“With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplication table always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature.”
This extract shows what kind of an adult Gradgrind has turned out to be. He seems to be devoid of any needless emotions and is sCeptical of anything he is not sure about and is ready to deduce what it is using scientific reasoning and logic.
The teaching style promoted by Gradgrind seems only to involve the forbidding of the pupil’s development of their imaginations and emotions and no real teaching which will create enjoyment and fun.
The classroom in which Gradgrind is discovered is described as being nearly as plain and boring as the teacher who resides within it. The schoolrooms seem to be very bare must have given a cold emotionless feeling off to the pupils and teachers working in them.
“The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a schoolroom.” This quote creates a vivid image of the room in which the teaching takes place. The use of the word ‘vault’ gives the reader the impression a sense of a large unfilled space and complete minimalism with nothing interesting to look at. The words which Dickens uses to describe the schoolroom create an atmosphere of formality and quietness. The room seems to have a rather imposing quality to it because if it’s large size and thus seems quite a scary, overpowering place to be in. Because of these big classrooms and the added possibility of being caned as a punishment it intimidates the children who are then pushed into a mental state of mind where they are unable to learn due to fear. This is a good example of how Dickens uses tricolons in “Hard Times” to create an accurate reflection of a Victorian school.
Through this mocking of the Victorian educational system Dickens obviously disagrees with issues in reality and the school system is a likeness to the state of Britain and its government at the time. The school is seen as being efficient but emotionless and therefore Dickens is trying to say that though the government is fulfilling a baric duty to educate, it isn’t taking into consideration how it affects people and how hard they are working them.
Because the classroom is so empty and bare there is nothing to stimulate the children’s imaginations and nothing to motivate them to do their work and as a result the pupils do not progress. There is also no support for the pupils from the teachers and therefore if they don’t understand something and are too afraid to ask a question then they won’t learn.
The dull atmosphere amplified by the classroom scene only adds to the misery of the pupils who are already subjected to the boring rote style of teaching and the grumpiness of their tutors. This consequently gives the reader the impression that a schoolroom was a serious place and was overly formal to the point of quietness.
Dickens seems to have created this atmosphere to mock the Victorian style of education and how similar it was to the industrial factories of the era. He makes this relationship very often and refers to the children as, “vessels ready to have imperial gallons of facts poured into them,” at one point. This shows how Dickens employs the use of a metaphor to convey the idea of how adults see the children and it creates the vivid image of children being like products on a production line and the factory making them is like a school of that time. This is because the style of teaching was so rough and rigorous that it is similar to the tiring work that takes place in a factory. In the classroom environment and in the style of the education system at the time, the children are seen and expected to be passive while being taught and take no active part in the lessons. This is because if they do try and take any part in the lesson they will be punished by the teacher for interrupting. So if the pupils try to take any part in their own education they know they will be punished and as a consequence are too scared to participate in class and as a result do not further their own knowledge. This shows how the children aren’t treated as individuals with personalities by the adults. And instead are expected to act like parrots.
As a result of this rough emotionless approach to teaching the children are not seen in the best light. Dickens provides a vivid image of the children in the classroom and adult’s perceptions of them.
“In such terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls’, for ‘sir’, Thomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled full of facts.”
This shows how Gradgrind sees his pupils. He sees them as objects which have to be taught the rigid facts or else they will not succeed. Dickens also makes good use of a metaphor in labeling the children as “pitchers”. This means that Gradgrind sees the children as being things which it is necessary to fill with facts, and therefore because a pitcher would be filled with water, they are similar because both have to be filled with something. It also shows that the children are not seen as being young boys and girls but are instead referred to as ‘sir,’ which is much more formal and discards the frame of mind which would see them as being younger and therefore incapable of Gradgrind’s formalities. This is why he is so harsh with his teaching, as he expects the pupils to understand what is being taught just because he does.
The children are seen as being polite and compliant towards their teachers.
“Sissy Jupe, sir,” explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, and curtseying.”
This shows how though the teaching is boring and the teachers as tiresome, the children still show the proper respect towards them as they know of the harsh punishments which could be dealt out to them. It also shows how the children weren’t allowed names by the teacher and were only thought of as a number, ( in Sissy’s case, she was number 20). This clearly dehumanizes the children and suggests Dickens’ criticism of this approach to education.
