Yesterday week, a handsome testimonial was presented to Mr. Matthew
Arnold by two hundred and fifty-two teachers of the Westminster district, on his retirement from the inspectorship of Westminster, in recognition of " the happy relations which had marked his connection with them." Mr. Arnold, in thanking the testimonialists for their gift, made a very graceful speech, in which he had a hit at himself and a hit at the Government, but overflowed in kind sayings to the teachers and to the Assistant-Inspectors who had helped him in his work. The hit at himself was contained in the reminiscence of a remark which he had once made when the praises showered upon him were too great
for his modesty,—" Nobody can say I am a punctual Inspector." His path, he declared, had been made smooth to him by every one with whom he had had to work. "I will begin where my obligations are least. To Government I owe nothing." Within a sentence or two, however, he qualified this rather forbidding remark by adding that, though in any country but England " a Minister might have known something about my performances," yet "abroad I doubt whether I should have survived to perform them. Under the strict bureaucratic system abroad, I feel pretty sure that I should have been dismissed ten times over for the freedom with which on various occasions I have ex- pressed myself on matters of religion and politics." "To the Government I at least owe this, to have been allowed to survive for thirty-five years."
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