MATTHEW. ARNOLD'S IDEA OF
EDUCATION

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MICHlGAN STATE COLLEGE
David. Giltnor
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MATTHEN ARNOID'S IDEA OF EDUCATION

By
David Giltner

A THESIS

Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
MASTER w ARTS

Department of English

i951;

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRmmTIONoooooooooooooooooooooooop.1

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The School System

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The Organs of Instruction

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School Subjects

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322760

MTTHE‘I ARNOID'S IDEA OF EDUCATION

Introduction

Matthew Arnold was not only a poet, essayist, critic and lecturer; he
was an Inspector of Schools for the British Government from 1851 to 1886.
During his years of service he submitted reports to the Department of Educa-
tion in which he nude statements revealing what he thought about many phases
of education in England, France, Germany, Holland, and Switzerlani. It is
my purpose in writing this essay to show that Matthew Arnold was as articu-
_ late an authority in matters of education as he was in matters of poetry,
critician, ani culture. If we know what he had to say about schools, in-
structors, and courses during his long and intimate association with them,
we may be better able to understand the mn and his literature. This under-
standing will be more important to the student of Matthew Arnold's writings
than will be the incidental information concerning the school systems of some
of the European countries between 1851 and 1886. For example, I am not con-
cerned with the fact that elementary education, in England, did not become
canpquory until 1880. What is important to me, as a student of English lit-
eratm'e, is that Matthew Arnold, the critic and poet, in expressing his studi-
ed Opinions on the matter of compulsory education, revealed a concern for the
state of culture in English society which flowered in the great critical es-
says that form the portion of his expression which we accept as a part of
English literature.

Arnold's permanent claim to honor seems to rest in the fact that he
accepted the modern age, with some sadness, it is true, but genuinely and

generously. He mastered his regret over what was disappearing and welcomed

the present with courage. How he did this will be seen in his official ex-
pressions as well as in his literature. He devoted himself to the preserva-
tion of what he thought was the ideal spiritual and intellectual life of the
past and became a mediator between the old and the new. He is contrasted with
Newman on the one hand, and the followers of art for art's sake on the other.
He did not shrink from the apparent anarchy of modern life into seeking spir-
itual ideals through medieval formulas and standards of truth, nor did he
turn to dreams, and a House Beautiful far from the crudities of modern life.
Arnold had faith in the instincts that civilized men had developed in common,
and he found in the working of these instincts the gradual, continuous real-
intion of the ideal society.

,1 In 1851 Matthew Arnold was appointed as one of three inspectors of schools.
For the next thirty-«five, and most important, years of his life Arnold held
this tedious post. And although his duties ard his recommendations as an in-
spector are often slighted in accounts of his life and importance to the age
in which he lived, this experience greatly affected and influenced the sub-
stance of his own writings, and his ideas were in some measure incorporated
in the Education Acts of 1870, 1902 and 3.903.1

I do not propose to present a detailed description of the conditions of
schools, or the state of education in Victorian England. A part of Matthew
Arnold's duties as an inspector of schools was to report from time to time
upon their general condition. These voluminous reports, representing thirty
years labor, have been published. Though for the most part they are simply

routine reporting, they occasionally reveal an opinion or idea of Arnold's

 

1. The Reinter etation of Victorian Literature, ed. by Joseph E. Baker,
Princeton, ew Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 102-103.

 

on what a particular phase of education should be. It is my purpose to dis-1‘ ._
cover and to present these ideas from his Reports in particular, and also
from his critical prose writings which are generally familiar to all students
of Victorian literature. It will be necessary, however, to give a chrono-
logical sunmry of the controversies and proposals by various groups and the
legislative acts which led to the establishment of the particular school sys-
tem existing at the time Arnold was appointed as inspector.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century in England an intelligent
child of parents whose means were modest, yet who desired that the child
should learn his letters and whatever else he could acquire educationally
would probably be exposed to one or more of several types of schools than in
existence for the instruction of the poor. At Sunday-school he might learn
to read after a fashion and he might possibly learn to write if he could stay
with it long enough.2 If the parents wanted him to attend school on week-
days he might be sent to a Dame School, where, if he could stand the close
qmrters, the foul air, and the discipline of the rod, he could probably, for
id. a week, learn to read, or in the case of girls, to sew. These were pri-
vate schools whose single teacher almost always supplemented his income by
shopkeeping, sewing, or washing.3

The majority of the boys and girls in large cities, however, attended
Comon Day Schools which were kept by a master or mistress who made his or
her living by this work. The charge was higher than that of the Dame Schools,
from 6d. to 9d. a week. "Too often the teacher's qualification for his Job

 

2. J.L. I-Iammord and Barbara Hammond, The Age‘of the Chartistsl 1832-1851;: _A_
Study of Discontent, London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1930, p. 3:18.

30 Ibido, Po 169.

was that noted in the case of the old men who kept Dame Schools: unfitness

for every otheg.”h These schools professed to teach reading, writing ani
arithmetic. Few of them accomplished this aim; most of them were over-
crowded, dirty and disorderly. There was no compulsory attendance in any of
these schools except for children working in factories and there the school-
ing existed chiefly on paper.5

Another type of school came into being when, at the end of the eighteen-

th and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, two men, Dr. Andrew Bell,

a Church of England clergymn in Madras, and Joseph Lancaster, a Quaker in
London, invented separately new and similar systems of teaching. These sys—
tems involved the use of monitors, or pupil-teachers, whereby one schoolmas-
ter might conduct a school of 1,000 children in which he merely presided
while scholars taught each other in small groups. Education was thereby
greatly cheapened, and the systems became popular in the large towns.6
Societies were formed among educational enthusiasts, according to their re-
ligion mostly, and grouped themselves behind these two men. The lancastrian
Society (1808) afterwards called the British and Foreign School Society (1811;),
was nonsectarian, and drew its main support from Whigs and Nonccnformists.

The schools organized by this society were those which Matthew Arnold was
called upon to inspect at a later date. In these schools the Bible was taught
without coment. The Society which followed Dr. Bell was called ”The National

 

14. Ibid 0 , Po 1&0
5; Ibid 0 , p. 170.
6. Ibido , P0 177;

Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principlee of the Es-
tablished Church,” and taught Church doctrines in addition to the Scriptures.7
It is understandable that the National Society appealed more to the upper
classes, who were not very friendly to the education of the poor, but who pre-
ferred to see the people educated by the NationalCChurch if they must be ad-
ucated at all. This society, therefore, was subscribed to by wealthier people
and became the more prosperous of the two.

In 1833 the new Parliament attempted, without success” to obtain a cen-
sus of school children in England to determine the amber of children attend-
ing private schools as opposed to those attending schools which were partially
endowed. Private Statistical Societies in Manchester, Salford, Liverpool,
Bm'y, Bolton, Ashton, Dukinfield, Stalybridge, York, Birmingham and Bristol
conducted their own investigations with much better results. It was found
that the state of popular education was extremely poor between 1831; and 1837
and that most of the students still attended private schools, yet public in-
terest centered on the work and the rivalries of the two Societies}.8 In 1833
the Govermnent had decided to make a grant in aid to these Societies. This
measure was opposed by Cobbett because he thought that mass education would
produce a race of idlers, and by "Radicals like Hume, Fielden, Potter, and
Brotherton, who wanted a national system, and thought this a harmful substi-
tute.”9 Nevertheless a satisfactory grant was established to be distributed
between the he Societies. The National Society received the larger grant

because it was larger and more prosperous;

 

7o Ibidc, Pp. 178-179.
8. ibide, P. 180.
9. Ibid., p. 182.

In 1839 Lord John Russell proposed a renewal of aid to the Societies
and also the establishment of a Normal School for the training of teachers
in these schools. A committee of four Cabinet Ministers was appointed to
superintend the application of Grants. A Secretary and two Inspectors were
appointed to “disseminate a knowledge of improvements among those engaged in
education and to keep the Comittee informed of progress."10 Sir-James Kay-
Shuttleworth was the first Secretary, and England owes as much gratitude to
him as to anyone for establishing schools for its children. For several
years his proposals for educational reform were hampered by the conflicting
interests of the Church of England and the Dissenters, but in 18116 when the
Ihigs again came into power he pressed his reforms on more tolerant ears.11

At this time in England statistics on illiteracy were begirming to alarm
politicians. A conservative estimate was that about 110% of the adult popula-
tion‘was illiterate, and had remained so for the past ten years even though
the number of schools had greatly increased. With this ammunition in hand
the Education Committee made elaborate proposals for the reorganization of
school-teaching and the improvement of the teachers' position. Monitors were
to be replaced by pupil teachers, who were apprenticed for five years. Grants
were to be given to them and to the teachers who trained them. After their
apprenticeship, further training for pupil teachers was to be encouraged by
a system of scholarships and grants. After this training they were to enjoy
additions to their salaries and retirement benefits through grants. The
establishment of pupil teachers and additions to salaries were to depend upon
a favorable report from an inspector, who conducted, each year, the examination

10. Ibido, Po 185.
11. Ibid., p. 203.

of the pupil teachers. This marked the first control which the Education
Comittee was to have over the schools it inspected and subsidized.12
These proposals, which were incorporated into the Minutes of 18h6,

‘were not an attempt to mould English education into a national scheme.
They were designed to improve existing schools without altering the exist-
ing basis. National and British schoolS'were equally qualified to claim
and obtain the benefits as before.

But this was not the aspect under Which

Dissenting circles represented by the

Voluntaryist movement saw the proposals.

The Church was the enemy. The Church,

having more schools and less objection

to subsidies, stood to gain by the grants;

therefore talk of equality-waiaabsurd, and

the proposals must be fought.
And so it want that whenever educationa1.reformrwas proposed, the Dissenters
objected on the grounds that half the taxhpayerS‘were Nonconformists and
yet, the bulk of the school grant went to the Church of England, National
schools. The Dissenters also argued that the more State control and aid
there was, the stronger the National Church became. On the other hand, the
National Church objected to any religious teaching in schools supported by
the State which was not the Church.of England doctrine. The road to educa-
tional reform in England was long and difficult because of these religious
interests. The conditions in the schools did not improve. The number of
schools increaded, but the instruction was geared to satisfying the inspec-
tors' examinations, and although a child might have answers on the tip of his
tongue he probably would not have any notion of the meanings of the words he

uttered. It'was found that after the average child had finished school he

_-
w ‘ —'—

12, Ibid., pp. 203-201;.
13. Ibido, PP. 20119-205.

 

was unable to read an unfamiliar passage in any book with even the slightest
ease or correctness.

