Thomas Arnold | |
---|---|
![]() Thomas Arnold byThomas Phillips, 1839 | |
Born | (1795-06-13)13 June 1795 West Cowes,Isle of Wight, England |
Died | 12 June 1842(1842-06-12) (aged 46) Fox How,Ambleside,Westmorland, England |
Resting place | Rugby School Chapel, Rugby,Warwickshire, England |
Nationality | British |
Education | Lord Weymouth's Grammar School;Winchester College |
Alma mater | Corpus Christi College,Oxford |
Occupation(s) | Educator and historian |
Known for | Reforms to Rugby School (immortalised inTom Brown's Schooldays) |
Title | Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford |
Term | 1841–1842 |
Predecessor | Edward Nares |
Successor | John Antony Cramer |
Children | Matthew Arnold,Tom Arnold,William Delafield Arnold |
Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was an English educator and historian. He was an early supporter of theBroad ChurchAnglican movement. As headmaster ofRugby School from 1828 to 1841, he introduced several reforms that were widely copied by other notedpublic schools. His reforms redefined standards of masculinity and achievement.[1][2]
Arnold was born on theIsle of Wight, the son of William Arnold, aCustoms officer, and his wife Martha Delafield (sister toJohn Delafield). William Arnold was related to the Arnold family ofgentry fromLowestoft.[3] Thomas was educated atLord Weymouth's Grammar School,Warminster, atWinchester, and atCorpus Christi College, Oxford. He excelled in Classics and was made a fellow ofOriel in 1815. He became headmaster of a school inLaleham before moving to Rugby.
Arnold's appointment to the headship ofRugby School in 1828, after some years as a private tutor, turned the school's fortunes around. His force of character and religious zeal enabled him to make it a model for other public schools and exercise a strong influence on the education system of England. Though he introduced history, mathematics and modern languages, he based his teaching on theclassical languages. "I assume it as the foundation of all my view of the case, that boys at a public school never will learn to speak or pronounce French well, under any circumstances," and so it would be enough if they could "learn it grammatically as a dead language." Physical science was not taught because, in Arnold's view, "it must either take the chief place in the school curriculum, or it must be left out altogether."[4] Arnold was also opposed to the materialistic tendency of physical science, a view deriving from his Christian idealism. He wrote that "rather than havephysical science the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament. Surely the one thing needful for a Christian and an Englishman to study is Christian and moral and political philosophy."[5][6]
Arnold developed thepraepostor (prefect) system, in whichsixth-form students were given powers over every part of the school (managed by himself) and kept order in the establishment. The 1857 novel byThomas Hughes,Tom Brown's School Days, portrays a generation of boys "who feared the Doctor with all our hearts, and very little besides in heaven or earth; who thought more of our sets in the School than of the Church of Christ, and put the traditions of Rugby and the public opinion of boys in our daily life above the laws of God."[7]
Arnold was no great enthusiast for sport, which was permitted only as an alternative to poaching or fighting with local boys and did not become part of Rugby's curriculum until 1850. He described his educational aims as being the cure of souls first, moral development second, and intellectual development third. However, this did not preventBaron de Coubertin from considering him the father of the organized sport he admired when he visited English public schools, including Rugby in 1886. When looking at Arnold's tomb in the school chapel he recalled that he felt suddenly as if he were looking on "the very cornerstone of the British empire".[8] Coubertin is thought to have exaggerated the importance of sport to Thomas Arnold, whom he viewed as "one of the founders of athletic chivalry". The character-forming influence of sport, with which Coubertin was so impressed, is more likely to have originated in the novelTom Brown's School Days than exclusively in the ideas of Arnold himself.[9] "Thomas Arnold, the leader and classic model of English educators," wrote Coubertin, "gave the precise formula for the role of athletics in education. The cause was quickly won. Playing fields sprang up all over England."[10]
Arnold was involved in not a few controversies, educational and religious. As a churchman he was a decidedErastian and strongly opposed to theHigh Church party. His 1833Principles of Church Reform is linked with the beginnings of theBroad Church movement.[11] In 1841, he was appointedRegius Professor of Modern History at Oxford.
In Ireland, Arnold's one-time Oxford University colleague,John Henry Newman, appointed Arnold to Professor of English at the Catholic University, now known asUniversity College Dublin.[12]
Arnold's chief literary works are his unfinishedHistory of Rome (three volumes, 1838–1842) and hisLectures on Modern History. Far more often read were his five books of sermons, which were admired by a wide circle of pious readers, includingQueen Victoria.[4]
Arnold married Mary Penrose, daughter of the Rev. John Penrose ofPenryn,Cornwall. They had five daughters and five sons:
W. E. Forster and Jane both enjoyed mountaineering; they climbed Mont Blanc in 1859 and in 1860 Jane was one of the first women to stand on the summit of Monte Rosa, which had not been climbed by a woman until 1857.[14][15] When William Delafield Arnold died in 1859 leaving four orphans, the Forsters adopted them as their own, adding their name to the children's surname. One of them wasHugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster, aLiberal Unionist MP, who eventually became a member ofBalfour's cabinet. Another wasFlorence Vere O'Brien, a diarist, philanthropist and craftswoman who lived inIreland. Frances Bunsen Trevenen Whateley Arnold, the youngest daughter, never married and died at Fox How in 1923.[16]
Arnold had bought the small estate of Fox How nearAmbleside in theLake District in 1832, and spent many holidays there. On Sunday, 12 June 1842, he died there suddenly of aheart attack "at the height of his powers", a day before his 47th birthday.[13] He is buried in Rugby School chapel. Thomas the Younger's daughterMary Augusta Arnold, became a well-known novelist under her married name, Mrs. Humphry Ward. His other daughter, Julia, marriedLeonard Huxley, the son ofThomas Huxley. Their sons wereJulian andAldous Huxley.Julia Arnold founded in 1902Prior's Field School for girls inGodalming, Surrey.[17]
Arnold family tree (partial) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Life of Doctor Arnold, published two years after his death by one of Arnold's former pupils,Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, is seen as one of the best works of its class in the language and added to his growing reputation. A popular life of Arnold by the novelistEmma Jane Guyton also appeared.[19] In 1896 his bust was unveiled inWestminster Abbey alongside that of his son,Matthew.The Times asserted, "As much as any who could be named, Arnold helped to form the standard of manly worth by which Englishmen judge and submit to be judged."[20] However, his reputation suffered as one of theEminent Victorians inLytton Strachey's book of that title published in 1918.
A more recent public-school headmaster,Michael McCrum ofTonbridge School andEton College in the 1960s to 1980s, also a churchman and Oxbridge academic (Master ofCorpus Christi College, Cambridge and Vice-Chancellor), wrote a biography and reappraisal of Arnold in 1991. He had briefly been a master at Rugby and was married to the daughter of another former headmaster. More recently, a biography entitledBlack Tom was written byTerence Copley. Both McCrum and Copley seek to restore some lustre to the Arnold legacy, which had been under attack since Strachey's sardonic appraisal.
A. C. Benson once observed of Arnold, "A man who could burst into tears at his own dinner-table on hearing a comparison made betweenSt. Paul andSt. John to the detriment of the latter, and beg that the subject might never be mentioned again in his presence, could never have been aneasy companion."[21]
Arnold has been played several times in adaptations ofTom Brown's School Days, including bySir Cedric Hardwicke in the 1940 film version,Robert Newton in the 1951 film version,Iain Cuthbertson in the 1971 television version, andStephen Fry in the 2005 television version.
Thomas Arnold,Arnold of Rugby: His school life and contributions to education (1897)online