Reconsidering the Concept of Culture in England of the 19th Century

Controversy between the Views of T. H. Huxley and M. Arnold

Abstract

  In nineteenth-century England, many controversies over the contents of Liberal Education arose.  The controversy between the views of T. H. Huxley and M. Arnold was one of them.  This controversy has been regarded as the confrontation between science and literature in previous research because both Huxley, as a defender of science education, and Arnold, as a defender of literature education, proposed radical reforms in Liberal Education, putting forth the idea of creating school curriculum on culture as the aim of Liberal Education.  The purpose of this study was to explore the controversy in association with the ancient Greek mind which they tried to restore individually.  It was found that Huxley attempted to overcome the confrontation between ‘the true, the good and the beautiful’ and practicability recognized in ancient Greece by changing it into the relationship between the true and ‘the good, the beautiful and practicability,’ whereas Arnold tried to resolve the conflict by restoring ‘the true, the good and the beautiful.’ Further, the difference between Huxley’s and Arnold’s fundamental concepts of culture was that Huxley thought of the relationship between recognition to know and personality to do as monistic, while Arnold considered it as dualistic.  Moreover, the conflict between the opposite principles determining school curriculum was found to be resulting from these differences.  Based on these discussions, this essay reports significance and problems of Huxley’s and Arnold’s respective concepts of culture.