There was one favorable aSpectlof educational reform even though it was
offset by the religious controversy. The humanists who opposed the Industrial
Revolution in favor of art, culture, and religion were in accord with the new
individual opportunists in the matter of extending and reforming education.
It was agreed that the educated man could gain more and contribute more to
the well-being of society than theignorant man. "Men who differed on almost
every other question agreed on this.”lh

One of the great tragedies of the age was that the most capable men in
the government devoted their energies to other reforms and did not tamper
with education for fear of becoming involved in religious controversy. Their
attituie kept England behind the leading nations of Europe in educational
progress, and even though they repealed the Corn Laws and extended the fran-
chise to the working man, he had grown up in an atmosphere of reform, ill—ed-
ucated and almost wholly irreligious.15

This was the state of popular education in England when, in 1851, Matthew
Arnold was appointed as an inspector of certain schools in, the British and
Foreign School Society. During the course of his career as inspector Arnold
reported on one hundred and four of these British schools. They comprised
part of the system introduced under the Minutes of 18h6-18h7 giving grants
to these schools. The first chapter of this essay will begin with a pre-
sentation of Matthew Arnold's ideas on how to improve the British schools

through proper financing, and later, as other ideas are discussed a compariscn

 

x—' r

15. Ibid., P. 216.

will arise in the minds of those who associate education in England in the

nineteenthcentury with the progressive proposals of Herbert Spencer.

... one may see how Arnold's concept of culture in-
fused educational theory with an'ideal missing from
the great empiricist's prOposals. In some measure,
it was incorporated in the great Education Act of
1870 constructed by Arnold's brother-in-law, William
Forster. Ten years later, in 1880, the Compulsory
Education Act definitely legalized the improvements
in popular education and made education generally mn-
datory trn'oughout the realm. The appointment (1891;)
and the report (1896) of the Bryce Commission with '
the enactment of the Education Acts of 1902 and 190
corrected and adjusted provisions of the 1870 act.:'—

 

...?—

16. ReirrterpretationJ p. 103.

10

Chapter I

The School System

The Government grants to the British and Foreign School Society made up
about half the school operating fund. The other halfwas called "school
pence," which was a fee paid by the pupils' parents. These fees ranged from
about 2d to 6d per week according to the parents' incomes. The payments,
themselves, excluded the very poor children. The children of the middle and.
upper-middle classes attended either the National Schools or private schools.
The children who attended the British schools were from the lower middle class
of society, and consisted mostly of Congregationalists and Wesleyan Metho-
dists whose churches established building grants for these schools. The ap-
propriate religious instruction was given in each, and the Wesleyans, with
more strict adherence to their particular religious dogma, began to yaw a.-
part from the British system in the maintenance and direction of their schools,
even though they received a part of the government grant authorized for the
British School Society. Half of the operating fund of all these schools,
however, was the fee paid by the parents according to their incomes, and the
parents of pupils whose fees were highest expected the teacher to spend more
time with their children because they were contributing most to his salary.
This situation disordered the instruction in the schools so that the children
of the lower middle class were not getting the proper discipline in school
am Arnold-felt that if these children could not get it there, they would get
it nowhere. He thought that the children of the upper and lower classes of
society were given more prOper educational attention in the home than were

those of the lower middle class.17 Arnold does not say why he believes this

 

17. Matthew Arnold, {Reports on Elementary Schools, 1852-1882, ed. by Sir Fran-
cis Sandford, London: Macmillan and Company, 1889, pp. l-8.

11

to be true; however, one my assume that because of his distaste for the bla-
tant narrow-mindedness of the middle class society in England, he thought
that the middle class parents were too busy with more urbane and profitable
matters to attend to the cultural discipline of their own children.

Since some of the children were admitted at a lower rate of payment
than others ,those who paid the least were taught the least. The poorer
children were neglected, however bright they might have been. "A plan more
calculated to derange and dislocate the instruction of a school it would be
difficult to imagine; and the teacher who is responsible for that instruction
ought, in 11w opinion, always to decline to adopt it."18

The support of thepopular schools was a problem for which Arnold had no
ready solution; however, he did see the immense inequity of the prevailing
system and revealed his humanitarian feelings and his advanced sensibility
concerning the matter._ He suggested that the Government might look to. other
caImunities for models. He pointed out that an iron company” in Wales sup-
ported a school for workers' children through voluntary weekly deductions in
pay. This helped to defray the expenses of the school library and the medi-
cal attendants. The same deduction was made regardless of the worker's mar-
ital state, or the number of children in the family. In this manner all
children of the cammmity could be sent to school._ Arnold thought that this
system should be tried in English industrial towns. He did, however, feel
that the Welsh should be taught English in their own schools for the better
political and social welfare of the Kingdom, and that, eventually, as in
Cormall, their language should be English.20

18. Ibid., pp. 8-9. _ _ .
19. Band. Iron Company, Maesteg, South Wales.

20. Rams, pp. lib-15.

12

Later, in 1867, after he had visited elementary schools on the Contin-
ent, he reported that in the compxflsory school systen of Prussia all children
paid an average of a penny per week. The French children had to pay more
even than the English, but indigent children could attend school free. The
paying parents, however, objected to this system and the French Minister of
Education thought that all children should attend the popular schools free
of charge, not as paupers, but as the children of taxpayers. Arnold favored
the Prussian plan of low, weekly payments by the children's parents.21

Little as Arnold does say about the financing of schools we may under-
stand that he did not think the English plan either reasonable or fair and
that the systems in France and Prussia were more satisfactory, since the pay-
ments which some of the parents in England had to make were becoming altoget-

her too high.

-2...

In commenting on the general living and working conditions in the schools
stbject to his inspection, Arnold was,in a sense, contributing to the great
body of Victorian literature which concerned itself with social reform. He
said that the conditions inthe London schools were on the average poorer
than in the country schools. The facilities for space, desks, ventilating
and playgrounds were most inadequate where they were needed most. He regret-
ted that the Minister of Education did not visit the schools more often, as
h. did the National (Church of England) schools. And he was a firm believer
in having the pupil stay at his desk to learn, which could not always be the

case in over-crowded schools.22

4 ~ A.-

21. Ibido, p.127.
22. Ibid., pp. 1.1.52.

13

He thought that it would pay the Government to paint the schools more
often. The schools in Paris were much neater and cleaner than those in Lon-
don. The Iondon schools would not pass inspection by a Parisian.23

In 1853 Arnold expressed the Englishneed for many more schools for in-
fants (children under eight years of age). There were crowded classrooms
in most_of his elementary schools, more so in the British than the Wesleyan
schools. He also believed that all elementary schools should mix the sexes
in all classes except playground. The Wesleyans adhered more closely to
this plan than the British. And Arnold thought that female teachers should
be employed exclusively in the teaching of infants.2h He was constantly
complaining that his schools were so much inferior to the National Church
schools in both methods and results. The only favorable comparison he could
mks between the lower middle-class, lower class schools and the middle-class
National schools was their mutual freedom from private speculation. He com-
pared two letters written by two students to their parents. One letter was
fran one of the pupils in his schools and the other was from a pupil in a .
private middle-class school where instruction and results were much better.
The grammar, thought and diction were so much superior in the latter that he
remarked in a report of the year 1867; "To those who ask what is the differ-
ence between a public and a private school, I answer, it is this.”25

After his second visit to the Continental schools in 1865, secondary

schools this time, Arnold returned to find his schools in worse condition

than the first time he returned in 1859. He blamed the Act of 1862 which

 

23. Repglts, .pp. 81.786.

25. Ibid., p. 133'.

114

revised the Act of 18116, and reduced the rate of public expenditure on schools.
It also reduced the rate of pupil-teachers, whom Arnold considered to be the
”sinews of public instruction," from one to every thirty-six scholars in 1861
to one to fifty-four in 1866. And the principal teacher spent less time with

26 This

the pupil-teacher because the former was now receiving less pay.
situation encouraged a slack attitude throughout the schools, and Arnold not
only blamed legislation but also the ignorance and lack of initiative on the
part of the school managers and businessmen for this unhappy state of af-
fairs.27

In 1859 after touring the primary schools of Holland Arnold remarked
in his report that he thought the inspection and the instruction in these
schools were the best that he had ever seen. Their eminat'ionswere de-

28

signed to discover "distinguished culture." And the teachers and masters.

 

commanded the highest respect in the community and were well paid and happy.”
The primary schools in Holland were not denominational because there was no
dogmatic instruction in the popular educational system, and they were con-
trolled by the Government. The legislation of 1806 provided for the best
pupils to stay on for two or three years free if they would consent to be-
come teachers. Arnold thought that it was from this particular Act in Hol-
land that England got the notion of its pupil-teacher system.30

One of Arnold '5 last remarks concerning the well-being of the elementary

 

26o Ibido, pp? 109-112?
279 Ibido, pp. 116-117.

28. Matthew Arnold, The Popular Education of France With Notices of That of
Holland "and Switzerland, London: Longman, Green, Ibngman, and Rob—arts,
1361,‘p. 203.

299 Ibidqa pp. 202-2030
300 Ibido, Po 20,40

 

15

students was in a report for the year 1882, when hefound it remarkable that
the New Code, resulting from the legislation of 1870, had relieved much of
the strain on the younger children's minds imposed by continual additions
to the curricula of the higher grades or forms. Whereas, previously, dis-
counting the fact that each new crop of beginners was always the same age
and of the same capacity for learning, there were constantly being added new
subjects and programs, the New Code took into account Arnold's suggestion

that too many things were being taught the child, and not the best things.31

--3-

Before 1880 when elementary education was made compulsory in England
Arnold had raised his voice in behalf of the cause time and again. In 1853,
speaking of the very poor who could not afford to send their children to
school, Arnold remarked, "It is not the high payments alone which deter them;
all I say is, as to the general question of the education of the masses, that
they deter them in many cases. But it is my firm conviction, that education
will never, amr more thanvaccination, become universal in this country, un-
til it is made compulsory."32

By 1867 Arnold found .the idea of compulsory education becoming a famil-
iar one in his district. He did not think that a law making elementary} edu-
cation canpulsory for all English children would be a hard law to pass. The
difficult part would be in making it work. "In Prussia, which is so often
quoted, education is not flourishing because it is compulsory, it is compul-

sory because it is flourishing."33 There, people prize instruction and culture
31. gem pp. 2552256.
320 Ibido, PP- 2672?.
33. Ibid., Po 120.

16

and'therefore it is not difficult to impose it. In England people prize
“... politics, station, business, money-making, pleasure, and many other
things 3'3’4 Although an impulse may make a law, the English peOple must
cease to prize these other things above culture before the law will work.
The friends of instruction must first convince the nation of its value.35
Arnold suggested that one step in stimulating the necessary condi-
tions under which compulsory education might flourish would be to make a
wider circulation of the yearly volume of minutes and reports issued by the
Comittee of Council on Education. This would stimulate abstract discussion
among teachers and townspeople instead of exclusively within the Govern-
ment where the school issues could not be settled upon their merits.'36
We have noted, before, Arnold's admiration for the conditions and the
instruction in some of the Continental school systems. What made these
schools so much better than the English popular schools? Was it because
education was compulsory in these countries? It was not compulsory in Ho]..-
land and France. ”It may be broadly said, that in all the civilized States
of Continental Europe education is compulsory except in France and Holland.37
Ani yet Arnold recognized the elementary school system of Holland as being
one of the best in existence. It could not be said, absolutely, then, that
compulsory education was the answer to a good school system. But "... in
general, where popular education is most prosperous, there it is also can-
pull.so:l‘y."-‘38 In Arnold's belief,compulsory education did not cause a school

3’40 Ibido’ P0 1200
35. Ibid., p. 120.
36. Ibido, PP. 111991500

37. Matthew Arnold, Hither SchOOls'and Universities in Germany, London: Mac-
mllanandCompany, 1882, p. x.

38.Ibid., p. xi.

