Thomas Arnold

1795-1842. Anglican teacher and Broad Churchman. Educated at Warminster, Winchester, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he was ordained and in 1828 was appointed headmaster of Rugby School. There he laid the foundations of the modern public school system in England, with its emphasis on religious training, moral character, and public service. He became in 1841 regius professor of modern history at Oxford. He opposed the Oxford Movement,* and his reaction to the church crisis was to propose a comprehensive English Church, excluding only Roman Catholics, Unitarians, and Quakers. The essence of Christianity was to him practical goodness, which both church and state exist to realize, each needing the other. He stressed the universal priesthood of the laity, and considered matters of doctrine and ritual inessential. He wrote Principles of Church Reform (1834) and Fragment on the Church (1844).