Dickens' views on education

ways of teaching make him feel this way. Dickens encourages the reader to feel that if the Murdstones were softer and not so strict in their education of David, the results would be much better.           Dickens uses Uriah Heep to stress the importance of education for life. From the education he receives at the Charity School, he is taught no other way to advance in life besides being devious and deceitful. In later life this proves to be true when he tries to steal a business from someone who has only been loyal to him. Dora too, demonstrates the problems of a life without sufficient preparation. From birth, she was expected to be nothing more than a “pretty little wife” and when she grew up, she is incapable of managing the house and Dickens makes it clear that she is nothing more than a pretty object.  Steerforth on the other hand has a good education at school but his parents teach him to become picky and spiteful, wasting four years at oxford university and being a horrible friend to David.           The two schools David attends are also completely different. Creakle is a ruthless bully, beating children who are younger and weaker than him. He runs Salem House for this reason, and not because he has any interest in improving the students’ future chances. Dr Strong’s school, however, is “as different from Mr. Creakle's as good is from evil”. Dr Strong is a generous character, “the idol of the whole school”, which he runs to help the boys, not himself. He gives the boys the choice to do what they like and respects them as people, unlike Creakle who doesn’t even notice them.           Dr Strong believes in “the honour and good faith of the boys, and relies on their possession of those qualities unless “they proved themselves unworthy of it”. Creakle, however treats all the boys with immediate suspicion. When he first meets David, he takes him “by the ear” and threatens him. Dickens again emphasises the importance of good morals as a starting point for an education. At Dr Strong’ school he has a high morale and learns well, also when he learns with peggoty and his mum before Mr Murdstone arrives he learns well because he enjoys it and therefore will have a high morale. Dr Strong’s laid back method “worked wonders… and David learnt with a good will, desiring to do it credit” whereas, at Salem House, the students “were too much troubled and knocked about to learn”.           Dickens also contrasts the environments of both schools. At Salem House, David never feels at ease. “He closely watches Creakle’s eye during class, always fearful”. Even at night, the boys are fearful of Mr Creakle who is often “prowling about the passage,” ready to beat the boys for “disorderly conduct”. The fact that David was “an exception to the general body at Salem House, in so much that he steadily picked up some crumbs of knowledge” is Dickens’ strongest argument against this type of school. It shows just how little he learnt at his time there, just learning crumbs of education. At Dr Strong’s, however, David is completely comfortable; he describes the pleasant surroundings and the Doctor’s habits and how easy it is to learn there.           Dickens held firm beliefs about important elements of a good education. He personally attended a strict school run by “the most ignorant… worst tempered man” and from his experiences concluded that “there is not likely to be much learnt… in a school carried on by sheer cruelty”. Dickens recognises the importance of a less strict, easier education where the student is free to do what he wants and is encouraged to build a firm moral base for the rest of his life. By James Greatorex