BOOKS.

EDWARD THRING.*

THERE can be no question at all but that Edward Thring wag

a man of genius, and in many respects, though not in all, a man of genius whose genius specially fitted him for the career he actually lived. He has impressed his genius so powerfully on some of his pupils, that though his Life is to be written by Pro- fessor Parkin, of Canada, to whom the materials have been en- trusted, there are already in existence two short studies of him.

by former Uppingham boys, one of them also a former colleague- of Mr. Thring's at Uppingham, recording with singular vivacity the vivid impression made on the boys' imagination by the great. Head-Master. Mr. Skrine's book is, on the whole, the abler,. and contains some chapters of quite singular ability, though one.

or two of the chapters seem to us ambitious, indeed high- flying and unsuccessful,—a fault which was perhaps the one- least discouraged by Thring in his pupils. Mr. Rawnsley's. study is also singularly readable, though its fault is the same, —highflying,ness, if we may coin a word. It dwells more on the- poetical and imaginative side of Edward Thring, which was per- haps the side of him which chiefly made him the hero he was to- his own scholars, and which to some extent, perhaps, prevented him from discouraging them in their weaker ambitions, their unreal and vainer dreams. At least, we fancy that we derive- from both these interesting studies of Thring the impression of a. master so anxious to make boys trust themselves,—which they must do if they are to be anything,—that he hardly taught them.

sufficiently to distrust themselves, and to detect the element of gush" and alloy which constitutes a very considerable stratum in most clever boys' minds, and takes very considerably from the value of the true ore. Thring's ideal of teaching, which was to make something of the stupid boy, was a very noble

one ; but it tended, we think, to the side of not suffi- ciently discouraging the many conceits of the clever boy.

He was so anxious not to depress the hopes of those who had little in them, that he did not sufficiently snub the- vanities of those who had mach in them. It was certainly a fault very rare in schoolmasters, and an effort on the right side, for it has been the weakness of great schoolmasters to be far too much taken up with the pupils who raise their hopes, and far too little with the pupils who weigh upon them like lead. "The most pitiful sight in the world," said Mr.

Thring, "is the slow, good boy laboriously kneading himself into stupidity because he is good." His chief creed was, says-

Mr. Rawnsley, that "all boys were good for something, none-

good for nothing ; and if a stupid lad excelled in the- carpenter's shop, or a fool in form made good hits to leg, or- took his hurdles easily, or a duffer at Greek prose bowed his violin well, we had the feeling that the Head-Master looked on him as a good fellow, worthy of praise as a workman, doing.

good school work, and work for the school in his particular line- well ; and this prevented most of the possible conceit of the big-brain order in the little Uppingham community." No.

doubt. But while it diminished the conceit of the intellectual boys in their mere preference for intellectual work, it did not tend to diminish their self-confidence in the more unreal and ambitious side of their own endeavours ; and this was perhaps the defective side of Thring's influence as a teacher. Mr. Shrine gives so admirable a picture of Thring's healthy and vivid sympathy with the play of his school, that we cannot do better than quote it as illustrating one of the most obvious; secrets of his power :—

" At 12 o'clock school was over for the morning. In a corner of the irregular school close, where now stand the chapel railings,. stood a tall structure, like a barn, open on one side but for a breast-high wall. This was the fives-court, on the Eton model, adapted. I was drawn thither one morning by the sight of a small concourse of spectators, and found a game of unusual bright- ness going forward. Three of the best players of the school and a stranger were at work with the ball. The first stroke I saw- showed me the stranger knew the game, but his queer playing-gear- -black trousers, and braces, the one dismounted to free the nimbler right arm—puzzled me. Who's that ? ' I asked.—' Who's what ? ' replied the youth addressed.'—Why, with the braces there!— ' Teddy, you little fool.' My eyes were opened and I saw. Yes, it was Teddy, just Teddy with his coat off. But, braces or no braces, what play Short of reach, a bit stiff and jerky in move- * (1.) A Memory of Edward Thring. By john Huntley Skrine, Warden of Glenalmond. London : Macmillan and Co.—(2.) Eduard Thring, Teacher and Poet. By H. D. Rawnsley, M.A.—(3.) Uppingham School Songs and Borth Lyrics. By Edward Thring. 1853-1887.—(4.) Poems and Translations.. By Edward Thring. London: T. Fisher Unwin.

