In 1901, all students in teacher training colleges were presented with a 730-page life of Thomas Arnold, who, 60 years after his death, was still being hailed as a star headteacher.

By 2001 he was almost forgotten, except among historians of education and the one-liner suited to pub quizzes - that he was a great headteacher of Rugby school, “the Doctor” in Thomas Hughes’s 1856 novel of public-school life, Tom Brown’s School Days. Can a headteacher who died in 1842 have any relevance for teachers in 2002?

Time and changing professional standards distance us from Arnold in obvious ways. He accepted flogging as a suitable punishment for younger boys, although he tried to reduce its use; he was content with what was even then an old-fashioned, classics-dominated curriculum; he was eager to expel troublemakers and could do it easily in an independent school; his periodic loss of temper was legendary - pupils learned to read the warning signals in his ashen face - and would no doubt now lead to his suspension. In these and other ways, he belongs to the past. But he still offers a challenge to the present.

Arnold was always a thinking head and never merely a manager or a tool for implementing the policy of others, even of the school trustees who had the power to fire him, and very nearly did on one occasion. He increased his staff’s pay, improved their working conditions and recognised the importance of staff dedication and morale. His aim in taking on the headship of Rugby was to attempt a radical educational experiment to see whether a school could be really Christian, rather than just nominally. He never gave up on this experiment.

He also developed a radical view of adolescence - that it was an unpleasant, unnecessary interlude between the innocence of childhood and the responsibilities of adulthood - and tried to “abolish” it, insisting on treating older pupils like young adults. He strengthened the existing prefect system as part of giving responsibility to the young adults at the top of the school and letting them share in the government of Rugby. If an attempt to do away with adolescence seems incongruous now, it is at least a reminder that adolescence is culturally conditioned, not an inevitable part of human development. In New Testament times, for example, there was no such transition phase between childhood and adulthood.

Arnold had another shocking policy - believing what pupils told him. Of course, some boys still told “whackers”. But even the “baddies” remarked that there was no fun in lying to the Doctor (or Black Tom, as they called him) because he always believed you. As a result, to the amazement of many, Arnold reserved the most severe punishments for pupils who lied, rather than for offences that seemed much worse.

His workload certainly sounds contemporary. He combined with the headship of Rugby school (300 pupils at the time) the personal teaching of the sixth form in an innovative style (less didactic, with more pupil involvement); headship of one of the boarding houses; coaching pupils for Oxford entry; acting as school chaplain, including preaching on term-time Sundays, and preparing those who opted for confirmation; inviting older pupils for meals with the Arnold family (he had 11 children, including two who did not survive childhood); corresponding with former pupils; researching and writing books on ancient history and theology; teaching himself various ancient languages including Sanskrit and Slavonic; and, near the end of his life, working as a part-time professor of history at Oxford. No wonder he came to exemplify the Victorian work ethic. Equally no wonder, in a family with a history of coronary illness, that he died prematurely at the end of summer term 1842, just before his 47th birthday.

His most famous son, the poet Matthew Arnold (“Matt” to the family), also knew this sort of workload as an inspector of schools for 35 years. In 1855 alone, Matt inspected 117 “institutions”, 173 schools, 368 pupil teachers, and 97 certificated teachers.

How did Arnold of Rugby do it? Is there an Arnold formula that teachers can follow? As with all such “secrets”, the answers are complex. He started with some natural advantages: his intellectual talent, his immense energy, his boisterousness, which included shinning up the elm trees in the school grounds like the boys. But these were bolstered by a commitment to the Christian school experiment and by disciplined daily routine (the letters were written in class during the last lesson of the day, when the pupils were set a written task; he often started work on his books after 9pm). He built a significant life outside school, both intellectually and recreationally. There were two breaks in the two-term year, including the long summer break which Arnold used for European travel and for time at his holiday home in Ambleside.

Arnold’s work raises questions for education now. Have we reduced the role of headship, translating leadership too far into management? Why is it no longer a priority, on the whole, for headteachers to teach children? For the increasing number of faith-based schools, he raises the question of whether religion in the school establishment can kill its own spirit by promoting a dull conformity. He was in many ways the founder of spiritual, moral, social and cultural development in English education, and he raises the issue of what the values implicit in curriculum subjects are, and whether they are what we actually welcome. Could the curriculum be promoting a sort of polite agnosticism?

In terms of school discipline, Arnold challenges those who would placate disorderly conduct to target and remove the worst offenders and create a zero-tolerance framework for extremes of behaviour, in order to allow teachers and children to work together in a secure setting in which the rights of teachers to teach and of children to learn are affirmed.

Is his imaginative use of the long summer holiday to create a life away from school perhaps a warning against implementing shorter holidays with more but shorter terms?

Perhaps the biggest challenge Arnold offers to teachers and headteachers now is to be true to their vision, not to settle for mere technician status in a quasi-mechanical process to tool up children to jump through the hoops of increasing numbers of tests and exams, in which student teachers are reduced to “trainees”. He is a reminder that education depends not nearly so much on the rhetoric of politicians as on the inspiration and dedication of teachers and, ultimately, on the quality of the teacher-pupil encounter. That is as true in 2002 as it was in 1842.

Black Tom: Arnold of Rugby, the myth and the man by Terence Copley is published by Continuum. Terence Copley is professor of religious education at the University of Exeter

THOMAS ARNOLD: A LIFE

1795 Born at Cowes, Isle of Wight

1807 To Winchester School

1811 To Corpus Christi College, Oxford

1815 Fellow of Oriel College

1819 With a friend, runs a small, two-teacher boarding prep school at Laleham near Staines, Middlesex

1820 Marries Mary Penrose

1828 Appointed head of Rugby, starting salary pound;113 pa plus bonuses based on pupil numbers

1829 First sermons published

1833 Attracts controversy by publishing Principles of Church Reform

1835 Edits The History of the Peloponnesian War, a major history text

1836 Almost dismissed from Rugby for stridently attacking the Oxford Movement in the Church of England

1839 Queen Adelaide visits Rugby, making Arnold an establishment-approved figure

1841 Appointed Regius professor of modern history at Oxford (part-time)

1842 Dies

MYTHS AND THE MAN

Myth On arrival at Rugby, Arnold turned round a failing school by imposing discipline

Reality When Arnold took over, Rugby was reasonably disciplined by the standards of 1828

Myth Arnold brought the cult of organised games and rugby football to Rugby

Reality Rugby football pre-dated Arnold, who was indifferent to organised games

Myth Arnold invented the prefect system

Reality Arnold strengthened a system that pre-dated him by many years in most public schools

Myth Arnold’s pupils adored him

Reality Arnold’s pupils were in awe of him, and most of those he personally taught admired him