"If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their knowledge on moral subjects. ... [R]ather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind, I would gladly have him think that the sun went round the earth, and that the stars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament. Surely the one thing needful for a Christian and an Englishman to study is Christian and moral and political philosophy."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Letter to Dr. Greenhill (9 May 1836), quoted in Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, The Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold, Volume I (1845), p. 281
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Arnold
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold (13 June 1795 – 12 June 1842) was a schoolmaster and historian, head of Rugby School from 1828 to 1841. His son was the poet Matthew Arnold; he was also an ancestor of Aldous Huxley.
13 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Arnold →
Related Quotes
"My highest ambition, and what I hope to do as far as I can, is to make my history the very reverse of Gibbon in this …"
"With regard to reforms at Rugby, give me credit, I must beg of you, for a most sincere desire to make it a place of C…"
"I do not often venture to talk to you about public affairs, but surely you will agree with me in deprecating this war…"
"Real knowledge, like every thing else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, — st…"
"As of rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the right one; flog the rank and file, and fling the …"
"The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these other,…"
"Over the evolution of the public school Dr Thomas Arnold, Headmaster of Rugby from 1827 until his death in 1841, exer…"
"Arnold's own interpretation of the human past was no less immaculately ideal – a counterpart of the Middle Ages as se…"
"I [found], on going to the university, that...the tone of young men...was universally irreligious. A religious underg…"
"In the mid-nineteenth century the [public] schools underwent extensive reforms, championed by Dr Thomas Arnold, headm…"