar kindness, which made them feel that they were not only his pupils, but his companions. That youthfulness of temperament which has been before noticed in his relation to boys, was still more important in his relation to young men. All the new influences which so strongly divide the students of the nineteenth century from those of the last, had hardly less interest for himself than for them; and, after the dulness or vexation of business or of controversy, a visit of a few days to Rugby would remind them, (to apply a favourite image of his own,) "how refreshing it is in the depth of winter, when the ground is covered with snow, and all is dead and lifeless, to walk by the sea-shore, and enjoy the eternal freshness and liveliness of ocean. His very presence seemed to create a new spring of health and vigour within them, and to give to life an interest and an elevation which remained with them long after they had left him again, and dwelt so habitually in their thoughts, as a living image, that, when death had taken him away, the bond appeared to be still unbroken, and the sense of separation almost lost in the still deeper sense of a life and an union indestructible.

What were the permanent effects of this system and influence, is a question which cannot yet admit of an adequate answer, least of all from his pupils. The mass of boys are, doubtless, like the mass of men, incapable of receiving a deep and lasting impression from any individual character, however remarkable; and it must also be borne in mind, that hardly any of his scholars were called by rank or station to take a leading place in English society, where the effect of his teaching and character, whatever it might be in itself, would have been far more conspicuous to the world at large.

He himself, though never concealing from himself the importance of his work, would constantly dwell on the scantiness of its results. "I came to Rugby," he said, "full of plans for school reform; but I soon found that the reform of a public school was a much more difficult thing than I had imagined." And again, “I dread to hear this called a religious school. I know how much there is to be done before it can really be called so."-"With regard to one's work," he said, "be it school or parish, I suppose the desirable feeling to entertain is, always to expect to succeed, and never think that you have succeeded." He hardly ever seems to have indulged in any sense of superiority to the other public schools. Eton, for example, he would often defend against the attacks to which it was exposed, and the invidious comparisons which some persons would draw between that school and Rugby. What were his feelings towards the improvements taking place there and elsewhere, after his coming to Rugby, have been mentioned already; even between the old system and his own, he rarely drew a

strong distinction, conscious though he must have been of the totally new elements which he was introducing. The earliest letters from Rugby express an unfeigned pleasure in what he found existing, and there is no one disparaging mention of his predecessor in all the correspondence, published or unpublished, that has been collected for this work.

If, however, the prediction of Dr. Hawkins at his election,' has been in any way fulfilled, the result of his work need not depend on the rank, however eminent, to which he raised Rugby School; or the influence, however powerful, which he exercised over his Rugby scholars. And if there be any truth in the following letter from Dr. Moberly, to whose testimony additional weight is given, as well by his very wide difference of political and ecclesiastical opinion, as by his personal experience, first as a scholar at Winchester, and an under-graduate at Oxford, then as the tutor of the most flourishing college in that University, and lastly, in his present position as Head-master of Winchester, it will be felt that, not so much amongst his own pupils, nor in the scene of his actual labours, as in every Public School throughout England, is to be sought the chief and enduring monument of Dr. Arnold's Head-mastership at Rugby.

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER OF DR. MOBERLY, HEAD-MASTER OF WINCHESTER.

"Possibly," he writes, after describing his own recollections as a schoolboy, "other schools may have been less deep in these delinquencies than Winchester; I believe that in many respects they were. But I did not find, on going to the University, that I was under disadvantages as compared with those who came from other places; on the contrary, the tone of young men at the University, whether they came from Winchester, Eton, Rugby, Harrow, or wherever else, was universally irreligious. A religious undergraduate was very rare, very much laughed at when he appeared; and I think I may confidently say, hardly to be found among public-school men; or, if this be too strongly said, hardly to be found, except in cases where private and domestic training, or good dispositions, had prevailed over the school habits and tendencies. A most singular and striking change has come upon our public schools-a change too great for any person to appreciate adequately, who has not known them in both these times. This change is undoubtedly part of a general improvement of our generation in respect of piety and reverence, but I am sure that to Dr. Arnold's personal earnest simplicity of purpose, strength of character, power of influence, and piety, which none who ever came near him could mistake or question, the carrying of this improvement into our schools is mainly attributable. He was the first. It soon began to be matter of observation to us in the University, that his pupils brought quite a different character with them to Oxford than that which we knew elsewhere. I do not speak of opinions; but his pupils were thoughtful, manly-minded, conscious of duty and obligation, when they first came to college; we regretted, indeed, that they were often deeply imbued with principles which we disapproved, but we cordially acknowledged the immense improvement in their characters in respect of morality and personal piety, and looked on Dr. Arnold as exercising an influence for good, which (for how many years I know not) had been absolutely unknown to our public schools.

"I knew personally but little of him. You remember the first occasion on which I ever had the pleasure of seeing him: but I have always felt and

1 See p. 55.

acknowledged that I owe more to a few casual remarks of his in respect of the government of a public school, than to any advice or example of any other person. If there be improvement in the important points of which I have been speaking at Winchester, (and from the bottom of my heart I testify with great thankfulness that the improvement is real and great,) I do declare, in justice, that his example encouraged me to hope that it might be effected, and his hints suggested to me the way of effecting it.

"I fear that the reply which I have been able to make to your question, will hardly be so satisfactory as you expected, as it proceeds so entirely upon my own observations and inferences. At the same time I have had, perhaps, unusual opportunity for forming an opinion, having been six years at a public school at the time of their being at the lowest,-having then mingled with young men from other schools at the University, having had many pupils from the different schools, and among them several of Dr. Arnold's most distinguished ones; and at last, having had near eight years' experience, as the master of a school which has undergone in great measure the very alteration which I have been speaking of. Moreover, I have often said the very things, which I have here written, in the hearing of men of all sorts, and have never found any body disposed to contradict them.

Believe me, my dear Stanley,

Yours most faithfully,

GEORGE MOBERLY."

CHAPTER IV.

GENERAL LIFE AT RUGBY.

Ir was natural that with the wider range of duty, and the more commanding position which Dr. Arnold's new station gave him, there should have been a new stage in his character and views, hardly less marked intellectually, than that which accompanied his change from Oxford to Laleham had been morally. The several subjects of thought, which more or less he had already entertained, especially during the two or three preceding years, now fell rapidly one by one into their proper places. Ready as he still was to take the advice of his friends in practice, his opinions now took a more independent course; and whatever subsequent modification they underwent, came not from without but from within. Whilst he became more and more careful to reconcile his own views with those, whom, in ages past or present, he reverenced as really great men, the circle within which he bestowed his veneration became far more exclusive. The purely practical element sank into greater subordination to the more imaginative and philosophical tendencies of his mind;-in works of poetical or speculative genius, which at an earlier period he had been inclined to depreciate, he now, looking at them from another point of view, took an increasing delight. Even within the letters of the first year there is a marked alteration down to the very form of his handwriting, and the very mode of addressing his friends. The character which has already been given of his boyish verses at Oxford, becomes less and less applicable to the simple and touching fragments of poetry in which from time to time he expressed the feelings of his later years. The change of style of his published writings from the baldness of his earlier works to the vigorous English of his mature age, indicates the corresponding impulse given to his powers, and the greater freedom and variety of his new range of thought.

With his entrance, therefore, on his work at Rugby, his public life, (if it may so be called,) no less than his professional life, properly begins. But what was true of the effect of his own character in his sphere as a teacher, is hardly less true of it in his sphere as