Untitled - Electric Scotland

1842-50] PRINCIPAL SHAIRP S REMINISCENCES 119
fully equal
to Tait. But when a successor to Arnold was
wanted, it was to Oxford that men naturally
looked for
one. And among the Oxford Fellows and Tutors of that
day they naturally turned to the chief Tutor of the best
and he stood out from all his compeers, if not for
College ;
the finest scholarship, yet for the most substantial character
and robust manhood. And it was all needed at this crisis.
For of all the transitions of his eventful life, I do not
believe that any so tried him as the passage
from Oxford
to Rugby. But he faced it with that calm meek courage
so characteristic of him a courage founded not on self-
assertion, or any over-appreciation of his own power, but
on the sense that this was the thing to do, and that by
God s help he would do it. And, whatever difficulties
there may have been at the outset, the school quickly grew
and prospered under his Head-mastership. The 400 boys
whom it contained at Arnold s death soon increased to
500. This was no doubt in great measure due to the
reputation which Arnold had left, and to the great expan
sion of that reputation which followed the appearance
of Stanley s famous Biography. But if this was the source
whence the prosperity came, it was Tait who nurtured and
garnered it. He showed his usual good sense in accepting
the position to which he had been called of being the
conservator of Arnold s work, and building on the founda
tion which he had laid.
"
Dr. Tait had been Head-master for more than four
years when he offered me an assistant-mastership which
had become vacant. For the first week or ten days I was
the guest at the school-house, where I was received with
much kindness. One afternoon, the first or secorid day
after my arrival, Dr. Tait took me into his study, and there
gave me some hints about the school and its ways, and,
especially, gave a slight sketch of the several masters of