17

system to be prosperous, but in general he thought that the two went hand in
hard.

The idea of compulsory education was 31011 a part of Arnold's general
and historical notion of what made a good school systen that it is necessary
to examine this broad notion in order to understand why, in lmgland, there
was such a lack of zeal for this means of bettering the schools. I think
that the problem centered around the fact that in England there was a dis-
tinction between the National Church schools and the British and Wesleyan
schools. Naturally, the Government would be more concerned with the Na-
tional Church and the upper middle class than it would be with the lower-
class Dissenters. There was not this same problem on the Continent where
Arnold spent nearly seven months in 1865. He said that, "... on the Contin-
ent generally, everywhere except in Holland, the public elementary school
isdenominational, and its teaching religious as well as secular.“39 Arnold
gave this broad, rather startling, explanation of why he thought England
lacked the traditional zeal among the people for compulsory education: The
Refomation brought the Renaissance, with its Classical learning and better.
schools, to Germany and Holland. All of the great reformers except Luther
were advocates of Classical learning, and they were the greatest intellect-
uals of their time. But in England the reformers were second-rate men. The
great intellects were Anglican, Renaissance men like Shakespeare, Bacon and
Spenser who were not reformers or educators in a strict sense. However,
Protestantism soon petrified in Germany just as Catholicism had done and the

schools decayed. It was not until Friedrich August Wolf in 1783 organized

‘v—v— w—V

39. , Ibido, Po X.

to

In Germany Arnold was amazed at, and touched by the quality of teaching
and the way in which the pupils were being formed by it. In England, he com-
plained, the teaching was so little formative; giving the power to read the
newspapers, write a letter, “cast accounts," and "... gives them a certain
number of pieces of knowledge, but it does little to touch their nature for
good and to mould them."16 There was no full cultivation of taste and feel-
ing, as in Germany where, for example, religious teaching went right to the
Bible and discussed its philosophy. It did not teach.Lutheran dogma.17

As to the question of whether or not teaching should be concentrated upon
preparing the child in the lower-class elementary schools to face some trade
or occupation in particular, or life in general, Arnold thought that for the
lower class there should be some compromise. The beginnings of a liberal
culture should be the same for those who have humanistic aptitudes and those
who have aptitudes for studying the laws of nature. They should be exposed
to sane of both. After this exposure, more freedom of choice could be al-
lowed in the upper grades where the student could pursue some special apti-
tude.18

To teachers in general Arnold said "... every man shall be set to teach

that branch which he has thoroughly mastered, and shall not be allowed to teach

any that he has not.”19

-2.

No man can be "set to teach" if he does not have the proper texts at his

 

16o Ibido, p. 1h.
17. Ibid., p. 1’4.
18. Higher Schools, pp. 176-177.

19. Ibid., p. 178.

Ill

disposal. In the English elementary, popular SChOOlS of 1853 Arnold deplored
the lack of standarization, classification and arrangement of school books.
There was no authoritative text on any subject. A student was liable to come
into contact with several different systemsof presenting grammar, for instance,
to hisafown unfortunate confusion. There was not even standarization of terms,
and Arnold believed that the Education Department on Elementary Schools should
correct the situation as qlickly as possible.20

The children who could afford them did, and should buy their books, but
there were many who could not afford to buy them. Consequently, some went
without. Arnold thought that there should be in all, schools a "public stock“
of books which should supply those who could not afford them. The teachers
and managers could judge who these children were.21 .

After his first tour of Continental schools Arnold observed in 1860 that
what France and England needed was a good elementary reading book, or even

a course of them. They could get no hlmxanizing instruction from their gram-

 

mars ard scientific fact books, or the "thirds-rate" literature in their read-
ing books. The reading for English children should be selected from the best
English meters. This, he said, was the only way to learn to read, and it
would also supply the best instruction for these children.22

Reporting on secondary education in Germany in 1865 Arnold noted that
the Prussian masters chose the books, which in turn had to be approved by a
Pl'ovincial Board. And in case the book was being introduced for the first

time the Beard must refer it to Education Minister and his council. If it

 

20'. Hearts, pp. 27-28.
21. Ibldo, pp. 76-770
22. Ibid., pp. 86-89.

1:2

was approved for one mam, it could be used by any other Gynmasimn or
Prog'y'nmasium.2'3 This criticism of texts was precisely what was needed in
England. Half the English texts were rubbish, and every school used its dis-
cretion in choosing them. Some schools made a trade of book-dealing. Con-
sequently much of the pupils' time was spent in learning nonsense; and woe
to the pupil who transferred from one school to another.2h

By 1867 the supplying of books was beooming a lucrative business and the
books themselves were often compiled by the incompetent. Arnold urged the
Education Department to exercise some control over this situation as was be-
ing done by the Departments in other comtries. He reminded them that the
Germans employed experts for all the jobs of supply, selection, and compiling
of texts, and in each field of study and administration.25 .And his concern
for the poor choice of poetry in the reading books was the concern of a poet
and professor of poetry.26

In 1871 under the New Code, which superseded the Revised Code, the sys-
tem of examinations for aid was improved but there was still a need for better
texts.27

I showed to a distinguished physiologist the papers in physiology

which had been worked under the present schedule; he told me that

every one was quite worthless, and that apparently the method and

text-books by which the subject had been taught were quite worth-
less too.

23. Higher Schools, p. 112.

21;: Ibid., p. 113.

 

25. Reports, p. 128. .
26. 121.51., p. 129.
27. 2933,, p. 157.
28. 3933., p. 157.

16

And of this was the text-book situation in a science course how much worse
must it have been in the less easily marked-off field of literature where
selection was most necessary. Arnold suggested that the Senior Inspectors,
like himself, in conjunction with the Department and the school boards, se-
lect material for texts.29

Writing, this time in an unofficial capacity, in the year 1877 Arnold
seemed to synthesize his ideas on text-books:

"... and my desire in education is to get a few good books

universally taught ani read. I think twenty is about all

I would have, in the direct teaching of the young and to be

learnt as text-books. Young people may read for themselves,
collaterally, as much as they like.

-3-

Arnold thought that one of the most mis-used instruments of instruction
in the English pOpular school system was the examination; the instrument used
to measure the students' lmowledge of the subjects which they were supposed
to have learned. Arnold discovered, however, that the system of examinations
in the schools under his inspection actually measured nothing but a student! s
capacity for cramming and memorizing subject matter and certain passages in.
texts which the teacher knew were most likely to be covered on the emine-
tions prepared by the Education Department. This situation existed because,
between the years 1862 and 1870, the amount of the government grant to Ar-
nold's schools was based, under the Revised Code of 1862, upon the scores, or

grades, of mechanical examinations. Arnold submitted these students' scores

 

29. Ibido, pp. 158-160.
30. Letters, 7010 II, p. 1611.

Q

Ml

with his Reports to the Department of Education. From each school's average
. the Department determined the amount of aid which the school should receive.
The schools with the highest averages received the most aid, and those with
the lowest averages received the least aid. It is not difficult to imagine
how this examination soon became the be—all and end-all of elementary school
instruction.3l

Arnold was quick to see how this regulation had back-«fired:

The mode of teaching in the primary schools has certainly fallen

off in intelligence, spirit, and inventiveness during the four

or five years which have elapsed since my last report. It could

not well be otherwise. In a country where everyone is prone to

rely too much on mechanical processes, and too little on intel-

ligence, a change in the Education Department's regulations,

which by making two-thirds of the Government grant depend upon

a mechanical examination, inevitably gives a mechanical turn

to the school teaching, a mechanical turn to the inspection, is

and must be trying to the intellectual life of a school.32

The examinations had not achieved their aim. They took up too much of
the student's time, and their importance to him was over-emphasized. The
children could get through the examinations, to the teachers' pecuniary ben-
efit, without having any knowledge of the subjects. Arnold knew that, in
the eni, the teachers would win this game of mechanical ccntrivances. It
salved public opinion, but it did not suit the schools”.33

The English, in general, placed too much emphais on reading merely for
examinations, certificates, diplomas, and honors. This practice wasnot in
favor with the Germans. The English children memorized certain likely mater-
ials in their texts, and, even if they could not read any other portions of

the books, they could regurgitate certain passages for examination. This

 

31. Reports, p. 1115.
32. Ibid., Po 1210
33‘. Ibid., p. 12h.

15

system established a certain minimum to be learned. The teacher was forced

to concentrate on producing this minimum, which had nothing to do with good

and adequate instruction.3h Arnold could see that the overwhelming prepon-

derance given to examinations had to be reduced, and cited as an alternative
method that used in Germany, where, at examination time,

”a scholar of fair ability and proper diligence may at the end

of his school course come to it with a quiet mind, and without

a painful preparatory effort tending to relaxation and torpor

as soon as the effort is over."3
These German examinations consisted of the writing of intelligent compositions
and of translation, for which the students could not cram.

The Germans encouraged a love of study and science for their own sakes,
not for examinations and posts. About one third of university students in
Germany really worked, which was a much higher proportion than in England,
or Austria where too many examinations were given and most of them were quite
worthless.36 Arnold quoted the French professor, M. Laboulaye: "'Le pays \a
emens, l'Autriche, est pregisement celui dans lequel on us travaille pas.'"37
Arnold thought that no matter how many examinations were given, or how much
importance was placed upon them, the students' knowledge of the subjects
taught could not be determined if the chief motive for the examination was to
secure an increase in the grant. According to Arnold, as in other matters

of education, the German method of examination set the example for the English

school system.

4..-

Matthew Arnold considered the school inspector to be a very important

3’4; GLIDE-go, pp. 1115-1146.
35; Higher SChOOl§J Po 550
36. E220, Po 1148—1190
370 EEO, P0 11490

I.

h6

organ of instruction, though he knew that a man of much less learning and
literary talent than he possessed could perform the routine tasks of inspect-
ing, examining and reporting to the satisfaction of the Education Council.
Arnold was not satisfied with merely fulfilling his duties; he thought that
he should exercise his critical faculties as well.’ We have noted some of his
criticisms and suggestions on particular phases of elementary education in
his reports on the schools in his district. I will conclude this chapter by
giving some idea of his itinerary of secondary schools and his prediction of
what he thought these schools would do for the middle class. And since
Arnold turns, almost in despair, from commenting on his routine as an inspec-
tor, we must look to his generalizations on the education of middle class and
his effect on others who had different notions about culture. By comparing
Arnold's and Whitman's criticisms of one another, for example, and suggesting
the differences between the critical methods of Arnold and T.S. Eliot one
may obtain an interesting perspective of the idea of culture which Arnold
brougit to his occupation. Arnold was a literary and an educational critic.
He was a critic as inspector of schools; as an instrument ~of instruction.
Arnold was called upon to inspect certain secondary schools from time
to time. These were in much better condition than the elementary schools,
and he was particularly pleased with the religioustraining given in these
lower middle-class training schools. Some of these with the years in which
he visited them were :3 8
.1. Wesleyan Training College, Westminster. 1853, 1856, 1868.
2. Training College of the British and Foreign School Society, Borough
Road. 1858. ‘ ‘
3. Borough Road and Stockwell. College for Schoolmistresses. 1861, 186b,

[1867.

