Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/499

 died young. On the death of his father, on 13 Aug. 1834, at Sierra Leone, where he was made governor the year before, the mother resided with her eight children at Culmstock, Devonshire. In narrow circumstances, she herself educated her boys until the time of their going to school, and thus exercised an unusual influence over all her children, especially the youngest, who never forgot his debt to her for his early training, and as soon as he had a home to offer, he shared it with her until her death at Rugby, 8 May 1866. On 29 Jan. 1834 he entered Blundell's School, Tiverton, and remained there till 5 March 1839. From the first he gave proof of great ability and industry. In half a year he passed through the lower to the upper school, two years being the usual period required. In 1838 he won the Blundell scholarship, and entered Balliol College, Oxford, 9 April 1839, an anonymous gift of 50l. enabling him to avail himself of the scholarship. Throughout his undergraduate days he practised of necessity the strictest economy. He came up to Oxford a first-rate mathematician, but during the three years following he so much improved his smaller stock of classics that he was 'proxime accessit' for the Ireland university scholarship in March 1842. In May 1842 he obtained without the help of any private tuition (owing to the kindness of his tutors) a double first class in classics and mathematics. He had the great advantage of having as his tutors men of real distinction, such as Scott, joint author with Liddell of the Greek lexicon; Tait, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, to whose friendship and wisdom he owed much; Jowett, who was only four years his senior, and became one of his most intimate friends; and W. G. Ward, who was his mathematical tutor. Among his friends and contemporaries were A. H. Clough, A. P. Stanley, J. D. (afterwards Lord) Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, and Lingen (afterwards Lord Lingen). He was much attracted by the deep religious tone of Newman and Pusey, and though naturally much interested in the theological discussions arising out of the publication of the 'Tracts for the Times' and the 'Ideal of a Christian Church,' he was never carried away by them. He came up to Oxford a tory, and so remained while he was an undergraduate. But Oxford enlarged his outlook, and his views gradually settled into the liberalism which characterised him through life. When W. G. Ward's case came before convocation at Oxford, Temple voted in the minority against the censure and also against his degradation ; and later, in 1847, he gave his name to the memorial against Bishop Hampden's condemnation. In November 1842 he was appointed lecturer, and was afterwards elected fellow of Balliol, and in 1845 junior dean of his college. He was ordained deacon in 1846, and in 1847 priest, by Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford.

When Tait left Balliol for Rugby in 1842, he had vainly offered Temple a mastership there. Temple then felt that his first duty was to his college, but in the spring of 1848 he left Oxford to undertake work under the committee of education, first as examiner in the education office at Whitehall to the end of 1849, then as principal of Kneller Hall, Twickenham, a training college for workhouse schoolmasters. In 1855, when Kneller Hall was closed. Temple was made inspector of training colleges for men. For some years previously he had been looked upon as an authority on educational matters. He was invited by the Oxford University Commission of 1850 to give evidence in writing, and he proposed several reforms, which were afterwards carried into effect. To 'Oxford Essays' of 1856 he contributed an essay on 'National Education,' and in 1857, in conjunction with (Sir) Thomas Dyke Acland [q. v. Suppl. I], he was mainly instrumental in persuading the University of Oxford to institute the associate-in-arts examination, which later developed into the Oxford and Cambridge local examinations.

On 12 Nov. 1857 he was appointed head-master of Rugby School. His success there was undoubted. He exercised influence both on masters and boys, as a stimulating intellectual teacher, and as an earnest religious man. Some necessary reforms, which he introduced, were to increase the staff, to enlarge and systematise the teaching of history, to make the English language and literature a 'form' subject throughout the school, and to introduce natural science, music, and drawing into the regular curriculum. Before he left, he had obtained money for the building of a new quadrangle, containing a music school and drawing school, two science lecture-rooms, and six good classical classrooms. The chapel was also enlarged to meet the increased numbers. While headmaster of Rugby, he gave evidence, in 1860, before the Popular Education Commission, of which the duke of Newcastle was chairman, and when a new commission was appointed in December 1864 to inquire into the schools which had not been the subject of inquiry under either the Popular