Education In Hard Times

In “The One Thing Needful” chapter of Hard Times, Dickens presents the type of educational system existing in Coke-town. He demonstrates this through the curriculum of the school which is to “Stick to Facts” (Hard Times 47) for the reason that “Facts alone are wanted in life” (Hard Times 47) and anything with no factual element is of a disadvantage to them and must be rooted out. Zubair describes Mr. Gradgrind’s school as a very rigid and rigorous system where flexibility is not welcomed because flexibility allows imagination and Mr. Gradgrind is against it (2392). This inflexible character is seen through one of the speaker’s voice as “dry and dictatorial” (Hard Times 47). The above adjectives perfectly describe the educational system in Coke-town

That is, the students are not allowed to use their imagination, emotions or have creative thoughts. Dickens, who is an advocate for imagination and against child depravity, argues that “feelings and imagination are the strongest elements of intellectual powers and clearness” (Hughes 126) and for this reason when children are not given the room to develop these abilities, their “imagination is not cultivated properly, and the child does not only lose the many intellectual and spiritual advantages that would result from its true culture, but that it is exposed to the terrible danger of a distorted imagination” (Hughes 143).

Furthermore, another medium Dickens employs to discuss the educational system in Coke-town is through the characters. One of the characters he uses as a vehicle is Bitzer. It is through him that Dickens touches on the subject of cramming. Bitzer is considered one of Gradgrind’s best students. Why? Because he adheres to the stern requirements of the school’s curriculum which includes cramming and memorizing. Dickens exhibits this notion in the manner in which Bitzer defines a horse. Bitzer defines a horse in its factual term like it has “Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eyed teeth…shed hoofs. Hoofs hard, but

This kind of training system Dickens regards as one of the “gravest defects” (Hughes 97) of the educational system existing in Coke-town. In continuation, Taghizadeh argues that the manner in which Bitzer is brought up “will make him quite impotent to humanity” (33) and this is the stance Dickens is fighting against because he thinks fancy and imagination have a vital role to play in the development of student’s moral sensibility. For this reason, Gradgrind School is a place which hinders this ability and this one way Dickens communicates to his readers that this type of educational system is unacceptable, wrong, and weak in bringing up children. Also, the Enlightenment philosopher, Immanuel Kant mentions that “imagination is a powerful agent for creating”. So for Kant, for an individual to be able to create things we need imagination and not cramming as Dickens is criticizing. Hence, cramming is not a form of learning but rather a “mere farce” (Hughes 107). More importantly, Dickens also shows us the dangers of having this type of learning system. This system of education does not gives us knowledge about our surroundings Dickens asserts. There are three major characters in the novel