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Matthewarnoldcul021369mbp.Pdf landmarks in the History of Educati GENERAL EDIT o1 J. DOVER WILSON, Lrrr.D. Professor of Education in the University of London King's College F. A. CAVENAGH, M.A. Professor of Education at University College Swansea CULTURE AND ANARC landmarks in the History of Education GENERAL EDITO J. DOVER WILSON, Lrrr.D. Professor of Education in the University of London King's College F, A. CAVENAGH, M.A. Professor of Education at University College Swansea CULTURE AND ANARCHY LONDON Cambridge University Press FETTZS LANE NS"- YORK TORONTO ICJIBAY * CALCUTTA MADRAS Macmillan TOKYO Alartizen Company Ltd tAll rights reserved in the History ofEducation Cu.ture and Anarchy* BY MATTHEW ARNOLD Edited with an introduction by J. DOVER WILSON, Lirr.I Felh'W of the British Academy *7 CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1932 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS Editor's Preface ...... page vil Editor's Introduction . $ . xl AUTHOR'S PREFACE 3 INTRODUCTION 39 % Chapter I . , . SWEETNESS AND LIGHT a 43 Chapter II DOING AS ONE LIKES 72 Chapter III BARBARIANS, PHILISTINES, POPULATE . ^ Chapter IV HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM . .1,29 Chapter "V PORRO UNUM EST NECESSARIUM . .' "145 Chapter VI OUR LIBERAL PRACTITIONERS. 165 CONCLUSION ...... 202 Notes 213 * Bibliography . 239 To G. B. W. EDITOR'S PREFACE 9 * and Anarchy was first published as a book In 1869* and has never been reprinted In its original form; for when a second edition was called for in 1875 Arnold carefully revis%d the whole, corrected a few misprints, added a motto from the Vulgate on the back of the title-page, inserted the now familiar titles at the heads of the chapters, repara- graphed the text at many points, and, while developing Certain passages,, deleted or abridged a number of others. Clearly the principal object of these deletions was to suppress or%tone down personal allusions, either in order to remove grounds of offence Arnold was ever a man of peace or because the allusions had ceased to be topical and wonld no longer interest the public. But Culture andAnarchy is now a classic; the shrinking flesh flicked on the raw by its original "vivacities" has long been compounded with the dust; and though many of the names and allusions omitted in 18*5 are ten times more forgotten in 1931, the rediscovery of them often gives point to Arnold's argumei^and htlps us to understand the mood In which he wrote. Whilea3opting, therefore, the improvements in phrasing and arrangement above mentioned, correcting misprints, and Incorporating -the sentences and passages added in 1875, together with one or two small corrections made In a third edition of 1882, this reprint in other respects follows the unexpurgated text of 1869. In a few places, as I have Indicated In the Notes, textual combination has given rise to problems involving editorial authority. But on the whole the task has proved an easy one. The restoration is by no means of purely antiquarian interest. Cambridge men, and members of King's College In particular, will be at once astonished and delighted to encounter at the very beginning of the book the familiar viii EDITOR'S PREFACE t The future founder and'first Prin- .features of "the 0.$." Training Department *- ** ** **.*. Cambridge, V* U of%. the 4^, University cipal Y->V .d^Stf^ assistant master at hton, for secondary teachers was an a^Fd of lie crossed the of the prophet secondary 31, when path rude review of Schools and education bv writing a rather for Ocfcber Itnrjersities m the Continent in the Quarterly that did not him; 1868. T% anonymity of journal protect from so that it was obvious that the attack came Eton, In the reviewer's Arnold had little difficulty discovering identity. And that he knew his Oscar Browning well i clear from the reference to "the strains of his heroic are recorded ancestor, Malvina's Oscar, as they by the that was left family poet, Ossian." Perhaps pretension behind at Eton when "the O.B." came to Cambridge; tides of others. It is at perhaps it was submerged by the any rare new to me, though I have listened to many stories at King's. Another passage which I have enjoyed restoring throws a new light upon that Liberal Christian gentleman, the great Ooctorjtimself. It will I think please Mr. Lytton Strachef^fflough if he Is tempted to quote it in the next edition of his Eminent Victorians he will I hope make fair use of It. After dwelling upon the importance of supporting the executive "in repressing anarchy and dis- Thomas Arnold's son : order/' continues (p. 203) With, me, indeed, this