Untitled - Electric Scotland

1842-50]
I LRST
DAYS AT RUGBY 115
prayer. Without incessant prayer I am lost, and, if I perish, how
many souls perish with me."
"Monday Evening, August i$th. Almighty God, give me
strength of body to stand the labour of this place, and strength
of mind to conduct myself in it
aright. Enable me, in the midst
of all, to have time for serious earnest devotion. God Almighty,
bless the young souls over whom Thy Providence has placed
me. Amen."
It was from the first a great satisfaction to him to
know that he had the entire confidence of Dr. Arnold s
own family and friends. In a letter received soon after
bis appointment Mr. Matthew Arnold wrote :
"From the very beginning, when we found that Archdeacon
Hare would not stand, I heartily wished for your success, as
my first feeling was that the one point of paramount importance
was to provide for the efficient government and firm and con
sistent management of the school, which seemed to me far the
most necessary requisite in the election, and one that there was
some danger of neglecting. I feel so confident that if you have
a school wisely and firmly governed, and boys and masters alike
impressed with the conviction that their main object should be
to unite their efforts in making and keeping the place a Christian
school, all the intellectual proficiency which is apt to be the first
thing considered will be sure to follow as a matter of course."
It would be useless to give the chronological details
of a life so necessarily monotonous as that of the Head-
9
master of a public school, 1 and a few reminiscences
furnished by colleagues or contemporaries who knew him
well will probably be the best mode of presenting some
picture of Tait s position and work at Rugby.
The following is contributed by the Dean of West
minster: 2
1
;
When the news of Dr. Tait s election came (I was
Sec Stanley s -Life of Arnold, chap. iii.
Dr. Bradley was a pupil of Dr. Arnold at Rugby from 1837 to 1840.