And Arminius' drastic method of questioning and
arguing became the idoneous vehicle for Arnold's criticisms on such
topics as our Foreign Policy, Compulsory Education, the Press, and the
Deceased Wife's Sister. The letters were eventually collected in that
little-read but most fascinating book, _Friendship's Garland_, which was
published in 1871.[27] But before _Friendship's Garland_ came out,
Arnold, who had tested his powers in social criticism by these fugitive
pieces, addressed himself to a more serious and solid effort in the same
field. The essays which eventually formed the book called _Culture and
Anarchy_ began to appear in the _Cornhill Magazine_ for July, 1867, and
were continued in 1868. The book was published in 1869. We saw at the
outset that he himself said of his _Discourses in America_ that they, of
all his prose-writings, were the writings by which he would most wish to
be remembered. Many of his disciples would say that _Essays in
Criticism_ was his most important work in prose. Some people would give
the crown to _Literature and Dogma_. "It has been more in demand," the
author told us in 1883, "than any other of my prose-writings." Respect
is due to what a great master thought of his own work, and to what his
best-qualified disciples think of it. But after all we uphold the right
of private judgment, and the present writer is strongly of opinion that
_Culture and Anarchy_ is Arnold's most important work in prose. It was,
to borrow a phrase used by Mr. Gladstone in another connexion, not a
book, but an event. We must consider it in its proper setting of time
and circumstance.

The beginning of 1869 was a great moment in our political and social
history. Ever since the enthusiasm which surrounded the Reform Act of
1832 had faded away in disappointment and disillusion, the ardent
friends of freedom and progress had been crying out for a further
extension of the franchise. The next Reform Bill was to give the workmen
a vote; and a Parliament elected by workmen was to bring the Millennium.
The Act of 1867 gave the desired vote, and the workmen used it for the
first time at the General Election of 1868. At the beginning of 1869 the
new Parliament was just assembling, and it was possible to take stock of
it, to analyze its component parts, to form some estimate of its
capacity, some forecast of its intentions. It was a Liberal Parliament.
There was no mistake about that. Bishop Wilberforce wrote just after