MATTHEW ARNOLD A very useful man to the world is the one who applies all the resources of a strong, scholarly life to the earnest consideration of the more vital problems of existence. He clears up the atmosphere, so to speak, and his opinions, even if not universally accepted, are sure to provoke helpful lines of thought. Such a man was Matthew Arnold, inspector of schools, poet, critic, teacher. Arnold's father was the famous Dr. Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby, although he did not take up his work in that school till six years after Matthew's birth. One who would know something of the spirit of that great school under Arnold's direction should read Hughes' Tom Brown at Rugby, one of the best books for young people ever written. Matthew was born at Laleham on the Thames, December 24, 1822. When he was seven he was sent back to Laleham from Rugby, as a pupil of his uncle, the Rev. John Buckland. Dr. Arnold took a house near Grasmere in the Lake region for his holidays, and here Matthew came in touch with Wordsworth. It is interesting to know that he wrote one of the most penetrating of his essays on Wordsworth and edited a volume of selections from his poetry. When thirteen and a half, Matthew was sent to Winchester. After a year, however, he went to Rugby, where he remained until 1841. The moral stamina, which, even more than scholarship, was what Dr. Arnold gave his pupils, was Matthew's in abundant degree. The manly quality of his life expressed itself in all his work. The only poem of Matthew's which his father saw was one called Alaric at Rome, which he recited at Rugby in 1840. It was no more remarkable than boys at that age often achieve. Having won a scholarship at Oxford in 1840, Matthew Arnold went into residence there in 1841. In 1842 his father died. The next year he won the Newdigate prize with a poem on Cromwell. Arnold came to Oxford at a time when the spirit of inquiry was in the air. A man of genial nature, fond of society and the world, alive to all the graces and activities of that world, and withal, serious and earnest in his outlook, he was fitted to become the outspoken critic of life and literature. Sometimes it seemed that Arnold broke away too completely from some of the ideas which the world held sacred, but the integrity of his mind has always commanded respect. After taking his degree Arnold returned to Rugby as a teacher. In 1847 he was made private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, and in 1851 was appointed an inspector of schools, a position which he held until a year before his death. We have now followed him to maturity and can best indicate what he accomplished by tracing the lines of his work. And first, Matthew Arnold was an educator. When he began his work as an inspector of schools the system was in no way so well developed as at present. He had to cover a great deal of territory and much of his work was routine drudgery. And yet, in a way, he enjoyed it. He had a keen love of children and a clear sense of the importance of education. One of his great services consisted in awakening a greater public sentiment regarding the necessity of state oversight in education. His annual reports are models. of clear, simple summaries of his work and discussions of what the schools needed in the way of equipments and improved methods of study. These reports have been published in a volume called Reports on Elementary Schools. Arnold was sent abroad at different times to investigate the schools of Germany and France, and wrote reports in each case which are models of what such reports should be. Second, as a poet. In the midst of the spiritual conflict of the century Arnold's soul was greatly tried and in his poetry continually cries for rest. To endure with calmness whatever may come, to hold fast to the lines of duty-these are the elements of his teaching. The clear optimism of Tennyson was not his. The atmosphere of the study was in his poetry as in his prose. The Forsaken Merman and Sohrab and Rustum are two of his best-known poems. The first deals with the merman who has taken as his mate a mortal woman, while the second is an episode from the Persian Epic of the Kings, in which the great warrior, Rustum, without knowing it, slays his only son. Balder Dead, The ScholarGypsy, Thyrsis, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse are representative longer poems. Arnold is at his best when in the elegiac strain, as in the last three poems mentioned. Some of the lyrics in Dover Beach and in Switzerland show his best work in this field, but Arnold does not have the lightness of touch so necessary here. Third, as a critic. The word "criticism" as Arnold used it had no narrow meaning. It meant an effort to find out what was the best and to pass this best on to others. There was no effort at "smart" writing, but always the greatest seriousness. In applying tests to great writers he made much of the author's outlook upon life. His literary essays upon Wordsworth and Gray-to mention two out of many-are full of stimulating interpretation. On Translating Homer is generally regarded as one of his masterpieces. "Matthew Arnold's appearance was both impressive and agreeable. He was tall, of commanding presence, with black hair, which never became gray, and blue eyes. He was short-sighted, and his eye-glass gave him a false air of superciliousness. In reality, he was the most genial and amiable of men. But he had a good deal of manner, which those who did not know him mistook for assumption. It was nothing of the kind, but a mixture of oldfashioned courtesy and comic exaggeration. Mr. Arnold was always willing to tell a story or to join in a laugh against himself. Roughness or rudeness he could not bear. Although public speaking did not suit him, he had a very flexible voice, admirably fitted for the dramatic rendering of a story or for the purposes of satirical criticism. For a poet he was surprisingly practical, taking a lively interest in people's incomes, the rent of their houses, the produce of their gardens, and the size of their families." Taking his work as a whole, Matthew Arnold must be regarded as one of the great intellectual forces of the nineteenth century. Along with Newman and Carlyle and Ruskin he is a writer of literary prose with a message. With Wordsworth and Tennyson he voices the spirit of the century in his poetry. His range was narrower than that of any of the writers mentioned, and his style more classic. He must therefore have fewer followers, though these will be of the best. He died in 1888. (The best life of Arnold is that by H. W Paul in the English Men of Letters Series. His letters, in two volumes, edited by Russell, are important. The best introduction to Arnold's prose is the volume of selections edited by Professor Gates and pub. lished by Henry Holt & Co. His complete writings may be had in twelve volumes from The Macmillan Co.) . AN EPISODE And the first grey of morning fill'd the east, But all the Tartar camp along the stream Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; 5 But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, 10 Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow 15 From the stream's brink—the spot where first a boat, The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 20 25 |