ARNOLD, THOMAS (1795-1842). An Eng lish scholar and educator, best known as' mas ter of Rugby. lie was horn June 13, 1795, at West Cowes, isle of Wight. where his father was collector of eustoms. Upon the death of his father in 1801, Arnold was put in charge of his aunt, Miss Delafield, and remained with her for two years. At the age of eight he was sent to Warminster School in Wiltshire, whence, four years afterwards. be was sent to Winchester. From this famous school he went up to Oxford at sixteen as a scholar of Corpus Christi College, where he remained three years. Here lie fell in with a small group of men, chief among whom were John Keble. the originator of the Traetarian movement and author of the christion and John Taylor Coleridge, afterwards judge of the Queen's Bench. by whom lie was greatly influ enced. He took a first in classics in 1814, and in the following year was elected fellow of oriel College, a position which he held for the next four years. In 1815 he took the Chancellor's Prize for a Latin essay, and in 1817 the same prize for an English essay. It was during his residence at Oriel that he laid the foundation for his later work in the classics and history by wide reading along those lines, especially in Thueydi des and Aristotle. Here, too, though at first re served and shy, and later very disputatious in his maintenance of bold, if not very well-matured, opinions, he gained consideration and won dis tinction among the group of able men by whom he was surrounded.
He took deacon's orders in 1818, and in the following year left the University to settle at Laleham, near Staines. where he occupied him self chiefly in preparing pupils for the University, and in the pursuit of his own studies. Here he spent eight quiet years, devoting himself par ticularly to the study of Thucydides and Roman history, in which he was profoundly influenced by the works of Niebuhr and other German his torians whose influence was very apparent in his own writings. Here, too, he began his History of Row, Besides these activities lie devoted much attention to problems of the Church as well as to questions affecting the lower classes, and to practical work among the poor, all of which led to the maturing of ideas on Church and social problems that brought upon him fierce attacks in later years. His political opinions, affected by his life and work here, tended to crystallize into a form of advaneed liberalism. which his oppo nents afterwards characterized so bitterly as dan gerous radicalism.
Any final estimate of Arnold must rest on his influence at Rugby. The head-mastership of Rugby fell vacant in 1827, and, though Arnold entered late in the contest and was not personally known to the electors, he was chosen for the position. largely, it would appear. on the recom
mendation of one of his friends, who predicted that if elected lie would change the face of the public - school education throughout Engl a mid. After being chosen in December, 1827, he took priestly orders and proceeded to the degrees of B.D. and D.D. tie entered on his duties in August, 1828. The remaining fourteen years of his life were spent at Rugby and at Fox How in Westmoreland, an estate which he bought in 1;132. and his career was that of the school to which he devoted himself. Dr. Percival, successor of Arnold in 1887-95, afterwards Bishop of Here ford, has said: "If I were called upon to ex press in a sentence or two my feeling in regard to Dr. Arnold's influence in school life, I should describe him as a groat prophet among school masters, rather than an instructor or educator in the ordinary sense of the term. . . . His influence was stimulative rather than formative, the secret of his power consisting not so much in the novelty of his ideas or methods, as in his commanding and magnetic personality and the intensity and earnestness with which he im pressed his views and made them—as a prophet makes his message—a part of the living forces of the time." Arnold was not the originator of any didactic system. In general, lie accepted the system which he found, and infused into it a new meaning. Thus, without doing away with 'fagging: he tempered it into a responsible supervision by the sixth form of the forms below. He insisted upon the preiminence of classical studies, but enriched the ordinary school course of the day with mathe matics, modern languages, and modern history. Above all, without its "accredited phraseology of piety," he emphasized the moral and spiritual interest. True scholarship lie held to be asso ciated with Christianity. Ile aimed, in the com mon lessons and in the weekly sermon, to mold the public opinion of the school. As the head master of Rugby, he looked as much to the de velopment of manly character as to the training of students. His policy, in which he was emi nently successful, was to send to the universities not a munber of men trained to take firsts in the schools, but rather "thoughtful, manly-minded men, conscious of duty and obligation," who were almost eertain to do uniformly well whatever they undertook. One immediate result was that after the passage of the Reform Bill in 1832, Rugby men represented the best reform senti ment. his own character, his deep religious sense, his noble estimate of duty, of justice. of honesty, and of truth, were strongly impressed on the school. His great ability as an organizer and administrator of men and measures did much to work. at Rugby and elsewhere, the revo lution which had been predicted.