ABSTRACT
Dr Arnold was a very great man but a bad schoolmaster. Several claims can be made for the success of Arnold’s reforms at Rugby. Arnold’s major contribution, then, to the development of the English public school was ‘to Christianise’ it. He began this process at a preliminary stage of his headship. Arnold used the chapel over the years to build up the religious ethos he sought for Rugby School, often tackling in his sermons domestic difficulties and crises current in the school at any one time. The net result of the interaction of these several factors of Arnoldian success—the constant inculcation of virtue by invocation in the chapel where he preached stirring sermons. One of Edward Thring’s guiding principles, on the other hand, was that ‘every boy is good for something’. Arnold’s dictum was clearly anathema to him and for this reason he thought Arnold was a poor schoolmaster.