rale of conduct is hereditary. I remember my father, in one of his unpublished letters written more than when the forty years ago, political and social state of the country was and and there gloomy troubled, were riots in many places, on after goes s strongly Insisting on the badness and foolishness of the government, and on die harm and dangerousness of our feudal and aristocratical constitution of society, and ends thus: "As for the old Roman of noting, way dealing with that is always the the rank and rigk ope; flog file, and fling the ringleaders from the Tarpeian Rock!" EDITOR'S PREFACE ix Why Arnold cut this out in 1 875 we do not know, but I street that the family misliked it in 1869. Family piety of my own compels me to add a woi^i in defence of the Alderman- Colonel of the City of London Militia, upon whom Arnold expends some of his best witticisms, and who seemed as anxious as Dogberry him- self that the bills of his troops should not be stoltn by the "vagrommen"of the town*. I come of London city stock, and one of the golden names on the family roll of honour is Samuel Wilson, for forty years alderman of the City and in 1838-9 Lord Mayor. There is nothing in Arnold's secSnd edition to suggest any connexion between his antic alderman and my august relative. The reader can therefore imagine my agitation when the text of 1869 revealed the name Wilson, and my consternation when on turning up the Times of June, 1 867, I found not only a full account of the whole notorious affair, but the Christian name, Samuel, as well. There could be no doubt of k. The great Samuel Wilson had made himself the laughing- stock of London by his route march in Hyd so that Arnold was using him as good copy twdvehonths after the event. And yet a kinsman, sixty- four years later, may perhaps be allowed to plead extenuating circum- stances, circumstances no doubt unknown to Arnold at the time. The "Philistine Alderman-Colonel" was seventy- in the the five years of age in 1867, he was fact "Father of City." Furthermore, he loved the militia which he com- manded, much as Frederick-William I of Prussia loved his is a tall soldiers; he thought of them, that to say, as gallant spectacle, and never contemplated their being engaged in serious combat. Thus when he excused his inaction against the rioters of Hyde Park on the ground that "if he had allowed his soldiers to interfere they might have; been * Editor's Introd. p. xxx and below pp. 92, 205, 207. X EDITOR'S PREFACE taken from them and used overpowered, their rifles against ''the is to be down not to weak- them by the mob/ plea put but to an old man's affection and ness and cowardice fatherly the at the head of which he had marched pride for troops of London. That so for many years through the streets be in a scuffle with a much gallantry should jeopardized not to be of, at rate a crowd of roughs was thought any by septuagenarian. J. D. W. August 1931 EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Matthew Arnold holds a position in the history of modern English civilisation which it requires an unusual combina- a tion or qualities and interests to appreciate. As poet and a critic he was the most considerable literary figure of the mid-Victorian period; for though his poetry ranks third after that of Browning and Tennyson, it is a good third, ad they have nothing in criticism in any way comparable with his brilliant Essays. As a religious thinker he produced boots which had a remarkable vogue and much influence in his own day and, though at the moment a little outmoded, one of them at least, the beautiful Literature and Dogma, will assuredly find an enduring place as an expression, no less sincere because more liberal than that of his much- admired master Newman, of the religious genius of the English race. Lastly, as an educationalist to use an ugly if convenient word which he himself detested he was both in experience and insight far ahead o^his coiitem- poraries and of most of his present-day successors.^* Here, in his passion for education, the passion of a life-time inherited from a father equally devoted to its service, is to be found the centre of all his work and the root even of his poetry and his religious writings. These have attracted more notice because they afforded greater because "educa- scope to his gifts of expression, and tion" is for most critics at once a dull and a technical subject. Arnold has accordingly often been ill served by those who have written upon him, for to slight or to misunderstand his educational work is to miss the heart of the man. He was indeed all of a piece.
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