The times., 1897-09-19
!

AitOtf-e AIDOlQ WIS DOI Il.tlSiN an ctl
Gator, hat Christian educator Chris
thnlty entered into all his plans and
determined all his purposes at Rugby
and elsewhere, in manner not found
in rhe plans and purposes of the file
% educators today. This is best exenl,
plfled in some OF ms own words. When
Dr. AIncld was called to the position of
headmaster OF Ragby. in 1928, he said
thai the public schools OF England were
the very SEATS and nurseries OF vice.
Meme can pass through a large school
without being pretty Intimately acquainted
with vice alas, very few without tasting
too largely of the poisoned bowl" when
lac O. ssuued hls position at Rugby he aUonce
.lrieslnined TO expel any boy whose in
Iluenoe tended TO degrade tile school or
was seriously detrimental to the other
bows. on one occasion he exclaimed
hefore the whole school, TT is not
necessary that this should be 4 school
for tl.rec lgindfed, or evenone hundred toys,
BATH Is necessary tistiU should be school
Of Christian gentlemen"
lie could rot understand the divorce Of
secular and religious education. Moral
.nG Observation-Disclosures Recommended, SHOULD
70 Land in hand with other phases of in
tellectual life. Said ne on one occasion:
.'What / want TO see in the school, and
y Eat : cannot find, is an adherence ot
evil always think Of the psalm, Neither
dOJn he abhor anything that Is evil
Matthew Arnold, the son. has eNerted
an even larger Influence than the father
He was poet. cssaylst, critic and educa-
ZIONIST, though he abhoFed the last de-
nominating word Fis most lasting i'm
preston as educator came not irectly
through the position OF inspector of schools,
which he held d aring thirty-rive years OF his
life, but from the philosophy and sapiency
CT his essays and criticisms. He really
never liked educational work.
Thomas Arnold was most interested in
the youths who were TO grow into the next
generation Matthew Arnold, IN a sense,
Followed his fathers work. He did not
interest himself so uuch in the possibilities
OF youth as in the actuality of the public
grown out OF, ana the same in blood as, the
gelCraiion to whom hs father hac given
his heart and life.
EneIisb society was favorite study OF
Matthew Arnold. lie was fond Of classi-
flying IL as the upper, or aristocratic aud
official class the middle class; and the
lower or working class. The first he play
fully characterized ar the Barbarlans; the
Eecond as the Philistines, the third as the
Populace. AS he looked at them, he
thought he saw IAN upper class, material
tied ana frivolous: a middle class vulgar
ized. aud a lower class brutalized."
His Chief concern, as he was his chief
adherence, was the Philistiue But Sir
Joshua Fitch does not believe that either
understood the other. Hence failure of
the last possibilities of a brilliant intent
and endgavar His heart was in CRITICS m
because he understood it to be ''the
d.sintere>red endeavor TO learn and To
prOpagase the best that is known or thought
in the world and lie believed he could
thHs detect for, and expose 70, the Philistine
the insincerity and valgarity of much
that they faid and believed and much
that was taught to them.
Though IT, was his philosophy and his
criticism which denominated him an
educator, and these phases of his career
more naturally engage Sir Joshua Fitch
IN his study OF Matthew Arnold as such. he
stillcontends that permanency Of fame win
come to hin rather for his poetical than
his prose writings, 'In coming genera
tons he writes, when the educational
politics OF our day shall have become
| obsolete and have ceased to interest men,
when the ephemeral literature, the socio-
logy and the personal controversies have
| passed out Of view, his name will stand
out oonspicuousiy with those Of Tennyson
and Browning, the three representative
| poets Of the last half of the nineteenth
century" CSew York: Charles Scribner's
Sons. Washington: All bookscllers.)