38. See ”Extracts from Reports on Training Colleges for Teachers" in Reports
On Elementary Schools, pp. 26lp298.

117

1:. Training College of the Congregational Board of Education at Homerton,

1868.

The great share of Arnold's time was taken up in inspecting elementary

schools, however, and in 1851; he remarked that he was grateful for his ter-

ritory having been cut down in size. Evidently the Department was displeased

by some of his critical reporting, for he states that an inspector should re.-

port what he sees regardless of how it will look in the press.”

In the same year, while visiting Balliol College at Oxford, thirteen years

after he had entered that school, his remarks in a letter to his wife indicate

that he is hopeful about some of the products of his Training Colleges:

But I am much struck with the apathy and oorness of the people
here, as they now strike me, and their pe ty pottering habits
compared with the students of Paris, or Germany, or even of
London. Animation and interest and the power of work seem so
sadly wanting in them. And I think this is so; and the place,
in losing Newman and his followers, has lost his religious
Movement, which after all kept it from stagnating, and has not
yet, so far as I see got anything better. However, we must
hope that the coming changes, and perhaps the infusion of Dis-
senters' sons of that muscular, hard-working,un unblase middle
class—for it is this, in spite of its abominable disagreeEQ
ableness—may brace the flaccid sinews of Oxford 9. little.

After he had been an inspector of schools for thirteen years he did not

sound so hopeful when he wrote in 186).; to lady de Rothschild:

I must go back to my charming occupation of hearing students
give lessons. Here is my programme for this afternoon: Ava-
lanches—The Steam Engine—The Thames—India Rubber—B ricks—
The Battle of Poictiers—Subtraction-—The Reindeer—The Gun-
powder Plot—The Jordan. Alluring, is it not? Twenty

minutes each, fill the days of One's life are only three-score

years and ten.

 

39.
110.

Reports, lpp. 32-ho.
Letters, vol. I, pp. 1111-115.

Ibid.’ V01. I,-p. 281.

5“

1:8

And six years later it seemed as though his duties muld finally pre-
vent any further attention to those cultural pursuits which he loved most.

Yet, after all, it is absurd that all the best of my days
should be taken up with matters which thousands of other
people could do just as well as I, and that what I have a
special turn for doing I should have no time for.h2

Arnold had a "special turn" for knowing and instructing the middle class.
For many years he had entertained the notion of one day being able to witness
the sine cnla non of the great "muscular" class by visiting the United States.
Arnold was a master of generalization, and it seems to me that his opinion
of Walt Whitman, for instance, embodied his whole notion of the state of cul-

ture and education in a country without a great cultural tradition and don.-
inated by middle class mediocrity. He thought that in England, at least, the
aristocracy had set an educational and critical standard for the middle class
which could not be appreciated by Americans. On the other hand, it was just

this aristocratic quality in Arnold which was objectionable to Whitman;
There were few Americans for whom Arnold had much respect, outside of
Emerson, to whom he wrote in 1866:
As to the general question of Mr. Walt Whitman's poetical.
achievements, you will think it savours of ourdecrepit old
Europe when I add that while you think it is his highest
merit that he is so unlike anyone else, to me this seems to
be his demerit; no one can afford in literature to trade

merely on his own bottom and to take no account of what other
nations have acquiredw

It was not known whether or not Whitman was aware of this summary of his
poetry, but when he was asked to report to the New York Herald, April 16, 1888,
on the death of Matthew Arnold he said that literature was over-weighted with
fine gentlemen, purists and scholars, and "I doubt whether America will miss
Arnold at all. He was ... one of the dudes of literature."h14

Arnold had no genius—only a peculiarly clever order of refined
112. £333., vol. II, p. 50.

1:3. John Howard Birss, "Whitman on Arnold ," 1%, leii, (May, 1932) , p. 316.
ML. 3331., p. 317.

...4-,

O

27

marshalling the forces of government in order to stimulate the public to an

awareness of its cultural needs.

.5.

One of the last duties Arnold performed for the Education Office, before '
his death in 1888, was to make one final report (1885-1886) on the elementary
schools in Continental countries. The report concerned the systems in
Switzerlarxi and Germany in particular, and contained few personal comments
of Arnold's which might reveal what, at this late date, was the general sit—-
uation of‘education in England. This was purely a factual report, highly
technical, and containing many figures and statistics which he was able to
copy from school records, or obtain from officials. The important thing for
us is that the Government of England was interested in pursuing a plan for
the improvement of the elementary school systen. The particular points with
which the Government was concerned, and the ones which he was supposed to
cover, were the following:73

1. Free education

2. Quality of education

3. Status, training and pensioning of teachers

1;. Canpulsory attendance and release from school
In reviewing this report it is easy to see that the Government had very de—
finite ideas for a plan of improving the popular schools in particular. Ar—
nold my well, by this time, have begun to see the fruits of suggestions which

he made sane twenty years earlier, like those in Chapter III of Culture and

 

73. Matthew Arnold, Special Repprt on Certain Points Connected with Elemen-
tcary Education in Germany, SwitzerlandLand France, London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1886, p. 1.

So

student's first acquaintance with Bengel's Commentary to the ad-
mission of a ray of light when a shutter was opened in a darkened
room. The arrival of Matthew Arnold at my lodgings was somethirg
like this. He brought with him a complete atmosphere of culture
and poetry. He had something to tell of Saints—Beuve's latest
criticism, some new book like Lewes' Life of Goethe to recommend,
some new political interest to unfold, and, in short, he carried
you away from the routine of everyday life with his enthusiasm
and his spirit. He gave me most valuable advice as to the train-
ing of pupil teachers. "Open their minds,” he would say, "take
them into the world of Shakespeare, and try to make them feel
that there is no book so full of poetry and beauty as the Bible."
He had something to tell me of Stanley and Clough, and it is
really difficult to say what a delightful tonic effect his visits
produced ... One of his pleasantest characteristics was his per-
fect readiness to discuss with complete command of temper, views
and opinions of his own which he knew I did not share and thought
dangerous. All who knew him constantly regretted that a man of
such wonderful gifts should have to spend his life in the labor-
ious duties of a School InspectorJL

Following Arnold's ideas on how to improve the school system, we have
noted that he eXpressed his Opinions on what he thought the prOper organs of
instruction in this system should be. He was in favor of University-trained
teachers who held a certificate showing that they had mastered the subjects
to be taught and were thoroughly prepared to teach them. He saw a great need
for the improvement, selection, and standardization of texts for the popular
schools. He advised the Education Office that the examinations in the schools
which he inspected were inadequate, too numerous, and were no true measure
of the students' knowledge. In his capacity as an inspector he found the
routine of inspection almost unbearable and revealed that his true value to
the systan of instruction lay in the fact that he was a critic and knew what
the middle class needed educationally. We shall see that when he expressed
his opinions on what he thought should be taught in the schools his voice

began to awaken the English to their educational needs.

 

1:8. Sir Joshua Fitch, Thomas and Matthew Arnold and Their Influence on Eng-
lish Education, New York: Charles Scribnerls Sons, 1899, pp. 167-168.

 

Chapter III

School subjects

As in other matters of education.Arnold's ideas on what he thought should
be taught in the English popular school system.can be grouped under several
headings. I shall discuss his Opinions on the subject of religion, science
and crafts, grammar and language, and literature. 1y concluding remarks will
be a summary-of Arnold's general notion of culture and its humanizing effect
upon the students. I

The British and National schools were originally.founded to provide the
children of poorer families with fundamental religious instruction and a know
ledge of reading and writing. Religious education remained an important and
controversial subjects throughout Arnold's career as an Inspector. In the
British schools which he inspected, the instruction in this subject was not
uniform, but varied with the sectarian views of the particular Protestant
church in each community. .Arnold thought that this situation kept the child-
ren from learning the great spiritual.and social lessons of the Bible, while
stressing the importance of sectarian dogma. Actual teaching of the Bible
was neglected by the managers of the British elementary schools, and this was
one of the main.reason for setting up these schools. The religious educa-
tion was not subject to inspection, but from his own observations.Arnold
thought that the children in.his schools knew next to nothing about the Bible.
He reported in 1869 that the Education Council should

make the main outlines of Bible history, and the getting by

heart a selection of the finest Psalms, the most interesting

passages from the historical and prophetical books of the Old

Testament, and the chief parables, discourses, and exhorta—

tions of the New, a part of the regular school work, to be

submitted to inspection and to be seen in its strength er
weakness like amy other.1

M

1. Reports, pp. 151—152.

51

In 1868 Arnold had found that the Congregational school at Homerton, a
secondary school, had one of the best plans for religious instruction. Un-
like the Church of England schools and the Wesleyan schools it was not merely
for Anglicans or for Wesleyans, but for those who held "Evangelical views of
religion.”2 They excluded Socinians and Roman Catholics, and in this respect
the Congregational school was identical to the Protestant schools of Germany,
whose authorities recognized essential differences in religion and effaced
the non-essential. German schools were either Protestant or Catholic.3

Arnold hoped that the German system of religious education would be a-
dopted in Englarxi. In the German Protestant schools religion was taught from
an historical rather than a dogmatic viewpoint. It was presented in connec-
tion with universal. history, which was a very important subject in the Ger-
mn schools. This broad view of religion awakened a student's interest ani
stimulated him to ”active research on definite points."h Arnold thought that
because the German teaching was more systematic it was also more penetrating
and interesting than the more particular and dogmatic religious instruction
in England. He recommded as texts for religious instruction in higher ed-

ucation, Bossuet's Universal Histog: for the Roman Catholic view and Weber's

 

Universal History for the Protestant view.

 

Arnold could think of no more stimulating program than that offered in
the secondary, Protestant, German schools as part of the regular course. Brief-

1y, it was this:

 

2. Ibid.’ p. 289.
3c Ibido, P0 2900
he Ibido, P0 2936

,1.

52

First year - three hours a week in history of the Hebrews and reading
the Old Testament.

Second year - three hours a week with the life of Christ ani reading
the New Testament.

