BOOKS AND STUDIES 7 tory, it was not from the poets, ancient or modern, that he derived the main inspiration of his life. History and political philosophy always had stronger attractions for him. Gibbon and Burke, Mitford, Russell, and Priestley, Thucydides and Livy, Herodotus and Xenophon, were eagerly read by him at a very early age, and had a larger share than tragedians or poets. in the direction of his aims and the formation of his tastes and character. "Every man," says Coleridge, "is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist. The one considers reason a quality or attribute, the other considers it a power." We may well hesitate to accept Coleridge's rough classification of mankind as exhaustive; but in so far as the distinction on which he insists is real, it is well illustrated in Arnold's mind and character. He was Aristotelian, mainly in the sense in which he sought to make all speculative enquiry subservient to the solution of practical problems. To the last he had a peculiar reverence and affection for the "dear old Stagyrite," and when the time came for him to send his sons to the University, he was led to prefer Oxford, because there Aristotle was held in higher esteem and was more likely to be well studied than at the sister University. The parent of science, properly so called, the master of criticism, and in one sense the founder of formal logic, Aristotle was to Arnold something more than all this; he was the guide to right methods of study, the seer who beheld the larger problems of life, of society, and of polity in their true perspective, and the intrepid and earnest seeker after truth. Mr. Justice Coleridge, in his interesting reminiscences of Arnold as an undergraduate at Corpus, remarks, "He was so imbued with Aristotle's language and ideas that in earnest and unreserved conversation or in writing, his train of thoughts was so affected by the Ethics and the Rhetoric, that he cited the maxims of the Stagyrite as oracles, and his language was quaintly and easily pointed with phrases from him. I never knew a man who made such familiar, even fond, use of an author; it is scarcely too much to say that he spoke of him as of one intimately and affectionately known and valued."1 2 For one who was destined many years later to exert so large an influence on the public schools of England, it was a happy and appropriate circumstance that his own early education was obtained at public schools and largely influenced by the traditions of venerable endowments. From the age of eight to nearly twelve, he was at Warminster, one of the minor grammar schools, founded early in the eighteenth century; and thenceforward, until the age of sixteen, he was a scholar at Winchester. There is 1 Stanley's Life and Correspondence. 2 This title, "Public Schools," is one which may easily be misinterpreted by American readers, since in their country it connotes the ordinary common and municipal school, which is accessible to all classes, and in which instruction of the most elementary character is given. But in England the common use of the name is limited to ten or fifteen schools of the highest rank and the closest relation to the Universities, and for the most part of ancient and historic foundation, -Eton, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, St. Paul's, Charterhouse, Merchant Taylor's, Rugby, and Shrewsbury being the most famous examples of the "Public School" type. SCHOOL-BOY LIFE little to be recorded respecting his residence at the former of these schools, except that he always spoke gratefully of the obligations he owed to Dr. Griffiths, the head master. But his residence at Winchester had a far larger share in determining the future. development of his tastes and the aims of his life. The oldest, nearly the richest, and in many respects the most illustrious, of the public schools of England, Winchester is specially fortunate, not only in its situation and its surroundings, but in its history and traditions. The memory of William of Wykeham, scholar, architect, bishop, and benefactor, the association of the College with the noble Cathedral, the nave of which he had designed, and with New College, Oxford, also a monument of his genius and his munificence, the long roll of famous pupils, which in the course of more than five centuries has contained the names of Chichele, of Warham, Waynflete, of Ken, and of Lowth among ecclesiastics; of Cole, Grocyn, and Udal among scholars; and of Sir Thomas Browne, Sir Henry Wotton, Otway, Young, Collins, and Warton among other notable men in literature or in public life,- all combined to strengthen in him that feeling of reverence for what is ancient and noble, and that pride in a great intellectual inheritance, which form such potent factors in the education of a youth, especially of one filled with ardour and sensibility, and with a desire to do something worthy of his spiritual ancestry. In the massive architecture of the Cathedral, in its solemn mediaval surroundings, in the neighbouring hospital of Saint Cross, and in the buildings of the ancient College itself, there was much to kindle the imagination of one who loved history; and in the fair and pleasant country round, watered by the Itchen, and beautified by shady elms, there was room for delightful rambles, scope for boyish enterprise, and much to encourage that love of nature which afterwards showed itself to be one of his healthiest characteristics, and which exercised a purifying influence on the whole of his life. To the last he was a loyal Wykehamist, proud of his association with Winchester, grateful to the memory of Goddard and Gabell, who had been head masters during his stay, and steadfastly attached to the friends whom he had made while at school. No estimate of the intellectual and moral equipment with which he embarked on the voyage of active life would be complete if it did not take into account the deep seriousness of his character, his strong interest in religious questions, and his high sense of duty and of human responsibility. Sir John Coleridge's letter, already quoted, contains a striking record of the impression he made on that acute observer and sympathetic friend, when he was an undergraduate at Corpus, and afterwards Fellow of Oriel. "His was an anxiously inquisitive mind, a scrupulously conscientious heart: his enquiries previously to his taking orders led him on to distressing doubts on certain points in the Articles; these were not low nor rationalistic in their ondency according to the bad sense of that term, there RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE 11 was no indisposition in him to believe merely because the Article transcended his reason: he doubted the proof and the interpretation of the textual authority. His state was very painful, and I think morbid, for I remarked that the two occasions on which I was privy to the distress were precisely those in which to doubt was against his dearest schemes of worldly happiness; and the consciousness of this seemed to make him distrustful of the arguments which were intended to lead his mind to acquiescence." A friend to whose counsel he had recourse at this crisis, and who had advised him to pause in his enquiries, to seek earnestly for further help and light from above, and meanwhile to turn himself more strongly than ever to the practical duties of life, wrote of him in 1819: "It is a defect of A.'s mind that he cannot get rid of a certain feeling of objections, and particularly when, as he fancies the bias is so strong upon him to decide one way from interest: he scruples doing what I advise him, which is to put down the objections by main force whenever they arise in his mind; fearful that in so doing, he shall be violating his conscience for a maintenance sake." may It well be doubted whether the latter part of this friendly prescription was the best calculated to heal the hurt of a sensitive conscience. But the advice to busy himself in practical work proved very helpful. Little by little, though after severe trials, "He fought his doubts and gathered strength, He faced the spectres of the mind And laid them: thus he came at length |