CHAPTER X

Matthew Arnold's employment in foreign countries- The Newcastle Commission of 1859-The Schools Inquiry Commission of 1865 - Special report to the Education Department, 1885Democracy-Relation of the State to voluntary action in France and in England - Why Germany interested Arnold less than France - Advantages of State action-The religious difficulty in France Why a purely secular system became inevitable in that country - A French Eton - Comparison with the English Eton Endowment under French law-Latin and Greek as taught in French Lycées - Entrance scholarships - Leaving examinations - Instruction in civic life and duties

IT will be seen from Matthew Arnold's letters passim, how much he enjoyed occasional opportunities of employment in foreign countries. Three such opportunities came to him in the course of his official life, and were especially welcome to him, partly because he was enabled by them to escape from what seemed to him monotonous and wearisome in his regular official duties, and mainly because inquiries into foreign systems, and their relation to the polity and needs and national character of the several countries in which those systems were operative, were especially congenial to him. The first of his special reports was in 1861, to the Commission which was presided over by the Duke of Newcastle, and which had been charged, in 1859, with the duty of inquiring into the state of popular education in England. The Minutes of Council of 1845 had been in full operation for twelve years when the Commis

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sion was appointed, and the Government and the nation desired to know what was the actual working of the measure, and whether or not the State was receiving an adequate return for the increasing grants which were made from the Treasury. The Commissioners, however, wisely resolved that their inquiry should not be restricted to our own country, and that it would help them much to learn by way of comparison what had been done in other lands which had enjoyed a larger experience than our own of State action. Accordingly, Arnold was instructed as Foreign Assistant Commissioner to inquire and report in reference to the state of popular education in France, Holland, and Switzerland.

The second occasion on which he was detached from his ordinary work for special foreign service was in 1865, when the Schools Inquiry Commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Taunton, was charged with the duty of reporting on secondary education in England and Wales. Arnold again accepted the office of Assistant Commissioner, and was instructed to report on the systems of education of the middle and upper classes in France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.

For the third time he received, in November, 1885, a summons to make a foreign journey. On this occasion it was the Education Department itself which gave him instructions. In view of contemplated legislation, the heads of that department desired to receive more detailed information from Germany, Switzerland, and France, on four specific points which were thus indicated: Free education; t

quality of education; the status, training, and pensioning of teachers; and compulsory attendance and release from school.

Of these three reports, the first and second, after due publication in the Blue Books, were afterwards reprinted as separate books, the first under the title of The Popular Education of France, with Notices of that of Holland and Switzerland; and the second under the title of Schools and Universities on the Continent. The third appeared only as a parliamentary paper in 1886.

Many of the statistical and other details of these reports are of temporary interest only, and much of the organization which he describes has by this time. been modified or superseded. Hence the narrative which these reports furnish-picturesque and suggestive as it is - has now little more than an historical value. But the experience he gained in these memorable visits led him to consider wider questions than those which concerned the administration of educational bureaus, the work of schools, and the success of their methods. For example, when his first report was reprinted in 1861, in a volume no longer bearing the official stamp, he felt free to prefix to it an essay on the true functions of the State in a democratic community. As a contribution to political philosophy, and as a key to many of his later speculations on public questions, this essay will probably rank as one of his best and most thoughtful utterances. He had been profoundly impressed by reading De Tocqueville, and had learned from that acute thinker to estimate the advantages, and at the same

time to perceive some of the perils, of a democratic society, particularly as they were exemplified in the United States and in France. De Tocqueville had urged that democracy was inevitable, and, on the whole, desirable, but desirable only under certain conditions, those conditions capable of being realized by care and foresight, but capable also of being missed. Hence the great desideratum was to seek out and devise that form of democracy, which on the one hand most exercises and cultivates the intelligence and mental activity of the majority, and on the other breaks the headlong impulse of popular opinion. by delay, rigour of forms, and adverse discussion. “The organization and establishment of democracy on these principles is," as John Stuart Mill has justly said, "the great political problem of our time." 1

Arnold concluded from his observation and study that forces were at work which made it impossible for the aristocracy of England to conduct and wield the English nation much longer. It is true that they still have in their hands a large share in the administration, and, as Mirabeau said, "Administrer, c'est gouverner; gouverner c'est regner; tout se reduit la." But in Arnold's view this headship and leadership of one class, with the substantial acquiescence of the body of the nation in its predominance and right to lead, were nearly over. There was nothing to lament in this. The fuller development of national life, the reduction of the signal inequalities that characterize the older societies, and the extension to all classes

1 J. S. Mill, Dissertations, Vol. II., p. 58.

of a due sense of individual responsibility and of corporate existence were, in his view, more than compensation for the loss of a certain stateliness and force which belonged to an aristocratic régime. "The power of France in Europe is at this day mainly owing to the completenesss with which she has organized democratic institutions. The action of the French State is excessive, but it is too little understood in England that the French people has adopted this action for its own purposes, has in great measure attained those purposes by it, and owes to having done so the chief part of its influence in Europe. The growing power in Europe is democracy, and France has organized democracy with a certain indisputable grandeur and success." Arnold's first official visit to the Continent left on him a strong impression of the weakness which comes from our insular dread of State action. He recognized the value of voluntary effort and local initiative in English institutions; but he thought we overestimated these things, and that we had much to learn from the organized State systems of foreign lands, especially that of France.

From the first, France interested him more than Germany. Notwithstanding our nearer affinity in race to the Teutonic people, he thought the English community much more closely akin to the French in their history and genius, their love of liberty, their literature, their national aspirations, and their moral ideals. The Germans he was wont to speak of as a "disciplinable and much disciplined people," who had, it is true, received valuable institutions from