His father was such an English squire as he represents Tom's father to be, and his grandfather was vicar of the parish, and therefore a man of a good deal of local influence. When a child, young Hughes must have become familiar with the old parish church, which dates almost from the time of William the Conqueror, and which has within it some Roman brickwork which carries one back to the days when Agricola's legions were building walled towns in Britain.
Thus the lad's earliest recollections would naturally be of these two landmarks—the ivy-grown church, with its twenty and more generations buried round it, and the great chalk hill whose rudely carved White Horse can be seen gleaming in the sunshine full ten miles away, just as it did when Alfred the Great cut it to commemorate his victory over the Northmen a thousand years ago.
Thomas had a brother George, who was a little older than he, and who was his opposite in many respects. From him he learned many lessons which helped to shape his after life. George was quick to turn his hand to anything, and a lover of all out-door sports; if they had a spice of danger in them, so much the better. Thomas, on the other hand, was naturally both awkward and timid; the sound of a gun frightened him; and a pet pony soon found that, while George was his master, he was Thomas's, and meant to keep so. Thomas was ashamed of what he called his two left hands, with which he never seemed to get the right hold of anything the first time. He was still more ashamed of his timidity. That feeling of fear he could not prevent. Eventually, however, he did better; he so mastered it that he could bravely face what he feared, so making duty stand him in the stead of that mere physical courage, which is often but another name for insensibility to danger.
When he reached the age of seven he went to Twyford to school. Here he found how easy it is to get a nickname, and how hard it is to get rid of it. One of his first lessons related to Greek literature and to the history of Cadmus, who was said to have "first carried letters from Asia to Greece." Instead of asking the question in the book, the master demanded, "What was Cadmus?" This new way of questioning disconcerted the class, who were prepared to tell who Cadmus was, but not what he was. But young Hughes, remembering the letter-carrier at Uffington, suddenly jumped up and shouted out, "I can tell! Cadmus was a postman, sir!" From that day the boy was christened "Cadmus" by his companions, a name which, for convenience' sake, was soon shortened to "Cad,"—a particularly aggravating abbreviation, since in England a "cad" is the exact opposite of a gentleman. Then all sorts of ingenious and mischievous changes were rung on it until poor "Cadmus" was in a fair way of being driven wild with torment. Wherever he went the walls echoed with the jeering cry. But luckily for him his brother George happened to hear a big fellow teasing the lad, and rushing up with clenched fist and blazing eyes, thrashed the bully so soundly that after that Thomas enjoyed entire immunity from the objectionable title.
After about three years at Twyford, the two brothers were sent to the school at Rugby, then under the mastership of Doctor Arnold, who proved himself to be the ablest teacher in England; not because he taught his boys more than any other educator, but because more than any other he awakened in them the true spirit of manhood. "Tom Brown's School Days" is a record of the eight happy years that the lads spent under the Doctor's influence. From Rugby they went to Oxford, where Thomas Hughes graduated at Oriel College in 1845. The timid "Cadmus" of Twyford not only passed through Rugby with credit to himself in foot-ball, in Greek verses, and in the manly art of self-defence, but he got a "Double First" at Oxford—that is, the highest honors in the mathematics and the classics—and was elected captain of the 'Varsity Crew and captain of the University Eleven at cricket as well.
It was while young Hughes was at Oriel that the corn law agitation reached its height. A heavy duty on all imported grain had made bread so dear that thousands of English workmen, with their families, were brought to the verge of starvation. John Bright earnestly espoused their cause and urged Parliament to repeal a tax that enriched a few at the expense of a suffering multitude. Elliott, the "Corn Law Rhymer," stirred the feelings of the masses with his impassioned appeals in verse, so that all over the country hollow-cheeked artisans were repeating the lines,—
"England! what for mine and me,
What hath bread-tax done for thee?
Cursed thy harvest, cursed thy land,
Hunger-stung thy skill'd right hand."
Thomas Hughes became a convert to the Liberal movement, which shortly after succeeded in repealing a tariff that had been the cause of such wide-spread misery. From that day his sympathies have always been with those classes who are called to earn the least and endure the most; and when in 1848 he was admitted to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, London, he had got the name of being a radical and a reformer in politics—a name, then, rather more dreadful to steady-going, conservative English country gentlemen of the "Squire Brown" type than that of mad dog.
But long before this the young man had got over his dread of opprobrious names, and his fear of those who have nothing harder to hurl.
With a few other resolute spirits he set himself to work to organize those joint-stock industries and business enterprises which have since developed into the colossal co-operative stores of London and the cotton mills of Oldham, representing many millions of capital, the combined savings of thrifty artisans and other persons of small means.
In all this, Mr. Hughes's avowed object has been "to make England the best place for workingmen to live in that the sun ever shone upon." Whether that can be done or not in this age of the world is certainly open to question, but it is equally certain that there can be no possible harm in making the attempt. That the workingmen have appreciated the effort is evident from the fact that they elected Mr. Hughes to Parliament in 1865. It is said that ordinarily the expense of getting into the House of Commons—an unpaid body—averages about $75,000, which the candidate or his friends must be prepared to spend. But in Lambeth, a district of London, inhabited almost wholly by poor men, two hundred of Mr. Hughes's admirers came forward and worked night and day without receiving a single shilling of any man's money, solely with the determination of seeing their candidate succeed.
Since then, the writer of "Tom Brown's School Days" would certainly have broken down from overwork if he had not been, as he says, an "Angular Saxon" and a muscular Christian as well. During his nine years' pull in the political harness he earned the double honor of helping forward the cause of the people and at the same time he so won the regard of the Crown that he received the appointment of Queen's Counsel. While member of Parliament Mr. Hughes was likewise carrying on a large and lucrative law practice, acting as president of the Workingmen's College, which he was instrumental in founding; serving as referee in disputes between manufacturers and their employees in such a way as to get the respect and good-will of both; serving also as director in co-operative banks, coal mines, cotton mills, machine shops, grocery stores, land and building associations; besides being chief manager of the Crystal Palace company, and colonel in a volunteer rifle corps.
Yet well known as Mr. Hughes is for his manifold political and philanthropic services, he is still better known by his books. Though with him literature has been rather a recreation than a vocation, yet his fame seems destined to rest on it, and especially on his "Tom Brown," which has been pronounced "the best description of public school life that ever has been, or is ever likely to be, written." This famous work, published in 1858, was followed the next year by "The Scouring of the White Horse," a story of his favorite White Horse Hill. Three years later came "Tom Brown at Oxford," then "The Life of Alfred the Great," and lastly his "Memoirs of a Brother" and his "Manliness of Christ," besides scores, if not hundreds, of magazine and review articles and letters to London and American papers.
In 1870 Mr. Hughes made the tour of this country, receiving such a welcome from his many friends as "Tom Brown" was sure to get from both old and young. Ten years afterward he undertook to establish an English colony in the Cumberland Mountains of East Tennessee. It was called Rugby, and it was founded in the hope that it might be useful to many educated young men of good families who could find no opening worthy of their powers at home. As he said, "Of the many sad sights in England there is none sadder than this, of first-rate