ment, but dancing about the court as if he were the shadow of the ball, always behind it at the true moment, ducking to evade, jumping to reach it, fetching it out of impossible corners, stopping • smart volleys into the buttress and returning them as hot as they • came, then when the loose ball came, clapping it into the pepper- box dead, or (oh, rare !) pinning a helpless opponent with it • against the wall. There was no such fives player then or for' many a long year. His best days have never been matched. Year by year the winners of the school fives prize encountered him and one of his colleagues—a brother Etonian and kingsman, - dear, true, gentle, loveable Daddie ' Witts, the tenderest soul alive, who knew not severity but in those vicious left-hand volleys of his—and year by year the school learnt who were their masters out of doors as in. Ay! he was the prince of fives players, since the day when a big boy would have turned the small scholar out • of an Eton fives-court, and that small, indomitable scholar flung himself on the flags, to dispute them with his body, ejaculating I'll die first !' whence 'little Die first' became his name among Eton youth."

There you see not merely the physical animation, but the imaginative side of the man. "Little 'Die first," who would rather have died than have suffered the indignity of being -turned out of the Eton fives-court because he was little, had _just the nature to throw into all he did the sort of passion which made Thring great among Head-Masters. Observe how le infuses the same passion into his spirited "Fives Song :"— " Oh the spirit in the ball Dancing round about the wall, In your eye and out again Ere there's time to feel the pain,

Hands and fingers all alive, Doing duty each for five. Oh the spirit in the ball, Dancing round about the wall !

See again, now up it goes,

Whizzing by that startled nose, Hands and feet are everywhere, Twinkling in the middle air, Bodies, bodies are no more, All is hit, and spring, and score. Oh the spirit in the ball, Dancing round about the wall !

Poets sung it long ago, All the fight and all the woe, Geryon and thundering Zeus, Hundred-fisted Briareus, Argtu3 with his million eyes, Oh, Imes but a game of Fives. Oh the lordly game of Fives. Oh the spirit in the ball, Dancing round about the wall !"

It is in his poems, indeed,—not always effective poems, though some are very effective,—that one finds a chief source of Edward Thring's power. He was a man who could doable and redouble his strength for actual work by dreaming; and men who can do this are few. Often his poetical dreams do not appear to the reader to be of the kind which would have much bearing on the actual work of life ; they are mystical dreams generally, warlike dreams sometimes, but to him refreshing and restoring dreams almost always. As he himself writes hi one of these dreams- " Whoso within that dreamy circle sets, For him abideth still

The calm of upper air, the magic light That hill sends on to hill."

'Take the following, for instance, as an evidence of the resource which Thring found in his imaginative dreams when he was severely tried by the urgent anxieties of a most critical, not to say overwhelming misfortune. Typhoid had broken out at 17ppingham, and when after the Christmas holidays it re- appeared in the school, there was great danger of a result fatal to the school if some strong measure were not taken. Thring was deeply attached to the school and the school buildings and -associations, as every one knows ; but he determined at once to shift the school to some distant seaside place where he might be safe from the fever and its causes, while the drainage

• of lippingham was thoroughly renovated. He suffered greatly from the necessity of cutting himself loose from all the local associations of the place, and reproached himself with these .sufferings. And how did be find rest and courage for his over-taxed and over-anxious mind P In meditating and 'writing the following exquisite song, in which he exhorts the swallow not to be so craven in its attachment to the eaves where it was born, as to dread that bold migration to a more genial shore in which it was to find a new life :—

" THE PROLOGUE.

0 swallow, with resistless wing, that hold'st the air in fee, 0 swallow, with thy joyous sweep o'er earth and sunlit sea,

0 swallow, who, if night were thine, would'st wheel amongst the stars, Why linger round the eaves ?

