erving the company they keep; nothing so
tells the changes in a boy's character."

_IV.--Influence of the Great Teacher_

But the impression which Arnold produced upon the boys was derived not
so much from any immediate intercourse or conversation with them as from
the general influence of his whole character, displayed consistently
whenever he appeared before them. This influence, with its consequent
effects, was gradually on the increase during the whole of his stay.
From the earliest period, indeed, the boys were conscious of something
unlike what they had been taught to imagine of a schoolmaster, and by
many a lasting regard was contracted for him. In the higher forms, at
least, it became the fashion, so to speak, to think and talk of him with
pride and affection. As regards the permanent effects of his whole
system, it may be said that not so much among his own pupils, or in the
scene of his actual labours, as in every public school throughout
England is to be sought the chief and enduring monument of Arnold's
headmastership at Rugby.

Of Arnold's general life at Rugby there is no need to say much; for
although the school did not occupy his whole energies, it is almost
solely by his school work that he is remembered. He took a not
unimportant part in the political and theological discussions of his
time, and various literary enterprises also engaged his attention. In
theology he entertained very broad views. One great principle he
advocated with intense earnestness was that a Christian people and a
Christian Church should be synonymous. That use of the word "Church"
which limits it to the clergy, or which implies in the clergy any
particular sacredness, he entirely repudiated.

He was convinced that the founders of our constitution in Church and
State did truly consider them to be identical; the Christian nation of
England to be the Church of England; the head of that nation to be, for
that very reason, the head of the Church. This view placed him in
antagonism to the High Church party; but, as a matter of fact, he
neither belonged, nor felt himself to belong, to any section of the
English clergy. Politically, he held himself to be a strong Whig; but
that he was not, in the common sense of the word, a member of any party
is shown by the readiness with which all parties alike, according to the
fashion of the time, claimed or renounced him as an associate.

Arnold did not like the flat scenery of Warwickshir