influence of the temptations around him, in the very place which ought
to have strengthened and improved it. But in most cases those who come
with a character of positive good are benefited; it is the neutral and
indecisive characters which are apt to be decided for evil by schools,
as they would be in fact by any other temptation."

But this very feeling led him with the greater eagerness to catch at
every means by which the trial might be shortened or alleviated. "Can
the change from childhood to manhood be hastened, without prematurely
exhausting the faculties of body or mind?" was one of the chief
questions on which his mind was constantly at work, and which in the
judgment of some he was disposed to answer too readily in the
affirmative. It was with the elder boys, of course, that he chiefly
acted on this principle, but with all above the very young ones he
trusted to it more or less. Firmly as he believed that _a_ time of trial
was inevitable, he believed no less firmly that it might be passed at
public schools sooner than under other circumstances; and, in proportion
as he disliked the assumption of a false manliness in boys, was his
desire to cultivate in them true manliness, as the only step to
something higher, and to dwell on earnest principle and moral
thoughtfulness, as the great and distinguishing mark between good and
evil. Hence his wish that as much as possible should be done _by_ the
boys, and nothing _for_ them; hence arose his practice, in which his own
delicacy of feeling and uprightness of purpose powerfully assisted him,
of treating the boys as gentlemen and reasonable beings, of making them
respect themselves by the mere respect he showed to them; of showing
that he appealed and trusted to their own common sense and conscience.
Lying, for example, to the masters, he made a great moral offence:
placing implicit confidence in a boy's assertion, and then, if a
falsehood was discovered, punishing it severely,--in the upper part of
the school, when persisted in, with expulsion. Even with the lower forms
he never seemed to be on the watch for boys; and in the higher forms any
attempt at further proof of an assertion was immediately checked: "If
you say so, that is quite enough--_of course_ I believe your word;" and
there grew up in consequence a general feeling that "it was a shame to
tell Arnold a lie--he always believes one."

Perhaps the liveliest representation of this general spirit, as
disting