ndeed,
it needs but the alteration of a single word to justify, at least to
some extent, the "damning sentence," which, according to Arnold, Mr.
Frederic Harrison "launched" against him in 1867. "We seek vainly in Mr.
A. a system of philosophy with principles coherent, interdependent,
subordinate, and derivative." For "Philosophy" read "Education," and the
reproach holds good. For in Education, as in everything else that he
touched, he proceeded rather by criticism than by dogma--by showing
faults in existing things rather than by theoretically constructing
perfection. Yet, after all said and done, his general view of the
subject is quite plain. He had in his mind an idea or scheme of what
National Education ought to be; and, though from time to time he changed
his view about details and methods, the general outline of his scheme is
clear enough.

One of the most characteristic passages which he ever wrote is that in
which he describes his interview in 1865 with Cardinal Antonelli, then
Secretary of State at Rome. "When he asked me what I thought of the
Roman schools, I said that, for the first time since I came on the
Continent, I was reminded of England. I meant, in real truth, that there
was the same easy-going and absence of system on all sides, the same
powerlessness and indifference of the State, the same independence in
single institutions, the same free course for abuses, the same
confusion, the same lack of all idea of _co-ordering_ things, as the
French say--that is, of making them work fitly together to a fit end;
the same waste of power, therefore the same extravagance, and the same
poverty of result."

Enlarging on this congenial theme, and applying it to England and
English requirements, he promulged in 1868 a very revolutionary scheme
for Public Education. At the apex of the pyramid there should be a
Minister of Education. "Merely for administrative convenience he is,
indeed, indispensable. But it is even more important to have _a centre
in which to fix responsibility_." In 1886 he said to the teachers at
Westminster, "I know the Duke of Richmond told the House of Lords that,
as Lord President, he was Minister of Education--(laughter)--but really
the Duke of Richmond's sense of humour must have been slumbering when he
told the House of Lords that. A man is not Minister of Education by
taking the name, but by doing the functions. (Cheers.) To do the
functions he must put his mind to the subject of educat