d that the remedy of the
trustees, if they were dissatisfied, was not interference, but
dismissal. It was on this condition that he took the post; and any
attempt to control either the administration of the school or his own
private occupations he felt bound to resist as a duty not only to
himself but the master of every foundation school in England. The
remonstrances which he encountered, particularly from his fixed
determination always to get rid of unpromising subjects, were vehement
and numerous; but he repeatedly declared that on no other conditions
could he hold his appointment, or justify the existence of the public
school system in a Christian country.

"My object," he wrote, just before taking up duty, "will be, if
possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely hope
to make; I mean that, from the natural imperfect state of boyhood, they
are not susceptible of Christian principles in their full development
upon their practice, and I suspect that a low standard of morals in many
respects must be tolerated amongst them, as it was on a larger scale in
what I consider the boyhood of the human race."

This is the keynote of his whole system. As he put it, what he looked
for in the school was, first, religious and moral principles; second,
gentlemanly conduct; and third, intellectual ability. Intellectual
training was never for a moment underrated, but he always thought first
of his charges as schoolboys who must grow up to be Christian men. His
education, in short, "was not based upon religion, but was itself
_religious_." For cleverness as such, Arnold had no regard. "Mere
intellectual acuteness," he used to say, "divested as it is, in too many
cases, of all that is comprehensive and great and good, is to me more
revolting than the most helpless imbecility, seeming to be almost like
the spirit of Mephistopheles." Often when this intellectual cleverness
was seen in union with moral depravity, he would be inclined to deny its
existence altogether.

A mere plodding boy was, above all others, encouraged by him. At Laleham
he had once got out of patience, and spoken sharply to a pupil of this
kind, when the pupil looked up in his face and said, "Why do you speak
angrily, sir? Indeed, I am doing the best that I can." Years afterwards
he used to tell the story to his children, and said, "I never felt so
much ashamed in my life--that look and that speech I have never
forgotten." And though it would, o