Thomas Arnold, D. D., an English teacher and historian, born at West Cowes, Isle of Wight, June 13, 1795, died at Rugby, June 12, 1842. When 8 years old he was sent to Warminster, and at 12 to Winchester college, where he was known as an indolent, shy, and restless boy. In 1811, having obtained a scholarship at Cor-pus Christi, he removed to Oxford, where in 1814 he took a first class degree, and the year after was elected fellow of Oriel college. In 1815 and 1817 he was chancellor's prizeman for the Latin and English essays. In 1818 he was ordained deacon, and from 1819 employed himself at Laleham, near Staines, in the preparation of young men for the universities. From this point his career seems to have fairly com-menced. On his application for the post of head master of Rugby school, he was elected, though others had applied before him, the trustees being assured that " he would change the face of education all through the public schools of England." He entered upon the duties of this office in August, 1828, having shortly be-fore taken priest's orders.

Dr. Arnold enlarged the basis of education at Rugby by adding to the classics other departments of learning; but his influence was chiefly felt in the practical bearing upon life and character which he gave to all education, and in the lofty Christian spir-it which he endeavored to impart to his schol-ars. He substituted for the old system of fag-ging a responsible supervision of the younger lads by the boys in the highest class - a plan that was criticised in some quarters, but which he defended in the "Journal of Education" (1834-'5). He was a strenuous opponent of the new school at Oxford. He took part in the debate upon church and state, wrote a pamphlet in 1833 upon "Church Reform," and later "Fragments upon the Church," in which he urged that church and state, instead of being formally united as two separate interests, should rather be identified, the state being in fact the working church. In 1835 he accepted a fellowship in the senate of the new London university, but resigned it three years later on account of the refusal of the senate to make an examination in the New Testament obligatory upon candidates for a degree.

He delivered lectures before the Rugby mechanics' institute, and in 1831 started a periodical called the "Englishman's Register," of which only a few numbers were published. He declined politi-cal preferment; and when Lord Melbourne ap-pointed him to the regius professorship of modern history at Oxford, he welcomed it as the post of all others best suited to him. He held it but one year, when he suddenly died of heart disease. His "History of Rome," a work of great merit, in 3 vols. (1838, 1840, 1842), embodying the results of Niebuhr's investigations, carried the narrative to the end of the second Punic war; a fourth volume extends the history, in fragments, to the time of Trajan. He also published an edition of Thueydides with notes, a course of lectures on modern history, five volumes of sermons, and a volume of miscellaneous writings. His correspondence in two volumes was published, with a memoir, by the Rev. A. P. Stanley.