Third year - three hours a week with the relationship between the Old
Testament and the New Testament, and the rise and development of Christianity
and Church history. Sometimes this went further into the history of all
leading systems of religion and phi1050phy in the world .5

Arnold, like his father before him, believed in the Bible as an instru-
ment of instruction. He thought that for most elementary pupils it was their
only contact with good eloquence.6 So far as popular education was concemed
Arnold preferred the German distinction between religions. In Germany the
schools were either Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Jewish in their religious
instruction and the state recognized them as such. The Protestant schools
were not divided into those bodies which believed that a certain scheme of
doctrine they had gathered from the Bible, represented the essence of the Bi-
ble, and had taken to themselves the denomination of Methodist, Baptist, Evan-
gelical, etc., as was the case in England. Arnold thought that the name ”E-
vangelical” in England aroused a misunderstanding and the claim of this title

by that group ought not to be conceded.7 Evangelisch in Germany meant simply

 

...the man who goes to the New Testament, and to the Old
Testament as seen and applied from the point of view under
which the New Testament teaches us to see and apply it, for
his religion, in contradistinction to the nun who goes to
any other authority for it “the authority of the Church,
of tradition, of the Pope.3

 

5. [3339,, pp. 29h~295.
6. 931.. pp. 296-297.
7. 9532-. pp. 297-298.
8. £111., p. 297.

53"

Arnold saw this as the only sensible definition of Evangelical and he

 

hoped that those Englishmen who were devoted to the Bible and Christianity
could see the value of extracting great lessons from the Bible as the coun-
try developed progressively in matters of education.

Therefore it is that the thorough study and appropriation

of the Bible, both in itself and in all the course of its

relations with human history, is of so great fruitfulness

ard importance. In my Opinion, they are the best friends

of popular education, as well as the best construers of

the word Evangelical, who, however attached to their own

particular Church or confession, yet can recognize this

fruitfulness and importance most fully, and who show the

greatest largeness of mind in giving effect of their sense

of it.9

Arnold did not think that am" progress in the correct teaching of the
Bible and religion could be made until the churches in England accepted a
whole new approach to religion. He, like many other scholars of his day,
could see that an inevitable revolution was be-falling the religion in which
they had been brought up. Science and the industrial age were dictating that
whatever stood must be verifiable, and people were becoming sceptical of the
assumptions and the gloss which all churches and sects put upon the Bible
and religion.10 Their quest for reason and authority for the things they had
been taught to believe was set down by the clergr as being merely irreligion.
Arnold thought that the people of all sects needed a new, sound, reasonable
basis for studying the Bible and going to church. His answer, which he keeps
repeating in his essays, was culture. The object of religion was conduct,
and conduct was three-fourths of life. But neither the clergy nor the lay-

man were able to extract the great lessons of conduct and righteousness from

the Bible without "culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has

 

90 Ibid., P0 2980

10. Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, New York: Macmillan and Company,
19214, Preface, p. viii.

 

Sh

been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human
spirit."11

In their religious teaching the English popular schools did not take
this historical approach as did the German schools. In England the religi—
ous instruction was confined to the particular sectarian dogma of each parish.
Arnold believed that this method of teaching religion and the Bible would not

last in England, and that some day the German approach would be adopted.

-2.

By the year 1876 there were several "extra" subjects being taught in the
elementary schools under Arnold's inspection. These subjects could be elect-
ed by the students to supplement the regular course in the ”three R's." Some
of these subjects were animal physiology, physical geography, and botany, all
of which Arnold thought too advanced and confusing for elementary students.
He thought that there should be a sort of general science course as a part of
the regular curriculum in place of these detailed science extras. “I should

like to see what the Germans call Naturkunde --1mowledge of the facts and

 

laws of nature—added as a class subject to Grammar, Geography, and English
History for all students above the Third Standard."12

Arnold could see that though the children were taught what made night
and day and the seasons, for example, they were not taught the related phe—
nomena of weather conditions. He thought that they needed a simple instruc-

tion in the laws and facts of nature and that a good text should be drawn up

 

11. Ibid., p. Xi.

12. Reports, p. 191.

55

onthe subject by a man of science who could write clearly and orderly. This
would give the children an elementary knowledge of nature instead of present-
ing the existing hodge-podge of science courses which had no relative or com-
bined general meaning.13

Always, in reporting on the subjects which were being taught in his
schools, Arnold stressed the importance of simplicity and clarity of meaning,
so that the stuients could relate their knowledge to other subjects and to
their lives and environment. Even in the matter of working sums he said,

Our system of weights and measures is indeed such an absurdity,

that one is disposed to say reform it altogether, rather than

to suggest means for working sums in it with more facility. But

I am assured, and I believe it, that if the scholar had actually

before his eyes the weights and measures with which his sums

deal—an ounce, a pound, a pint, a quart, a foot, a yard-he

could work his sums in weights ard measures more intelligently

and more successfullyJ-h

Paradoxical as it may seem to those who associate Arnold's significance
to his age with the broad notion of culture, some of his comments in his re-
ports have a remarkably practical aim. In one of his first reports, 1853, he
stressed the economic importance of teaching needlework to girls after noting
that one family in his district, receiving parochial relief, had quite a bill
'with the town dressmaker.15 He also thought that a child with a particular
talent for drawing should be encouraged, but reading and writing should come
first.16 The foundation for the acquisition of culture should not be sacri-
ficed to any emphasis on arts and, crafts. These subjects, Arnold thought,
should be incidental to reading and writing.
130 £132.21.” PP. 206-207.
1h. 911g” pp. 202-203.
153 $§3§,, p. 28.

16. Ibid., p. 31.

56

While inspecting the course work in a training college in the year 1861,
Arnold noticed that

music and chemistry had the power of awakening students in
class, of striking the electric chain in them, in a way in
which no other part of their instruction can. No doubt it
is because of this capacity that the civilizing power of
music has always been famed so highly; for instruction
civilises a raw nature only so far as it delights and en-
kindles it. Perhaps it will be found that physical science h
has, for such natures, something of 5 similar power, am!
that we may well make more use of both agents than we do at
present. Undoubtedly no refining influence is more power—
ful than that of literary culture; but this influence seems
to need in the recipient a certain refinement of nature at
the outset in order to make itself felt; and with this pre—
vious refinement music and physical science appear able to
dispense.l7

 

He saw the value of subjects which interested and delighted the student
and in recommending music and physical sciences for the secondary instruction
of the lower classes ofsmiety he showed an understanding and sympathy toward
the problems of educators at this level. The things which Arnold insisted
upon most doggedly, however, were the proper teaching of grammar and litera-

ture.

~3-
Arnold considered the subject of grammar as a valmble exercise having
a definite humanizing effect on the minds of elementary students. On the sub-
ject of grammar he had mmething to say about Latin as being an aid to the
study of English granular, and about spelling, recitation, paraphrasing, and

parsing sentences.
Arnold would liked to have seen Latin used more and more as a special

 

1?. Ibido, P. 2790

57

subject, and eventually as a part of the regular instruction in the elementary
schools under'his inspection. ”Latin is the foundation of so much in the writ-
ten and spoken language of modern EurOpe, that is is the best language to take
as a second language."18 He thought that it was an object of reference ard
comparison, having a stimulating and instructing effect upon the students. It
was the best language for learning grammar. The teachers in his schools should
not, however, as was done in the classical schools, go too deeply into gram-
matical framework, and they should by all means stay away from classical Iatin.
"A second language, and a language coming very largely into the vocabulary of
modern nations, is what Latin should stand for to the teacher of an elementary
school."19 The best reading book for these students would be the Latin Vulp
gate Bible.

A chapter or two from the story of Joseph, a chapter or two frcm

Deuteronomy, and the first two chapters of St. Luke's Gospel

would be the sort of delectus we want; add to them a vocabulary

and a simple grammar of the main forms of the Latin language,

and you have a perfectly compact and cheap schoolbook, and yet

all that you need.20
Arnold did not recommend classical latin for elementary students because it
was in a foreign idiom and not more than one out of five thousand of his pus-
pils would go on to Virgil and Cicero in secondary schools. He thought that
the value of Latin for elementary students was in giving them grammatical e25-
ercise and a vocabulary which was at the bottom of much of modern life and
language.

Arnold thought that the spelling of English words should conform close-
1y to their derivation, and he was disturbed by proposals for reforming spell-

ing. He recognized the difficulty which foreigners had in learning English

 

18. Ibid., pp. 1611—165.
19. Ibid., p. 165.
20. Ibid., pp. 165-166.

58

spelling due to its irregularities. However, he thought that it should not
be difficult for the English child if he were taught spelling correctly:
”-—the English nation will not be induced, in the hope of making it easier,

to take to writing Leed 33.: not intu temtaishon."21 The teachers should have

 

pointed out the bltmders of printers who liked symmetry. For instance, "we

find almost universally connection, reflection, instead of connexion, reflex-

 

 

}gg. This the printers give us from the analogy of words like affection,

collection, and for the sake of symetry.”22 Arnold, in his reports, gave

 

examPles of the Latin roots of these words which proved that the printers'
usage was irrational. He thought that there should be a permanent Royal Com-
mission for watching the language, taking care that it be rational and not
stereotyped.23

Of all the special subjects which were being taught in the elementary
schools Arnold thought that recitation was producing the most good. For this

subject the student was required to learn a passage of literature to be recit-

ed before the class. After the recital he was questionedon the meaning of
the passage and supposedly on its significance to the elementary student.
This was not always done to Arnold's satisfaction. He said that at best, an
elementary education gave the child "the mechanical possession of the instru-
ment of knowledge, but does nothing to form him, to put him in a way of making
the best possible use of them.”211 For recitation he said that a familiarity

with a limited number of masterpieces, each one standing singly, would do the

 

21. _l[_b_i§_., p. 196.
22. £933., p. 197.
23. _I_b_i§.., p. 198.
214. _I'_b_5:_<_i_., p. 163.

rs

59

most toward "forming" the younger children. For the advanced students the
masterpieces should be arranged in some well planned order. Recitation
should, in the absence of literary study, increase the stuients' power of p
perception.25 For increasing the general intelligence of the students Arnold
thought that recitation was the best method. However, the passages were mere-
ly learned by heart in some cases, with no attention to their meaning, and
they did not represent the best literature. There should have been a better
text, with passages from the classics instead of from the rubbish which was
currently used for these texts.26 Arnold believed that learning by heart ex-
tracts from good authors was the best elementary exercise for the improvement

of paraphrasing. He found in his schools that passages were talked about too

 

'much and not learned enough. If there had been good discipline in the learn-

ing of these passages, in the right‘nature a sense of appreciation for the
meaning'and the beauty of literature would .‘t‘oZL'Low.27

In 187).; Arnold expressed his consciousness of the relationship between

a good foundation in grammar and the study of literature. "The animation of
mind, the multiplying of ideas, the promptness to connect, in the thoughts,
one thing with another, are what we wanted; just what letters, as they are
called, are supposed to communicate."28 With this thought in mind Arnold
watched the grammar portion of the examinations of candidates for admission

to training schools.

The grammar paper, then, is eminently a test of mental activity
and resource, and hence its importance. To work successfully a

 

25." Egg” p. 163.

