Butler’s own culture was essentially classical, for he had been fashioned by Vaughan, who “thought in Greek,” and he himself might almost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs.  But his scholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, and by his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, modern as well as ancient.  Under his rule the “grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum,” which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hard and long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield.  Butler’s first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his gifts or tastes.  At the same time he introduced the regular teaching of Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a “Modern Side.”  An even more important feature of his rule was the official encouragement given to the study of music, which, from an illicit indulgence practised in holes and corners, became, under the energetic management of Mr. John Farmer, a prime element in the life of the School.

In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School.  My father had introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at once under his charm.  He was curiously unlike what one had imagined a Head Master to be—­not old and pompous and austere, but young and gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand.  His leading characteristic was gracefulness.  He was graceful in appearance, tall and as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, and pre-eminently graceful in speech.  He was young—­thirty-four—­and looked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity afforded by an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard.  He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display it before boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of the solemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everything that was established and official.  To breakfast with a Head Master is usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe about the pleasant meals in Butler’s dining-room (now the head Master’s study), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of his guests.

It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspection of one’s Form. ("Saying to the Head Master” was the old phrase, then lapsing out of date.) We used to think that he found a peculiar interest in testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, and of those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasions it was a doubtful privilege to “know him,” as the phrase is, “at home.”  Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and official encounters with Butler were one’s only opportunities of meeting him at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preach in the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at least in many cases,