Page:The Story of the House of Cassell (book).djvu/109

 and preferred to sail the more exciting seas of journalism and authorship, in which all three have gained distinction. Other members of the former editorial staff who migrated to Fleet Street were Mr. J. Penderel-Brodhurst, who became assistant editor of the St. James's Gazette and editor of the St. James's Budget, and is now editor of the Guardian, and Sir Philip Gibbs, who began his literary career in the 'nineties as a member of the Educational Department, but was not long in finding his way, though not by the most direct route, to "the Street of Adventure."

One of the outstanding personalities at the Yard in the 'eighties was, of course, the Right Hon. H. O. Arnold-Forster. Although he began his work at La Belle Sauvage as Secretary of the Company, and afterwards had a seat on the Board, it was as director of the Educational Department that he made his mark there. Mr. George Tasker, who was his private secretary not only in the Cassell days, but afterwards at the Admiralty and the War Office, describes Arnold-Forster's work at Cassell's as providing him at first with an acceptable change from the turmoil and danger through which he had passed as private secretary to W. E. Forster during the tragic years of his Irish Chief Secretaryship from 1880 to 1882. "But the duties were not enough for his tireless energy, and before long, in succession to Mr. Lyttelton Gell, he took charge of the Educational Department—a most congenial and appropriate office for the grandson of Arnold of Rugby (under whom he had studied at school), and for the adopted son of the statesman who founded our system of elementary education. Nor did it suffice that he should direct the work of that Department, for he contributed largely and effectively to its catalogue. His first school book, the "Citizen Reader," published in 1880, was an immediate success, and over half a million copies of it have been sold.

"In order that he might make himself acquainted with the technicalities of the business, he wrote, composed, and