[Illustration: Fox How, Ambleside

Dr. Thomas Arnold's holiday home.

Mrs. Arnold continued to reside at Fox How until her death, in 1873

_Photo Herbert Bell_]

As in dealing with the Universities, so also in dealing with the Public
Schools, Arnold found it difficult to liberate himself from his early
environment and prepossessions. He was the son of a Wykehamist, who had
become the greatest of Head Masters; he himself was both a Wykehamist
and a Rugbeian; he was the brother of three Rugbeians, and the father of
three Harrovians. Thus it was impossible for him to regard the Public
Schools of England with the dispassionate eye of the complete
outsider. It is true that, when he gave rein to his critical instinct,
he could not help observing that Public Schools are "precious
institutions where, for £250 a year, our boys learn gentlemanlike
deportment and cricket"; that with us "the playing-fields are the
school"; and that a Prussian Minister of Education would not permit "the
keepers of those absurd cock-pits" to examine the boys as they choose,
"and send them jogging comfortably off to the University on their lame
longs and shorts about the Calydonian Boar." But, when it came to
practical dealing, he had a tenderness for the "cock-pit"--even for the
playing-fields--almost for the Calydonian Boar--which hindered him from
being a very formidable or effective critic. Rugby, with which he was so
closely connected, and to which he was so much attached, owes nothing,
as far as one knows, to his suggestions or reproaches. At Harrow he
lived for five years, on terms of affectionate intimacy with the Head