ABSTRACT
The most famous public school Headmaster of all, Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby, coined a new ideal, the Christian gentleman, which played an important part in reforming the wild excesses of eighteenth-century public schools. Thomas Arnold's model of the Christian gentleman as the goal of public school education was being superseded by notions of service to the Community during the period under review. Regular chapel and high church practices at school induced rejection in some and Christian commitment and regular church attendance in others. One group with very direct concern with the importance and effects of chapel and moral training were the clergy. Their own academic background and Church of England connections led many of them to favour the public schools for their sons' education. At Ellesmere College the emphasis upon attendance at Anglo-Catholic rituals in chapel was more welcome to the clergy in education of their sons than the majority of other parents.