Unhappy ! free of all the world haat knit thy soul to clay ? And glued thy heart up on the wall, thou swiftest child of day ? Claim, glorious wing, thy heritage ; break, break thy prison bars. Nor linger round the eaves.

Swwest;eep glorious wings, adown the wind; fly, swallow, to the Before thee, life and liberty ; behind, a ruined nest. Blow, freshening breeze, sweep, rapid wing, for all the winds are thine, The nest is only clay. The rapid wings were stretched in flight, the swallow sped away, And left its nest beneath the eaves, the much-loved bit of clay, Turned with the sun, to go where'er the happy sun might shine, And passed into the day."

It would be impossible to produce better evidence of the renovation which Thring found in his imaginative life for the actual duties of his responsible position.

Mr. Skrine analyses with great skill the various elements of Thring's fascination for the boys over whom he ruled. "First of all," he says, "we were much afraid of him. This was well." But not only were the boys afraid of him ; they were also exceedingly well able to appreciate all his most telling qualities. His speech was in some directions a little ex- aggerated, but all his gasconading was kept for the minor faults, and the moment he became seriously indignant he also became moderate, and contracted instead of expanding his ffights of rhetoric :— " Of denunciatory terms he had a repertory Shakesperian in its wealth and pungency unmitigated jackasses," stupendous idiots," unadulterated mooncalves," grocer's assistants' (name of doubtful interpretation), louts," dolts," noodles," sneaks,' traitors," rebels," pothouse heroes," dead horses," curveting carthorses," supercilious ditto,' &c. This is but a hasty and beggarly liorilegium. But indeed when I recall the note of joy, infectious joy, in strenuous epithets, which lent a novel quality even to the most familiar accents of abuse, I feel that anycollection is but a hortus siccus of specimens, from which the bloom and aroma have exhaled. But perhaps it was a case of bullying. Then he was tremendous. If a bully were really the coward which a pious fiction pronounces him, he could hardly have survived the storm. But there was no hurling of epithets. It was too bad for that. The unfeigned, pent-up indignation spoke far plainer in the simple, searching, moderated phrase for which he exchanged his hyperboles whenever he was deeply moved. Bullying could not have thriven under him if be had done no more than speak, and as a fact that evil old custom was, I believe, by no one put down so soon and so irrevocably, as by Edward Thring at Uppingham. He knew how to sear the hydra as well as cut its head off. Yet he was most himself when it was a case of dishonesty in work. Some one has been caught, let us say, using a crib,' or copying his neighbour's verses. Then the sequel would be this A very dis- graceful thing has been brought to my notice. Two of you have been cheating in work. I mean the school to know what I think of this kind of thing. I hold that to cheat a master is inexpressibly base. You may call it what you please : I call it sheer, unmitigated, contemptible lying : you who do it are liars and cheats. Oh! yes, I know the mean things you say to yourselves, some of you, in your mean hearts, about its being natural for boys, and "they all do it at other schools," and the rest of the pitiful talk. But we are not "other schools." There have been times, and I knew them well enough, when schools were like prisons, and there was some wretched kind of excuse for cheating your gaolers. But you don't live in a prison here. We make your life free and pleasant, we trust you, we make your temptations few, we make it easy to live a true life—and then you turn traitors to truth. Now, which you will! The prison, if you prefer ; bars and bolts (I could make a prison if I chose) ; or the free life of a true society. But you sha'n't have both. You shall not be traitors and have the privilege of true men."

Then, again, he had the art of securing the loyalty of the boys even for his own view of corporal punishment, which was not always lenient. In the controversy on the subject of Uppingham caning which got into the papers, the school itself "went solid" for the Head-Master's view. They liked his strongly marked military view of school discipline. And they liked his stern, rather grim, wit :— "Where his humour told was in sudden, single blows, which he could put his strength into, and which were not of humour, but wit. Boys were much pleased with his promise to teach them a lesson,' in some matter of discipline, illustrated by woodcuts,' and would repeat the story of his quashing an abortive hiss, as he left the room, after some displeasing announcement, by a tarn of the bead, and : There are just two animals which hiss, snakes and— geese : take your choice, gentlemen !' There was a peculiar grave humorousness in such sayings, of an order most characteristic of him, as this one, which I find in a letter, where he referred to critics of his management in an unprosperous time : The crows gather round the sick sheep ; but the crows are not shepherds.' Livelier is this from another letter, in which he remarks : It has always seemed to me very wrong, when people have deliberately,

