From Oxford he returned to teach classics at Rugby, and in 1847 he was appointed private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, then Lord President of the Council.  In 1851, the year of his marriage, he became inspector of schools, and in this service he continued until two years before his death.  As an inspector, the letters give us a picture of Arnold toiling over examination papers, and hurrying from place to place, covering great distances, often going without lunch or dinner, or seeking the doubtful solace of a bun, eaten “before the astonished school.”  His services to the cause of English education were great, both in the direction of personal inspiration to teachers and students, and in thoughtful discussion of national problems.  Much time was spent in investigating foreign systems, and his Report upon Schools and Universities on the Continent was enlightened and suggestive.

Arnold’s first volume of poems appeared in 1849, and by 1853 the larger part of his poetry was published.  Four years later he was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford.  Of his prose, the first book to attract wide notice was that containing the lectures On Translating Homer delivered from the chair of Poetry and published in 1861-62.  From this time until the year of his death appeared the remarkable series of critical writings which have placed him in the front rank of the men of letters of his century.  He continued faithfully to fulfill his duties as school inspector until April, 1886, when he resigned after a service of thirty-five years.  He died of heart trouble on April 15, 1888, at Liverpool.

The testimony to Arnold’s personal charm, to his cheerfulness, his urbanity, his tolerance and charity, is remarkably uniform.  He is described by one who knew him as “the most sociable, the most lovable, the most companionable of men”; by another as “preeminently a good man, gentle, generous, enduring, laborious.”  His letters are among the precious writings of our time, not because of the beauty or inimitableness of detail, but because of the completed picture which they make.  They do not, like the Carlyle-Emerson correspondence, show a hand that could not set pen to paper without writing picturesquely, but they do reveal a character of great soundness and sweetness, and one in which the affections play a surprisingly important part, the love of flowers and books, of family and friends, and of his fellow men.  His life was human, kindly and unselfish, and he allowed no clash between the pursuit of personal perfection and devotion to the public cause, even when the latter demanded sacrifice of the most cherished projects and adherence to the most irritating drudgery.

II

[Sidenote:  Arnold’s Place among Nineteenth-Century Teachers]