Matthew Arnold Threatens an Illiterate Child

British poet, critic, and inspector of schools Matthew Arnold (1822–1888).

Lina Waterfield, writer and founder of the British Institute in Florence:

“I am ashamed to say that in spite of encouragement from Mother, and delightful hours spent with Aunt Fanny listening to poetry, I was a very backward child and could not read at six years old.

“Mother failed to make me study, and one day she said: `I am going to bring someone to talk to you. He is a great poet, and perhaps he could persuade you to learn to read.’

“This was Matthew Arnold, a friend of Aunt Fanny, whose poems she used to read to me. I was thrilled to see him, and after all these years I can still see his tall, angular figure, as he stood with his back to the fire looking down upon me from what seemed to me an immense height. He never smiled that day. His whiskers were thicker and longer than any I had seen; and I was glad that Father wore a neatly trimmed beard. This stern-looking man then sat down and took me on his knee while he talked to me about books, seeking to fire my interest; and in this he succeeded, for I could have listened to him all day. Then he stopped talking of poetry, and said very seriously:

`Your mother tells me that you do not know how to read, and are refusing to learn. It surprises me very much that a little girl of six should not know how to read, and expects to be read to. It is disgraceful, and you must promise me to learn at once; if you don’t, I shall have to put your father and mother in prison.’

“I was startled and frightened by this threat, and at the same time very puzzled that a poet could put people in prison. I asked Father whether he could put him in prison.

“Father hesitated: `No, I don’t think he could, although he is a Government Inspector of Schools.’

“I still felt mystified, but his threat made me start in earnest to work with my nursery governess, and, to my surprise and pleasure, I found I could read Grimm’s Fairy Tales within a few weeks.”

—Lina Waterfield, Castle in Italy, An Autobiography (1961)