for years, set themselves against a thing, then at last, when, in spite of their efforts, it succeeds, to let them go off with a flourish of trumpets, and wipe their dirty hands on the back of success.' These are in a stern vein ; but a fountain of bright fan breaks out in his sigh, as he contrasted his lot with another man's— 'here I spend my days in leading jackasses up Parnassus,' and in the gusto of his explosion, when someone's sermons were described as dry := Dry ? Why, my good fellow, brickdust is butter to him.' " In one word, Miring impressed all the impressible imagina- tions in the school by the vividness, the dramatic attitudes of his own nature. Nothing in him was pallid ; indeed, his tendency, a tendency which always answers with boys, was to give even more than the just emphasis to an essentially just and keen, though sometimes hasty thought or judgment.

As Mr. Skrine tells us, Edward Thring was a man of intuitions, and was very apt to be right, without being able to explain how he got at his intuition. This bred in him a self-confidence which was just what was wanted for his dealings with boys, but which was by no means what was wanted in his dealings with the masters who were his col- leagues, and who needed more explanation than he could always give, even when he was right, in order to soften the blow to their own self-esteem when he overruled, or, without overruling, disapproved their methods and decisions. In con- sequence, he was not, on the whole, popular with his under- masters, and neither did full justice to them nor received full justice from them. He had a good deal of genuine and very noble mysticism in him, which is exactly what puzzles and bewilders colleagues who have a certain right to expect explanation and confidence, when they find that their superior is acting on judgments the vividness of which he can hardly analyse, even when he tries to analyse them, and which in a considerable number of cases he does not try to analyse at all. Let us hear what Mr. Skrine says of the mysticism of his love of Nature :—

" We have known him report the incident of a singular burst of sunshine, on a stormy evening among the mountains, with bated tones, as of one who had witnessed the miraculous. From this, to the rapture, for which he would pull up short to look at one of Nature's effects on the minute scale, as some starry blossom in a dark nook, or a festoon of bryony in a hedgerow, is a step. But the admiration was the same : it was mystical, not msthetic. And of this kind, too, was the solace, which Nature brought him. She did not merely soothe him, as she does other weary or aging men, like the quiet hand of affection. She whispered him a message with articulate contents. Speaking one day of his sense of dis- appointment in his practical aims, be added, `But what consoles me is the sight of life everywhere : the rush of life in the tree and the grass. That is a wonderful comfort, that thought.' To any one new to his ways, this will seem, as indeed it did to me, an oddly detached remark, wanting an interpreting link. Just for that reason it is significant. It was a bit of his thinking aloud."

But "thinking aloud" must be more connected than it was in Thring's case with what his hearers think in themselves, to be exactly popular with equals. Boys would probably receive authoritative remarks of this kind with deference, not to say awe; but colleagues who do not enter into such mysticism, not unfrequently resent it, and feel that they are overridden, rather than treated with the kind of confidence they looked for, if they find themselves pushed aside by an apophthegm that they do not understand. But just the very qualities which made Thring a difficult man for his staff to act with, make him a most interesting and fascinating subject for study, now that his life can be looked at more or less as a whole.

Neither Mr. Skrine nor Mr. Rawnsley gives us much insight into the special character of Thring's theology. We might have had with advantage more information on this subject,— might have been told how he treated the scepticism of his age; from what point of view he met the critical onslaughts on Revelation ; whether they seriously disturbed him, or even touched him at all, and if so, how. It is in the deficiency of these commonplace details that both these little books are most at fault. They are too anxious to be original. We want to know a good deal about every distinguished man besides that which strikes the observer as the most original part of his nature. We must hope that "Professor Parkin, of Canada," who is to write his Life, will be more communicative on such matters, and not limit himself so very closely to the analysis of the more impressive and characteristic attitudes of Edward. Thring' s mind.