26. _I_b_ig., pp. 182-183.-
27. $323.3” pp. Sit-95.
28. Egg” p. 175.

O

sum in stocks requires, comparatively, but a narrow diversion of

the whole extent of our faculties to be called into play; to work

a grammar or literature paper successfully requires a much larger

one ... Altogether, the paper is one which tests his information,

judgments, and taste more thoroughly than any other of his papers

tests them.29

Arnold found the results of these tests deplorable, and there had been
no improvement in them for the past twenty years. The paraphrasing portion
of the examination, which tested the range of ideas and the quickness of ap-
prehension on the part of the student, was particularly bad. The quotations
for paraphrasing were, in themselves, not well chosen by the Education Depart-
ment.30

Arnold regarded grammar as a course in elementary logic. To those who
belittled its importance and complained of its simplicity, he pointed out a
simple examination question which was commonly misinterpreted by his elemen-
tary students:

Yes is it so insignificant a mental exercise to distinguish beiwreen

the use of shelter in the two phrases: "to shelter under an umbrella,"

and "to take shelter under an umbrella"?31 .

In 1880 Arnold thought that parsing was one of the best disciplines of
grammar if it were taught judiciously. The English language had an analytic
character, and it should be taught by the analytic method of parsing, instead
of with the machinery borrowed from the grammar of synthetic languages.”
The analytic method saved children from puzzled minds, and made them under-

stand more readily the use of case, mood, and tense, and teachers should

 

290 Ibid., p. 1760
300 Igido, PO 1760
31. Ibid., p. 216.

32. Ibid., p. 2&0.

61

"beget in them an interest in what is one of the most naturally interesting
of things - language. And at the same time they are teaching English grammar
in the true philosOphical way."33
The importance which Arnold placed on the stuiy of grammar by elementary
stiflents cannot be underestimated. And he was extremely anxious that this
subject be presented to them clearly arxi in an interesting manner.
Ch‘almnar is an exercise of the children's wits; all. the rest of their
work is in general but an exercise of their memory. But, after learn-
ing the definition of a noun, to recognize nouns when one meets them,
and to refer them to their definition, that is an exercise of intel-
ligence. I observe that it animates the children, even amuses them.
Indeed, all that relates to language, that familiar but wonderful
phenomenon, is naturally interesting if it is not spoiled by being
treated pedantically. In teaching grammar, not to attempt too much
and to be thoroughly suple, orderly, and clear, is most important}
These remarks of Arnold's on the subject of grammar showed that he thought
the subject to be extremely inportant for the beginning student as a founda-
tion for learning to read the best that had been written. If we understand
Arnold's ideas on the subject of grammar, we may more readily understand his

ideas on the subject of the study of literature in the English popular school

system.

+-

It can be well imagined the importance which Arnold placed upon liter-e
atln‘e as a class subject for school—children. As a poet, professor of poetry,
critic and inspector of schools he was especially well qualified to pass judg-

ment upon the quality of the instruction and the reading matter in this course.

 

33. Ibid., PO 211—1.

But Ibid., pp. 189-1900

62

From the comments in his reports we shall see that he had little admiration
for the effect which the existing literature courses were producing on his
students. He could not accept the fact that in England the instruction in
this subject was so much less formative than in the popular schools of other
countries he visited. In 1863 he had an opportunity to observe, unofficially,
the instruction in several Scottish schools. He was immediately reminded of
the instability of some English students to read well and to understand what
they had read, and also of the inferior quality of the material which they
were asked to reproduce on examinations. The Scotch students, as a body

---certainly have more culture. I attribute this to the effect
insensibly produced on all classes in the country by the long
establishment of education for all, as a mattgr of public insti-
tution and national importance, in Scotland.3

Arnold's statement revealed the connection in his mind between culture
and complusony education. He thought that if English educational authorities
had the respect for culture which the authorities in other European countries
had, the English schools would be turning out a much better educated product.
The schoolmasters and pupil—teachers under Arnold‘s inspection simply did not
have the proper training and sense of culture necessary to teach a satisfac-
tory course in reading.

The culture both of the pupil-teacher and of the elementary school-
master with us seems to me’to resist the efforts made to improve
it and to renain unprogressive, more than that of the corresponding
class on the Continent. Ignorance is nothing; such a blunder as
this of an English stuient, 'Pope lived a little prior to the
Christian era,‘ a French or Swiss student might also commit; but
the hopeless want of tact and apprehensiveness shown by such a sen-
tence as this, 'I should consider Newton as a great author; first-
ly, on account of the style and value of his works; secondly, on ac-
count of his most valuable and wonderful discoveries, coupled with
the pains he took 39 diffuse his self-acquired knowledgg among the
oole ' no French or Swiss student who had read the books and heard
Ehe lectures which the English student who wrote that sentence had

 

 

 

 

35. Ibid., p. 108.

63

heard and read, would in my opinion ever equal. It is true that
if you take the bulk of the scholars, even in schools for the
richer classes, the rate of culture is very low; but then it is
to be remembered that our pupil-teachers and students are a select
body, not the bulk of a class, and have gone through a careful.
training and schooling.3

Arnold must have been continually criticized by the Education Office for
his relentless insistence upon the importance of reading, literature, and of
comPulsory education. At times his remarks on these topics were extremely
bitter. He could not refrain from hammering at the value of literature as
being the best cultural subject for elementary students.

What is comprised under the word literature is in itself the great-

est power available in education; of this power it is not too much

to say that in our elementary schools at present no use is made at

all. The reading books and the absence of plan being what they are,

the whole use that the Government makes of the mighty engine of
literature in the education of the working classes, amounts to little

more, even when most successful, than the giving them the power to
read the newspapers.37

Good poetry, especially, was extremely valuable in the teaching of ele-
mentary students. Arnold could see that memorizing passages of poetry was
helpful in teaching the pupils to read with ease and understanding. While
accounplishing this it also moulded their natures and civilized them.

But good poetry is formative; it has, too, the precious power of

acting by itself and in a way managed by nature, not through the

instrumentality of that somewhat terrible character, the scientif-

ic educator. I believe that even the rhythm and diction of good

poetry are capable of exercising some formative effect, even though

the sense be imperfectly understood. But of course the good of

poetry is not really got unless the sense of the words is known.3

Arnold also thought that poetry enlarged the students' vocabulary and
circle of ideas. He observed that their lack of vocabulary was their greatest

defect, but by 1880 he was pleased to notice that the study and memorization

 

36. Ibid. , pp. 106-107 0
37. Ibid., p. 157.
38. Ibid., p. 210.

b3

Ami of this was the text-book situation in a science course how much worse
must it have been in the less easily marked-off field of literature where
selection was most necessary. Arnold suggested that the Senior Inspectors,
like himself, in conjunction with the Department and the school boards, se-
lect material for texts.”

Writing, this time in an unofficial capacity, in the year 1877 Arnold
seemed to synthesize his ideas on text-books:

"... and my desire in education is to get a few good books

universally taught arxi read. I think twenty is about all

I would have, in the direct teaching of the young and to be

learnt as text-books. Young people may read for themselves,
collaterally, as much as they like.

-3—

Arnold thought that one of the most mis-used instruments of instruction
in the English pepular school system was the examination; the instrument used
to measure the students' lmowledge of the subjects which they were supposed
to have-lemed. Arnold discovered, however, that the system of examinations
in the schools under his inspection actually measured nothing but a student! 3‘
capacity for cramming and memorizing subject matter and certain passages in.
texts which the teacher knew were most likely to be covered on the examina-
tions prepared by the Education Department. This sitmtion existed because,
be‘hreen the years 1862 and 1870, the amount of the government grant to Ar-

nold's schools was based, under the Revised Code of 1862, upon the scores, or

grades, of mechanical examinations. Arnold submitted these stiflents' scores

 

29. Ibid., pp. 158-160.

30. Letters, vol. 11, p. 16h.

Q

beauty and interest should occur within the limits of the passage
learnt.

He thought that some of the best selections for elementary students
would be short poems by Mrs. Hemans like "The Gr'aves of a Household," "The
Homes of England" or "The Better Land.” If seleCtions from Shakespeare or
Scott were to be used they must be kept short and contain a center of inter-
est."3

No matter what was offered in the English schools in 1880, however, the
fact still remained to plague Arnold that throughout England during the nine-
teenth century the quality of instruction in the schools in general had lagged-
pitifully behind that of the French and German schools, Arnold thought that
this deficiency manifested itself in the quality and style of English letters,
and even in governmental jargon. The Government had not planned, organized,
and directed the instruction of the populace, but had allowed religious fac-
tions to harnper and compromise its efforts. In England there was no strong
state supervision of schools and no academy to keep the language commonly in-
telligible. ‘

In 1859, while inspecting schools in France, Arnold compared the Code
Napoleon as an exmnple of rational, direct, lucid diction with the garble that
passed for legislative style in England. He said that the English official
diction had a medieval quality, unintelligible to all but a few Englishmen.
However, he had heard French peasants quoting the Code Napoleon. The ration-
al, intellible speech of their laws had a great effect on the general reason
and intelligence of the French people. In their country the state was the

organ of reasonJ‘h

 

h2. Ibid., p. 228.
h3. Ibid., p. 228.
141;. Popular Education, pp. 159-160.

In the study of his mother-tongue the French schoolboy had an advantage
over the English pupil. The French student learned something of his country‘s
language and literature, whereas the English pupil‘did not. .Arnold considered
French.grammar and literature to be better instruments of instruction, more
suitable for secondary schoolboys than were their English counterparts.L’5 He
said that there were five or six secondary schools in England, like Eton,
which gave a better education than the secondary schools of France, but they
'were extremely expensive and for the upper classes Only. He thought that Eng-
land needed more secondary schools like the French Toulouse Lyceum, or Soreze
CollegeJ‘6 England should be able to offer the same instruction as that of
Eton to the middle-class student forigs th§o_ per year instead 0 120 to

{200 which the upper classes were paying at Eton in 1861;.117 Arnold lamented
the fact that in England there were no governmental provisions for the “accu-
rities of supervision and publicity'i for the secondary schools such as there
were in France.L8 In England the only recourse for the middle-class student
who desired a secondary education was a trade school or a teachers' training
college. Because of great expense of attending them, the classical schools
were not available to the middle-class students.

In Germany a student who siccessfully passed from the primary school
could go on to the secondary school to learn, among other things, something
of the great literature of his country. German students could then obtain

a superior idea of the meaning of literature and culture. Arnold noticed

 

15. A French Eton, p. 1:35.
h6. Ibid., pp. him-1:118.
1:7. Ibid., p. 11511.

h8. _I__b_ig_., p. 1461.

h6

organ of instruction, though he knew that a man of much less learning and
literary talent than he possessed could perform the routine tasks of inspect-
ing, examining and reporting to the satisfaction of the Education Council.
Arnold was not satisfied with merely fulfilling his duties; he thought that
he should exercise his critical faculties as well. 'We have noted some of his
criticisms and suggestions on particular phases of elementary education in
his reports on the schools in his district. I will conclude this chapter by
giving some idea of his itinerary of secondary schools and his prediction of
what he thought these schools would do for the middle class. And since
Arnold turns, almost in despair, from commenting on his routine as an inspec-
tor, we must look to his generalizations on the education of middle class and
his effect on others who had different notions about culture. By comparing
Arnold's and Whitman's criticisms of one another, for example, and suggesting
the differences between the critical methods of Arnold and T.S. Eliot one
may obtain an interesting perspective of the idea of culture which Arnold
brought to his occupation. Arnold was a literary and an educational critic.
He was a critic as inspector of schools; as an instrument of instruction.

