I imagine that his rule was lenient. A colleague told me how they sat together at Whitelands Training College (where the girls have the rude wind of education tempered to them by the study of Ruskin, and the cultus of the maypole) and listened to “Recitation,” which at school we called “Lines.” The prosaic colleague, looking over the poet’s marks, noticed that every girl had got the highest mark possible, and he commented on this monotony of excellence. Arnold merely purred--“they are such charming girls.” Of these two great men Dr. Temple represented the clerical inspector, who in those days inspected the National schools: Arnold and a few more laymen took the Protestant Dissenters, and the British and Foreign Society’s Schools. A still smaller body visited the Roman Catholics. The clerical inspectors were men who had aspirations above parochial work, and souls above common-room life. The laymen were men who wanted a fixed income and congenial work, and saw neither floating on the surface of any of the ordinary professions. It must be borne in mind that inspecting schools was only part of the early inspectors’ work: they were missionaries over all the land, and did much to stir up men and bodies of men to take an interest in education. Men of high attainments and diplomatic powers would be most valuable at such times, and if the country got them, whether clerical or lay, the country was fortunate. There were others famous in the land besides the two above mentioned; Brookfield, Bellairs, Fitch, many more. There were also some very inefficient persons. A clergyman who dislikes the profession which he has adopted, is not necessarily the best man for the profession which he chooses for his second string. A layman who sees no prospect of success in the learned professions, need not be the best critic of the teaching profession. On the whole I think it safe to say that if we have fewer men of remarkable talent, we have fewer men of remarkable unfitness. There were many anecdotes of the giants of old. In one county stories of the eccentric Mr. Goodheart still survive. A country rector told me some: “Mr. G. frequently stayed here for the inspection of my school. In those days there was no such system of pupil-teacher examinations as you have now (he referred to the monthly examinations, long since dropped): the Inspector examined the candidates at their own schools, or at any convenient centre, and set his own questions. He always came to the parish school here on a Monday: slept here that night, and took St. George’s school next day, examining the pupil-teachers where he could. One year he asked me to allow the P.T.’s of both schools to come up to the Rectory at 6.30 to be examined, and of course I agreed. I was only thankful that he didn’t fix 6.30 A.M. When they came, he put them in my study; gave them questions on paper in Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, and History; and then joined me at dinner.”