story and
literature--for the general public; but anything like a good and sound
_resume_ for the general public did not exist till this book came."

It is interesting to observe that to his deep conviction of the ethical
and educational value of the Bible is due his only direct and
constructive effort to enrich the apparatus of the schools which he
inspected. Of improvement by way of criticism and suggestion he gave
them enough and to spare, but to supply them with a new reading-book was
a departure from his usual method. Nevertheless in 1872 he wrote: "An
ounce of practice, they say, is better than a pound of theory; and
certainly one may talk for ever about the wonder-working power of
Letters, and yet produce no good at all, unless one really puts people
in the way of feeling their power. The friends of Physics do not content
themselves with extolling Physics; they put forth school-books by which
the study of Physics may be with proper advantage brought near to those
who before were strangers to it; and they do wisely. For any one who
believes in the civilizing power of Letters, and often talks of this
belief, to think that he has for more than twenty years got his living
by inspecting schools for the people, has gone in and out among them,
has seen that the power of Letters never reaches them at all, and that
the whole study of Letters is thereby discredited, and its power called
in question, and yet has attempted nothing to remedy this state of
things, cannot but be vexing and disquieting. He may truly say, like the
Israel of the prophet, 'We have not wrought any deliverance in the
earth'! and he may well desire to do something to pay his debt to
popular education before he finally departs, and to serve it, if he can,
in that point where its need is sorest, where he has always said its
need was sorest, and where, nevertheless, it is as sore still as when he
began saying this twenty years ago. Even if what he does cannot be of
service at once, owing to special prejudices and difficulties, yet these
prejudices and difficulties years are almost sure to dissipate, and the
work may be of service hereafter."

These wise, though rather melancholy, words occur in the Preface to a
little book called _A Bible Reading for Schools_, and in its fuller and
alternative title, _The Great Prophecy of Israel's Restoration, Arranged
and Edited for Young Learners_. Arnold, himself a constant and attentive
student of Holy Writ, "liked