Arnold was called upon to inspect certain secorrlary schools from time
to time. These were in much better condition than the elementary schools,
and he was particularly pleased with the religioustraining given in these
larer middle-class training schools. Some of these with the years in which
he visited them were:38

_1. Wesleyan Training College, Westminster. 1853, 1856, 1868.

2. Training College of the British and Foreign School Society, Borough

Road. 1858. I
3. Borough Road and Stockwell College for Schoolmistresses. 1861, 1861;,

1867.

38. See ”Extracts from Reports on Training Colleges for Teachers" in imports
On Elementary Schools, pp. 26l—298. ....

classes the teacher questioned the children on a ballad by Goethe. They
compared it with a ballad by Schiller, noted the differences, pointed out
'wherein lay their particular charm.and the interest of the Middle.Ages and
Chivalry for them, etc. In short, this was an active and intelligent class
performance'which would have been good in a much.higher class in England.52
The point which Arnold wanted to‘make here, as in most of his statements
concerning literature as a subject which should be taught in the English
popular schools, was that good literature should be taught and discussed in
such a manner that all the students could get an historical notion of its
importance and place in their own.1ives. It Should be taught in such a
manner that the great lessons which it contained would form their character
and civilize them.as no other subject could do. In.the twentieth century
'we, in.America, have failed to recognize this power which literature has for
the elementary'student.53 Matthew Arnold has taught us that

culture 1% the study of perfection and that no man can at-

tain perfection unless he carry others along with him in

.seeking this goal, unless he seek 'to make reason and the
of God prevail among mankind.'5h

.5.

The last topic which I shall discuss concerning Matthew Arnold's idea
of education isthat idea which became the very motive for his existence-

culture. 'Why'he prescribed a cultural, or liberal education for the middle

 

52. Special Report, p. 15.

53. Florence L. Ingram, "Matthew.Arnold, The Educator," Education, LKIV,
(September, l923—June, 192h), p. 206.

She Ibid., Po 207.

1“

69

class society of England, in particular, as opposed to a practical or sci-
entific education, is a question which will take us into the best of Matthew
Arnold's writings. Arnold was, throughout his life, appalled at the self-
satisfaction and narrow-mindedness of the great, busy middle class in England.
This class was satisfied with itself, but he was not satisfied with it, and

he asked of them, perfection, since they had inherited the government of Eng.»
land from the aristocracy. Some men, like Professor Huxley and Herbert Spenc-
er, thought that science and technology were what this ascendant class needed
for assuming the direction of the new industrial state. Arnold thought that,
more than ever, the middle class needed culture. How culture would make the
middle class fit to rule will be shown in this last section.

Arnold saw in the American Civil War the case of a middle class not being
satisfied to remain as it was, and though there were many things which he did
not like about Amarica, he did think that this was a healthy sign.5S He thought
that in England the stoggy old middle class would have been content with the
status quo, nay, they would have considered it perfection. The English middle
class which Arnold referred to as the Philistines, reminded him of the cru-
sade of Peter the Hermit. In answer to Arnold's admonitions the middle class
spokesmen were continually saying to him 'is this not Jerusalem? Is this not
perfection which we now have?' And Arnold would say to them, "Cod keeps tos-
sing back to the human race its failures, and commanding it to try again."56
This is not perfection. Keep striving tcwrard perfection, Jerusalem is not let.

The English middle class was Arnold's great adversary. This was the

class which resisted his efforts to bring religious compromise and culture to

 

55. A French Eton, p. 1199.

 

56. Ibid., p. 2499".

70

itself and to the lower classes. In l8S9, after making a report on the

French popular school system and recommending certain reforms suggested by

the superior quality and disposition of education among the lower classes

in France, Arnold was criticized by certain middle-class English periodicals
whose names he does not mention. They claimed that the lower classes in
France were discontented with their lot because of the extension of educational
opportunities, and they gave this as a good reason for suppressing compulsory
education in England. Arnold remarked that,

It is sufficient to say to those who hold it, that it is vain for

them to expect that the lower classes will be kind enough to remain

ignorant and unbettered merely for the sake of saving them incon-

venience. 7

Arnold gave ancient Athens as an example of a community which recognized
the value of culture; of a classical education for the lower am middle classes.
He said that culture and character were united in Athens; for the government
recognized that one was bad, or dangerous, without the other. Tradesmen and
shopkeepers were the speakers in the works of Plato and Xenophon. They had
a respect for ideas, they were refined, they were critics, they would not ac-
cept any but the best art and architecture.58 Arnold thought that there could
be no high standard of achievement in England, either in government or the
arts, mless the lower. and middle classes could obtain culture.

What was this middle class in England that Arnold attacked so bitterly
on the one hand and desired to salvage through education on the other? We
must answer this question before we summarize and establish a definition of
his idea of culture and education.

We in England have come to that point when the continued advance
and greatness of our nation is threatened by one cause, and one

 

57. Popular Education, pp. 166-167.

 

58. Ibid., p. xliii.

71

cause above all. Far more than by the helplessness of an aris-

tocracy whose day is fast coming to an end, far'more than by the

rawness of a lower class whose day is only just beginning, we are

imperilled by what I call the 'Philistinism' of our middle class.

On the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity; on the side of morals

and feelings, coarseness; on the side of mind and spirit, unintel-

ligence,—this is Philistinism.59

Hewever, I think that the thing which bothered Arnold the most about the
middle class was not its vulgarity, coarseness, and unintelligence, but its
resistance to improvement. They had now governmental control over a good
share of the world's population, and therefore thought themselves perfect.
Arnold admired the English for their strength and morality, (however coarse)
but he feared for their future. He insisted that England could not go on as
the leading 'world power' if its governing class were to remain self-satis-
fied.

But nothing has really a right to be satisfied with itself, to be

and remain itself, except that which has reached perfection; and

nothing has the right to impose itself on.the rest of the world

as a conquering force, except that which is of higher perfection

than the rest of the world. And such is the fundamental consti-

tution of human affairs, that the measure of right proves also,

in the end, the measure of power.

The road toward,this ultimate perfection of the middle class was a two-
way'traffic problem for the great educators of Victorian England. .Arnold
seemed to be the spokesman for those who would guide the "Philistines" on
the way of culture, and men like Spencer and Huxley were directing the middle
class along a practical, scientific path to perfection. Spencer said that in
the English Classical schools, as in the schools of ancient Greece, music,

poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy had little bearing upon action, or the "arts

of life."61

 

59. On the Study~ of Celtic Literature and On Translating Homer, Introduction,
p. xi. See also, pp. 1362137.

60. .5 French Eton, p. 195.

61. Herbert Spencer, Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical, New York:
D. Appleton and Company,'l881, p. 22.

 

 

 

{i

I.

7‘

72

If we inquire what is the real motive. for giving boys a classical
education, we find it to be simply conformity to public Opinion.
Men dress their chiédren's minds as they do their bodies, in the
prevailing fashion. 2

Spencer saw a classical education as merely an ornamental discomfort for the
sake of conformity. For life, health, livelihood, parenthood, national life,
art, discipline, and religion the proper study was science.63 Much the same
as John Dewey in the twentieth century, Spencer called for- an education which
was practical, and would fit a child for action. Let the child think and act,
he said, don't inhibit him, or be dogmatic; don't drill knowledge into him,
lead it out of him.

In answer to this, and other demands that natural science replace liter-
ature in the curricula of the popular school system in particular, Arnold
wrote to the Education Council in 1876.

The problem to be solved is a great deal more complicated than
many of the friends of natural science suppose. They see clearly
enough, for instance, how the working classes are, in their ignor-
ance, constantly violating the laws of health, and suffering ac-
cordingly; and they look to a Spread of sound natural science as
the remedy. What they do not see is that to know the laws of
health over so exactly, as a mere piece of positive knowledge, will
carry a man in general no great way. To have the power of using,
which is the thing wished, these data of natural science, a man
must, in general, have first been in some measure moralised and
for moralising him it will be found not easy, I think, to ispense
with those old agents, letters, poetry, religion. So let not om'
teachers be led to imagine, whatever they may hear and see of the
call for natural science, that their literary cultivation is un-
important. The fruitful use of natural science itself depends, in
a very great degree, on having effected in the whole man, by means
of letters, a rise in what the political economists call the stan-
dard of life.6 -

 

 

His argument with Professor Huxley, Herbert Spencer and the many others,

especially in America, that great industrial nation where the majority must

 

62. Ibid., p. 23.

63. Ibid., pp. 93-91»
61;. Reoorts, p. 200.

73

do plain and dusty work, was akin to Plato's philosophy that the soul must
get sobriety, righteousness and wisdom no matter what the occupation.
---in our culture, the aim being to know ourselves and the world

we have as the means to this end, to. know the best which has been
thought and said in the world.

 

 

 

This is the key phrase which all students of Matthew Arnold's prose know by
heart. As we have seen before, Arnold was not opposed to the teaching of
science courses in any schools. He felt that knowing the most powerful man-
ifestations of the human Spirit's activity, through literature, greatly fed
and quickened our own activity, but know the world itself, through the study
of science, was also vital and formative. He admitted that the laws which
governed nature and man as part of nature, were also a part'of the circle

of knowledge. 66

Arnold thought that the amount of science in each student's
curriculum depended upon the individual student‘s appitudes. Arnold's ob-
jection to the proponents of science was that they cut the circle of know-
ledge in two. This was their big mistake. Arnold thought that those who had
been subjected to a classical education, if separated from the students of
science, would have the upper hand in government and human affairs.

The study of letters isthe study of the operation of hmnan

freedom and activity; the study of nature is the study of the

operation of non-human forces, of human limitation and pas-

sivity. 7
The one heightens the force of human activity, the other checks it.

As an‘example of a basic subject for a course which would humanize stu-

dents, Arnold proposed a thorough knowledge of Latin grammar whose classia-

cal power was character, which could be learned and taught, rather than.

 

65. Matthew Arnold, Discourses in America, New York: Liacmillan Company, 1921;,
Chapter II, “Literature and Science", p. 82.

66'. Higgier EducationJ p. 156.
67; Ibid.. pp. 158-159.

