The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-11-27 00:00:00

THREE LETTERS OF DR. ARNOLD.

There have lately appeared three hitherto unpub-
lished letters of the great disciplinarian. They were
addressed to Dr. Longley, who was, it will be remem-
bered, successively head-master of Harrow, Bishop of
Ripon, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of
Canterbury. The first note was written to Dr.
Longley immediately after his appointment in 1829
to the head-mastership of Harrow. The following is
the most interesting passage, referring as it does to
the Rugby head-master's modus operandi in pre-
serving order: "I have so far got rid of the
birch," he writes, "that I only flogged seven
boys last half-year, and the same number hitherto in
this: I never did nor do I believe that it can be relic-
quished altogether; but I think it may well be re-
served for offences either great in themselves or
rendered great by frequent repetition; and then it
should be administered in earnest. For mere irregu-
larities, if not habitual, I have always thought a very
slight imposition sufficient. I like to have a good
ascending scale of punishments before me, to try suc-
cessively if the offender be obstinate; but never to
exhaust one's stock at once, and then to be left unl ro-
vided for if the effect is not in the first instance
answered. I have also never found it necessary to
assume anything of a school manner in speaking to
the boys—they mind one's usual tone and manner just
as much as if they know that they cannot presume on it;
and you thus diminish something their notion of your
acting from fudge—a belief which as far as it prevails
renders all moral influence in a master out of the
question."
His second letter bears the date of February 12,
1836, and throws a valuable light on the manliness
and firmness of Dr. Arnold's character: You have
seen, I dare say, the fres'a attacks upon me in the
papers, on account of the expulsion of a boy in
November for resisting the authority of the sixth
form. It is a beautiful occasion for an outcry, be-
cause in addition to the political hostility of one
party many of the other side have such a horror of
the system of fagging that they would lay hold of
anything to put it down. But my resolution is fixed
—to let all attacks alone, and on no account to con-
descend to answer them in the newspapers. All that
is wanted is to inspire firmness into the minds of all
those engaged in the conduct of the school, lest their
own spirit and confidence should be impaired by a
succession of attacks which I suppose is unparalleled
in the experience of schools. Meanwhile our admis-
sions this very winter have been more numerous than
they were either last winter or the winter before,
and will bring our numbers again up to 300, which
after the enormous sweep of last summer had fallen
' about 15 or 16 short of that amount.
In the third letter Dr. Arnold congratulated Dr.
Langley on his appointment to the bishopric of Ripon,
in 1836 "I presume." he says, "that I may safely
take for granted the intelligence in the newspapers—
and congratulate you, as I do most heartily, upon
your approaching change of duties. in these dis-
turbed times, it is a rare fortune to be generally
respected, and yet abused by nobodyoand this I think
has been remarkably your case—insomuch that I
believe that even the appointment of S Whig
Minister will in this instance be acceptable to the
very Oxford Tories. For myself I should greatly
envy you your appointment if I thought that a
bishopric would bring me nearer to the fulfilment of
those plans which, I believe, I shall cherish while I live,
and which seem to me to rot on the simple principle
that the Dissenters are our brethren and the devil
our enemy; the very converse of which would seem
to have been the motto of some of our High Church-
men. Otherwise my affections turn much more to
Westmoreland and to ale hope of working quietly
through the Roman history down to the foundation
of the modern kingdoms, under the shade or shelter
of my own trees—which will then be tall enough—at
our delicious Fox How."