When Sissy Jupe is brought into the story she obviously rivals everything that is being taught in the school and how it is being taught because she is so active, lively and effervescent. She doesn’t stand for being taught in such a boring way and seems to be constantly looking for a way to liven things up in the classroom. She seems to be probing the educational system for anything that could yield to her unrelenting happiness. Sissy is new to the school and lives with a travelling circus, where her father looks after the horses. When asked, "Give me your definition of a horse", however, she is unable to comply. She presumably knows everything about horses in reality - their likes and dislikes, how to care for and treat them - and yet she doesn’t have one 'fact' as specified by Mr. Gradgrind. Dissatisfied with Sissy's inability to answer, Gradgrind calls on an older member of the class, Bitzer, who on command, much like a clockwork toy, recites a string of facts about horses, this shows how the pupils are not taught anything useful about the real world and are only taught somewhat abstract and useless facts. It also shows the striking differences between Sissy, who is new to the school, and the older pupils. The blatant differences between her and the existing pupils - represented by Bitzer - are striking, in both a physical and a mental way. After Sissy sits down the reader is told that she and Bitzer are seated one at each end of a sunbeam. While Sissy's beauty is illuminated - 'the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed to receive a more lustrous colour from the sun' - Bitzer, on the other hand has his emptiness highlighted, in a way. This is Dickens way of presenting her in a “positive light” to the reader. Because of innocence and stark simplicity she outwits the teachers and subtly shows them up and makes them seem stupid. The adult’s logic and facts is nothing to her as she can see them for how wrong they are. It seems she has a far better grasp on life and its workings than they have, even with all their calculations and rules which obviously only create various complications. Sissy just seems to live life as it is intended to. With the appearance of a new teacher for the class Sissy obviously would struggle to comply with his teaching methods.
The teacher, Mr. M’Choakumchild, is presented to the pupils as a new teacher about to start his first lesson at the school with them. He is seen as being a man who has learnt a lot of things based on facts and rules but doesn’t have an idea of how to implement them usefully. He is a man who could be described as knowing too much about nothing, which means that he knows about a lot of obscure things which are unhelpful and have no use to anybody.
“He and some one hundred and forty other schoolmasters had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on the same principles.”
This suggests that Mr. M’Choakumchild is a product of the same schooling system that he is making his pupils endure and also that all teachers at that time were all made en masse and that they were all taught the same teaching methods and style. Even his name, M’Choakumchild, has a somewhat sinister ring to it. It presents a rather morbid image to the reader as it seems to project a scene of killing and death associated with the children. The name doesn’t have to mean, strictly, in the death of the children but could instead be referring to the style of education and how it tramples on the pupil’s imaginations and discards feelings slowly until they disappear (just choking and how it is a slow process of death). It is also interesting to note the similarities in name, and also teaching approach, between J M M’Culloch and Mr. M’Choakumchild. M’Culloch was one of the most popular school text book authors of the Victorian era. His text books were usually centered on facts and strict regulations and discarded things he thought useless, such as poetry and drama.
“A better order of times has now dawned… and that time is nearly gone by when children of seven and eight years of age are to be compelled to waste their time and their faculties on such preposterous and unsuitable exercises as enacting dramatic scenes… and reading the latest sentimental poetry.” This extract from M’Culloch’s “Preface to a Series of Lessons” shows how he believes in a strict diet in education of fact and rules regardless of age and youth.
As you can see M’Culloch’s attitude towards education was much the same as M’Choakumchild, which is that they never take into account the child's need for poetry, song, and fiction- those elements that feed the heart and soul, as well as the mind. Therefore M’Culloch seemed to have served as Dickens’ inspiration for M’Choakumchild.
Dickens obviously is not happy with the type of schooling he received as a child, and how the same monotonous style of education was still being used. In a speech he made titled “Schools I do not Like” on November 5th 1857 he stated, “the bright childish imagination is utterly discouraged, and those bright childish faces, which it is so very good for the wisest among us to remember in after life.” Also in the speech he states “I have never seen among the pupils, whether boys or girls, anything but little parrots and small calculating machines”, this shows how he believes that children make no attempt to take part in their lessons at all and show no desire to. Dickens obviously desired a more positive, interactive and stimulating atmosphere to work in and wanted children to use their creativeness and imagination not crush their fancy with facts. This would then equip them for life as thinkers and innovators, not as ‘pitchers’ of facts. He is also distressed by the ‘factory’ style approach to the children and their education. He exaggerates this to show the ‘production line’ attitude to education is wrong and does not help the child. He believes that the school in Hard Times treats all children the same and there is no exception to the rule. He sees it as a rather utilitarian style approach, a ‘one size fits all’ kind of regime and believes that this system has obviously failed. His distress seem to turn to the kind of anger a activist would show in a protest and in a way his writing of the book is his form of a protest which is made through humour. He strongly believes that children at such an early stage in their childhood are too young to be exposed to such a formal and rigorous style of education and should instead be allowed to express their emotions and have their youthful imaginations nurtured.