 

 

7h

Greek whose power was beauty, which could not be taught.68 The need for
nine out of ten pupils was to get Latin as literature, to get the ideas, and
let the exceptional student master the philosophy also. Arnold did not be-
lieve in teaching elementary and secondary students to speak foreign languan-
ges. This was the commercial theory of shallow thinkers. He noticed that
most of his students in 1865 never got more than a wrestling with Latin gram-
mar and never felt the force of the literature.69 He was disturbed by the
fact that the upper-class schools were exposing the children to the force of
literature and the schools Imder his inspection were not. He thought that
the most important thing for the lower classes was a feeling for the human-
ities and he wrote to the Education Council in 1880:

Not that the ideal which we should propose to ourselves for

the school-course in these schools is not a high or a large

one. It is the ideal admirably fixed long ago by Comenius,

an early and wise school reformer, who is now too much for-

tottén. 'The aim is, " says Comenius, 'to train generally all

who are born men to all which is human.' Without pedantry

and without platitudes, we should all seek to reach this aim

in the most practical manner.70
This is the aim of the humanities, of culture, as Arnold called it. The
true value of culture for Arnold was that the spirit of the human race found
its ideal in making endless additions to itself, in the endless expansion of
its powers and in the endless growth in wisdom and beauty. To reach this .
end culture was an indispensable aid.”-

Those men who advocated a scientific education as being the most prac-

tical course for the new masses of English school children did not, for the

68. £011., p. 168.
69. 3911., p. 172.
70. Reports, pp. 233-2314.
71. A French Eton, p. 1:96.

 

75

most part, understand what Arnold meant by culture. Arnold meant by the
phrase ”blowing the best which had been thought and said in the world,"
not merely belles lettres, as the scientists thought, but also the results
of all the best learning, Copernicus, Calileo, Newton and Darwin included.

'I call all teaching scientific,‘ says Wolf, the critic of
Homer, ’which is systematically laid out and followed up
to its. original sources. For example: a knowledge of
classical antiquity is scientific when the remains of clas-
sical antiquity are correctly studied in the original lan-
guages.'72

 

We have seen before that Arnold recommended a course like the German 53:023-
Iillgfle, or general science, as a regular subject in his schools. He also re-
ccmended certain other courses in crafts and sciences if they were presented
with a combined, general meaning toward a fit end.

All knowledge was interesting to Arnold, but the scientists would have
their processes emphasized as much as, or more than the humanities, letters
or literature. They said that even for a general education science was more
important. Here Arnold parted with them, for he claimed that they left out
of account the “constitution of human nature.” The powers which went toward
the building up of human life were conduct, intellect and knowledge, beauty,
social life and manners. These powers were not isolated, but related in all
men.73 Having acquired certain pieces of knowledge we desire to relate these
to our conduct and sense for beauty, and here is where letters have their hold
upon us.7h Science, howsoever more accurate and factual in its concept of the
universe, had not and could not replace the integrating power which religious

teaching had provided in medieval universities. Humane letters, the Bible

 

72. Discourses in America, p. 87.
73. Ibid., pp. 100-102.

7h. Ibid., p. 103.

76

included, could. Great literature related and satisfied man's sense and
desire to relate his knowledge to his conduct and sense for beauty. Es-
pecially would the literature of ancient Greece do this. In comparing the
glorious beauty of the Acropolis at Athens with the meanness of the Strand
in London Arnold pointed out that "Fit details. strictly combined, in view

of a large general result nobly conceived; this is the Wetria prisca of

 

 

the Greeks and is just where the English fail in art."75 Arnold was cer-
tain that the English would recognizeitheir failure and that the majority
of them would always require humane letters, even though science had its
day”.76

In 1882, almost at the end of his career as inspector of schools, Mat—
thew Arnold included in a report to the education council, his comments on
a sermon by Bishop Butler in 1715, which Arnold thought could have been
given, quite appropriately, to a congregation of middle-class exponents of
a practical education in late nineteenth-century England.

Every point is taken in it which most needs to betaken: the
change in the world which makes 'knowledges' of universal ne—
cessity now which were not so formerly, the hardship of exclusion
from them, the absurdity and selfishness of those who are 'so
extremely apprehensive of the danger that poor persons will

make a perverse use of even the least advantage, whilst they do
not appear at all apprehensive of the like danger for themselves
or their own children, in respect of riches or power, how much
soever; though the danger of perverting these advantages is
surely as great, and the perversion itself of much greater and
worse consequence.’ But there is perhaps no sentence in the
sermon which more deserves to be pondered by us than this: 'Of
education,’ says Butler, 'information itself is really the

least part.'77

 

Before concluding this essay on Matthew Arnold's idea of education, in

 

75. Ibid., P0 1330
76. Ibid., P0 1370

77c RGEETtS, p. 2590

77

all fairness to the subject, I think that it is necessary to give a brief
appraisal of Matthew Arnold's critical aims and methods and a summarizing
statement of what he thought England needed educationaly. Arnold possessed

a critical faculty whose validity still applies, even though his ideas on
education are not presently so much discussed as are his literary criticisms,
and since the main theme of his remarks on education concern the spread of
literature and culture throughout the "Populace" and "Philistines," I think
that the comparison between his critical faculties and those of a great mo— .
dern critic will show that his ideas on education are still provocative. "But
for his end, which was not culture, but the propagation of culture, and was
not literature, but the procuring of literature, he is, as I said, not only
right, but justified by success."78 T.S. Eliot, a modern critic, and Arnold
both appreciated tradition, but their methods of working were opposed in
principle. "Matthew Arnold found generalization easy and effective because
he was satisfied to build on the religious and cultural background he possess-
ed."79 Eliot rents his house "from the Anglicans, Classicists, and Royalists.
But into this house he moves all of his outlandish furniture of Symbolism."80
But a good generalization is needed, not various and complex results. Arnold
intensified criticism.81 His willingness to "speak responsibly" was a great
thing. Arnold thought that the critic was essentially a winnower, separating
the wheat from the chaff. Modern critics say that selecting is an impoverish-

82

ment, and that criticism is a sensitive, sympathetic interpretation. Arnold

did, however, give credit where it was due and he would select even the minute

 

78. T.S. Eliot on Matthew Arnold) p. 1:88.
79. Ibid., P0 ’488.

80. Ibid., p. 1488.

81. John Holloway, "Matthew Arnold and the Modern Dilemma," Essays in Criti-
cism, I, (January, 1951), p.1.

82. Ibid., p. 15;

 

 

78

- good from a piece of literature. He always gave a hierarchy from bad to good
literature and demanded a quality of high seriousness as esSential to great
poetry.83 He insisted that poetry must be illuminating and afford a central
insight.8h

If what Matthew Arnold had to say about great literature as compared to
what modern critics have to say about it, is meaningful and enlightening to
present day scholars, Arnold's ideas on education should be of sane interest
to them also. This thought has inspired the present work and I believe that
all of the important statements which Arnold made concerning this subject
have been analyzed here. Although Matthew Arnold's direct contact with edu—
cation in England was for the most part with those popular elenentary schools
of the dissenting British and Foreign School Society, he had something to say
about almost all the phases of European education in the neneteenth century.
He was called upon to inspect schools at all levels of education in Continen-
tal countries as well as in England, and it may be safely said, that he favor-
ed the Prussian plan of compulsory education with absolute, organized, and
intelligent control by the State to such an extent that he would have liked
to see the Prussian system adopted in England. For the lower classes Al‘nold
prescribed an introduction to culture. For the middle class, "the Philistines,"
those in control of the government, he advocated culture as the only answer
to their relief from dogmatic religious differences, and their crudity and
self-satisfaction. Given the absolute State control of education, and all
of the decent and adequate schools and teachers and texts and curricula,
Arnold believed that a respect for culture in preference to any other pre—

occupation would be engendered in the English people to the great benefit of

 

83. Ibid., p. 9.

81;. Ibid., P. 10.

that country which held such an important place among the nations of the

world.

79

80

BIBLIOG’APIH OF WORKS USED IN THIS ESSAY

!? Arnold, Matthew, Culture and.Anarchy'and FriendshipLs Garland, New York:
Macmillan Company, 1921;.

----- Discourses in America, New York: Macmillan Company, 19221,.

 

---- "A French Eton; Or, Middle-class Education and the State" in Essa s
In Criticism, New York: Macmillan and Company, 1880, pp. 125-506.

 

Higher Schools and Universities In GermanyJ London: Macmillan and
Company, 1882.

 

Letters of Matthew Arnold 18148—1888 collected and arranged by George
W.E. finssell, Vols. I 8: II, New York: Hacmillan and Company, 1896.

 

 

----- Literature and Dogma, New York: Macmillan and Company, 1921:.

 

)

L‘ -—--- 0n the Study of Celtic Literature and On Translating Homerj New York:
Macmillan and Company, 1921;.

 

The Popular Education of France With Notices of That of Holland and
Switzerland, fondonz. Ibngman, Green, Iongman, and Roberts, 1861.

‘1‘

w

 

Beports On Elementary Schools 1852-1882, ed. by Sir Francis Sandford,
London: Macmiflan and Company, 1889.

 

Special Report On Certain Points Connected With Elementary Education
in Germany; SwitzerlandJ and France, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1886.

 

Birss, John Howard, "Whitman on Arnold," Modern language Notes, XLVII (MB-Y,
1932), 316-317.

Fitch, Sir Joshua, Thomas and Matthew Arnold and Their Influence on English
Education, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899.

Hammond, J.L. and Barbara, The Age of the Chartists 1832-18524: A Study of
Discontent, London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1930.

 

Holloway, John, "Matthew Arnold and the I“iodern Dilemma,” Essays In Criticism,
I (January, 1951), L16.

Ingram, Florence L., "Matthew Arnold, The Educator," Education, XLIV (Septem-
ber, l923-June, 192h), 197-207.

Loring, M.L.S., "T.S. Eliot on Matthew Arnold," Sewanee ReviewJ XLIII (Octo-
ber-December, 1935 ) , 1;? 9—588.

 

«The Reinterpretation of VictoriawLiteratxng, ed. by Joseph E. Baker, Prince-
’ ton, New USrsey: Princeton University Press, 1950.

Spencer, Herbert; Education: IntellectualLI-ioral and Elysical, New York:
D. Appleton and Company, 1881.

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81

Trilling, Lionel, Matthew Arnold, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1939.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHII‘E OF MATTHEW ARNOID
Brown, G.A., “Matthew Arnold ," Cambridge History of English Literature, XIII,

537-5ho.

Ehrsam, T.G., Deily, R.H., and Smith, R.M., Bibliographies of Twelve Victor-
ian Authors, New York: 1936, pp. 13—135.

 

Mutter, Thomas H.V., "Check List of Matthew Arnold's Letters," Studies in
Philology, mm (1931:), 600-605. .

Smart, Thomas B., The Bibliography of Matthew Arnold, London: 1892. (Rev.
and enl. in Arnold's Works, XV, [1901; - omits the critical items, chron-
ologically arranged, included in 189 .5

 

Arnold's Works ed. deluxe, 15 vols., London: 1903-1901;; and Works "Complete
uniform"i ed. 12 vols., New York: 1921;. Neither ed. is complete.

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