Aspects of the work of Matthew Arnold for royal commissions

Abstract

N 1847 Matthew Arnold was appointed Private Secretary to the Marquis of Lansdowne, the President of the Council, who was, at that time, the Government Minister responsible for the administration of public education. Thus began his association with public education, a connection which endured for almost forty years.1 When, in 1851, he was appointed to H.M.I. Arnold became a layman in a field which was almost entirely restricted to ordained Anglican priests. A modern commentator has asserted that even at that time he saw that mid-nineteenth century England needed more culture, not more morality or more religion. Subconsciously acting in the spirit of his schoolmaster father, his chosen task was to be the prophet for this culture, and his own contribution was a talent for clarity of vision which saw both the essence of a problem and its reference in the widest setting.2 Education, in his opinion, was the road to culture.3 From 1851 to 1859 Arnold's Reports appeared punctually in the Annual Reports of the Committee of Council on Education, but apart from the fine prose in which they are written there is no evidence of the deep and sincere concern for public education which he was to evince later in his writings. In fact, in a letter written at about this time to his sister, Mrs. Forster, the wife of the Liberal politician, he asserted that he had no real interest in the subject of public education.4 An extremely important landmark in Arnold's career was the reception, in February 1859 of a letter from Fitzjames Stephens, the Secretary of the newly appointed Royal Commission which was inquiring into 'the state of Popular Education in Continental Europe & on Educational Charities in England & Wales', commonly known as the Newcastle Commission. Although this was the first official communication he had received of his appointment, Arnold had actually been offered the assignment in mid-January 1859 when he attended a personal interview with Stephens, at the latter's request. Originally his particular sphere was to be France, Belgium, Switzerland and Piedmont,