He had his failings—who has not?  He was an autocrat almost to a fault—if generals are not to be autocrats ex-officio—and sometimes he seemed to be unable to see the other side of a question.  He occasionally took curious antipathies to boys who were worthy, and honoured those we thought less honourable; but he always acknowledged true work of any kind; always delighted in any true self-sacrifice; and I never yet met the Uppingham boy who did not, as he got into life, admire with deeper admiration the heroic, unswerving character of the master, firm at his post, doing whatever of truth he knew unflinchingly; nor have I seen the Uppingham man who did not feel that, wherever he was, were he but doing his duty, he was assured, though all the world were against him, that he had his old Headmaster’s surest sympathy.  Thring taught the bond of fellowship the wide world over, for work, for truth, for life, and righteousness. (pp. 56-57)

(Edward Thring: Teacher and Poet, pp. 9-61)

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He had his failings—who has not?  He was an autocrat almost to a fault—if generals are not to be autocrats ex-officio—and sometimes he seemed to be unable to see the other side of a question.  He occasionally took curious antipathies to boys who were worthy, and honoured those we thought less honourable; but he always acknowledged true work of any kind; always delighted in any true self-sacrifice; and I never yet met the Uppingham boy who did not, as he got into life, admire with deeper admiration the heroic, unswerving character of the master, firm at his post, doing whatever of truth he knew unflinchingly; nor have I seen the Uppingham man who did not feel that, wherever he was, were he but doing his duty, he was assured, though all the world were against him, that he had his old Headmaster’s surest sympathy.  Thring taught the bond of fellowship the wide world over, for work, for truth, for life, and righteousness. (pp. 56-57)

(Edward Thring: Teacher and Poet, pp. 9-61)

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“Every boy is good for something.  If he cannot write iambics or excel in Latin prose, he has at least eyes, and a hand, and ears.  Turn him into the carpenter’s shop, make him a botanist or a chemist, encourage him to express himself in music,”—such used to be his words; “and if he fails all round here, at least he shall learn to read in public clearly his mother-tongue, and write thoughtfully an English essay.”  But one thing from first to last Thring taught and wrought for.  The boys he dealt with should be dealt with as individuals, and not as masses….  Character was what he aimed at, and character it was his pre-eminently to give.  Fearless for truth, and willing, for what he felt to be right, to stand alone against public or private criticism, as he was, boys left Uppingham with the feeling that popular theories and fashion were not always to be trusted, that each must think for himself, and dare to do the right and think the right, in scorn of consequences.  “I don’t want you lads to win dazzling honours; I want you to be dazzlingly honourable,” he would say.  “We cannot all be racers, but that is no reason why the tortoise should be forgotten.”  

(Spectator, 60 (29 October 1887), 1452)

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…. But one need not go either to Ullswater or Duddon, or even to Dora’s field at Rydal, to have one’s heart gladdened by the daffodils, for they are found in almost every farm orchard in our valleys, and hardly a child is seen going to school but has her hands full of them.  As one passes the cottages the air is scented with the pink ribes, and already the walls are festooned with honey-scented alyssum.  But for all the bright sun that tempts the bees from home, there is a biting in the air which keeps the hedgerows brown, and it will not be till the April rains have washed the last white patches from Skiddaw’s height that we shall see either green upon the larch or emerald on the thorn.

But Easter is coming and the Lake District is already turning in its sleep and will be wide awake for the expected visitors.  Mattresses are seen at every window when the sun is warm; the sound of carpet-beating is heard in the fields; rooms at the farms and cottage homes in quiet valleys have been bespoke already, and the hostel-keeper wears a cheery look upon his face as though he knew that guests were coming.  Who can wonder that guests should come?  For though we have women and children in the dales, we have no ammunition works to be a prey to Zeppelins, and if there is one district in England more than another where we can for a moment forget the war it is here in this springtide paradise, where the only khaki that is seen is the khaki of the larch and Upper Fells.

In other parts of England the man in khaki seems to be a continual presence; here it is almost difficult to realize that a European war is raging.  This means, that for the weary and distracted war-worker, there is still a chance of momentary rest and change of mind, and for the overwrought and the sorrowful alike the peace that breathes from all our vales and hills has power to strengthen Britain at its need.

(Times, 13 April 1916, p. 11)

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