Untitled - Electric Scotland

1 842-50] A. G. BUTLER S REMINISCENCES 141
did was to rebuke him sternly, ending with the usual
twinkle, and Remember I won t be disobeyed, even for
an elephant. He had in a high degree the gift of
humour. Naturally, I should think, quick of temper, with
much of the *
perfervidum Scotarum ingenium] his humour
always saved him from over-severity. Give him time,
we used to say on the rare occasions when he was pro
voked to exaggerate faults, and it will all come right.
And it did always come right ; and we liked him all the
better for the quick flash followed by the ready forgive
ness. And this, the feeling in the house, was also the
feeling in the School. He knew exactly where to overlook
and where to interfere, and when he did punish or rebuke,
it was done in the best manner, with a force, dignity, and
judgment which left nothing
to be desired. And the
result of all this was seen in the high tone and discipline
both of the house and School. There was indeed a
singular absence of the graver faults of school life ; and
though this was doubtless mainly
due to the traditions
bequeathed by Arnold, quickened as they were by Arnold s
Life, just then written by Stanley, yet the greatest credit
is also due to the man who carried on these traditions, and
left the School at the end still better than he had found it.
Of this latter change and gradual improvement, and of the
way in which Tait developed and helped it on, I may
a few words. No one can have read Arnold s
perhaps say
Life without being struck by his deep, perhaps excessive,
feeling of the evil incident to school life, and by the part
which the Praepostors were called upon to play in the moral
government of the School. This, the essential feature of
Arnold s system, which has had such lasting influence
for good in our great public schools, was not, however,
without its dangers. It produced strained and often
hostile relations between the Sixth and the rest of the