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An inspector of schools as well as a professor of poetry, Matthew Arnold was an educator in the true sense of the word. Watching democracy breed self-satisfied Philistines, he relized that not all the liberty and industry in the world would insure the rule of right reason. If we are to survive, he said, we must seize on the best and make it prevail. The fate of civilization depends on our schools. Unfailingly relevant, his essays on education include Democracy, The Popular Education of France, and A French Eton, as well as three essays discovered by the editor in the pages of the London Review and republished here for the first time. They form a crucial chapter in the history of education, setting forth the standards upon which Arnold's literary criticism was to be based and from which his political utterances were to come.

The Essays in Criticism is the basis of Arnold's high reputation as critic of literature. The range of subject—from the classical humor of Theocritus and the serious morality of Marcus Aurelius to the romantic religious struggles of Maurice de Guerin and the sober piety of his sister—gives scope for all Arnold's skill."The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" lays down wittily and urbanely doctrines which have shaped literary criticism for a century. Here too are his devastating attacks on the Biblical criticism of Bishop Conlenso, his needle pricks at the complacent politicians, and his sensitive analysis of the "natural magic" of English poetry.

This description of European higher education is unequaled for its clarity and comprehensiveness. Today, 100 years later, Matthew Arnold's observations are as timely as when first written. Inspector of schools as well as a poet and critic, Arnold watched democracy breed self-satisfied Philistines and realized that not all the liberty and industry in the world could ensure the rule of right reason. In 1865 he left England to investigate higher education in France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland. In this volume Arnold traces the growth of schools and universities on the continent, examines the role of government in their development, and argues for organized public education and state schools in England. Included are the 1868 and 1882 Prefaces to Schools and Universities on the Continent, a newly discovered essay entitled "German and English Universities," and three letters written to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette. This book makes clear the goals and achievements of European higher education and their relation to 19th-century and modern standards of learning.