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Matthew Arnold and the Academy: A Note on English Criticism in the Eighteen-Seventies
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2021
Extract
In the eighteen-sixties, Arnold was much concerned about the lack of organization in English intellectual life. He compared the “crudeness, provincialism, eccentricity, violence, blundering” of his countrymen to the thoroughness of German research and the efficacy of French state-controlled education. His essay on “Democracy,” first published in 1861, his essay of 1864 on “The Literary Influence of Academies,” and his “General Conclusion” in the 1868 edition of Schools and Universities on the Continent are vigorous pleas for reform. Arnold did not pretend that English “provincialism” could be cured by the establishment of an institution like the Académie Française. But he hoped to make his countrymen realize the need in England for a more centralized effort in intellectual matters.
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953
References
page 384 note 1 This article is based partly on five unpublished letters written by Matthew Arnold to Dr. Charles Appleton, editor of the Academy until 1879. By the courtesy of J. H. Appleton, M.A., Telham Court, Battle, Sussex, the nephew of Dr. Appleton, I am able to quote these letters in full below.
page 384 note 2 “The Literary Influence of Academies,” Works of Matthew Arnold (London : Macmillan, 1903), III, 60.
page 384 note 3 J. H. Appleton and A. H. Sayce, Dr. Appleton: His Life and Literary Relics, English and Foreign Philos. Library, XIII (London, 1881), 82.
page 384 note 4 W. W. Jackson, Ingram Bywater (Clarendon Press, 1917), pp. 19-33; A. H. Sayce, Reminiscences (London, 1923), pp. 85-88.
page 385 note 5 T. F. Althaus, Recollections of Mark Pattison (London, 1885), p. 10 (repr. fr. the Temple Bar Magazine, Jan. 1885).
page 385 note 6 Review of Dr. Appleton: His Life and Literary Relics in the Academy, XIX (19 Feb. 1881), 127.
page 385 note 7 Dr. Appleton, p. 82.
page 386 note 8 The Acad., I (13 Nov. 1869), 31. Also The Letters of Matthew Arnold to Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. H. F Lowry (Oxford Univ. Press, 1932), p. 38 n.
page 387 note 9 George Paston, At John Mugray's: Records of a Literary Circle 1843-92 (London, 1932), p. 215.
page 387 note 10 Appleton MSS. The encosure referred to in the first line of Arnold's letter may be a letter to Arnold from a French correspondent contraining comments on Arnold's article discussed below.
page 388 note 11 The Acad., III (15 Feb. 1872), 61-64. The review is omitted in T. B. Smart, Bibliography of Arnold (1892 and 1904).
page 388 note 12 The Acad., I (13 Aug. 1870), 283. Review by Edith Simcox (“H. Lawrenny”).
page 388 note 13 The Acad., IV (1 Sept. 1873), 327-330.
page 388 note 14 Appleton MSS. In God and the Bible (Works, VIII, 4) Arnold refers to this review by Réville and one by Prof. Rauwenhoff in the “Theological Review of Leyden.”
page 389 note 15 Dowden, Shakspeare: A Critical Study of His Mind and Art (London, 1875), pp. 1-41 and 428.
page 390 note 16 Dr. Appleton, p. 7.
page 390 note 17 Mark Pattison, Memoirs (London, 1885), p. 312; Dr. Appleton, pp. 31-38; Mark Pattison et al., Essays on the Endowment of Research (London, 1876); the Times, 23 Nov. 1873, p. 4, giving a report from the first meeting of the “Association for the Organisation of Academical Study,” presided over by Mark Pattison.
page 390 note 18 “Oxford Studies” in Oxford Essays (1855); quoted from his Essays (Clarendon Press, 1889), I, 473 and 465.
page 390 note 19 “The Prophet of Culture,” Macmillan's Mag., XVI (Aug. 1867), 277.
page 393 note 20 God and the Bible, in Works, VIII, 93-97.
page 393 note 21 Letters of Matthew Arnold, 1848-1888, ed. G. W. E. Russell (Works, XIV, 338), letter dated 6 Nov. 1874.
page 393 note 22 God and the Bible, in Works, VIII, 216.
page 394 note 23 The Athenaeum, No. 2678 (22 Feb. 1879), p. 250. Obituary on Dr. C. E. Appleton.
page 394 note 24 Letters of Matthew Arnold to A. H. Clough, Letter 49, p. 144.
page 394 note 25 Appleton MSS. The Contemporary Review was published by Strahan & Co.
page 396 note 26 In “Oxford Studiea,” Oxford Essays (1865); see Essays (1889), I, 449-462.