Group 404

on Literature on a topic:

Problems of Childhood and educationin Charles Dickens' works

by Qalandarov Rasulbeka student of the group 404

English Language Department ofForeign Languages faculty

of Urgench State University.

Course Work

Urgench State UniversityURGANCH 2015

ContentsIntroduction 1. Briefly about Charles

Dickens

Chapter I.2. Childhood problems in

his works

Chapter II3. Critical views of

Charles Dickens about

the education of his time.

 Conclusion

Introduction

Charles Dickens was born in the Landport suburb of Portsmouth on Friday7th February 1812. The house he was born in, 13 Mile End Terrace, is now the Dickens Birthplace Museum and is today furnished, more or less as it would have been at the time of his birth.

Dickens was christened on 4th March 1812 at St Mary's church and was named

Charles, after his maternal grandfather, Charles Barrow; John, after his father, John Dickens; and Huffham, after Christopher Huffam (the parish clerk misspelt the surname),who was a London friend of his father.

John Dickens was employed as a clerk in the Navy Pay Office and his job meant that the family would have to move as, and where his employers saw fit to send him. As aresult Charles's first five years were marked by a series of moves as his father was shuttled between various jobs with the Naval Pay Office.

Dickens first came to London in January 1815 when John wastransferred to The Navy Pay Office then located at Somerset House on Strand. As the three year old boy absorbed the sights, smells and sounds of the City, and his family settled into life in the Capital, no one could have known that, in later life, the name of Charles Dickens would become synonymous with London, and that he was destined to become the undisputed chronicler of its streets, buildings and people.

On this occasion the family spent two years in London before another transfer saw John Dickens transferred to Chatham in Kent and, with this new move, Charles embarked upon what, by his own later admission, were to be the happiest years of his childhood. Not only did his mother teach him the basics of reading but he was also enrolled at a local school where he was taught by a kindly local clergyman and schoolmaster by the name of William Giles.

One of the pastimes that the young Charles delighted in during this idyllic period of his childhood was going on long strolls with his father and exploring the lush Kent countryside that surrounded Chatham. He was particularly fond of strolling through the grounds of Cobham Hall, justoutside Rochester, where he became enamoured with a large house that sat atop a hillside looking down on the park.

His father would often point the house out to him and encourage him with the words "If you were to be very persevering and were to work hard, you might some day cometo live in it." This fondness for the house, which was Gad's Hill Place, remained with him into adulthood and Dickens did indeed purchase the house in 1856 and, from 1860 until his death in 1870, it became his principle residence.

But the settled period of his childhood was brought to a sudden end when, in 1822, John Dickens was transferred back to London and his income dropped dramatically.John had always lived well beyond his means and this sudden reduction in his earnings, coupled with his inability to curb his expenditure, plunged him heavily into debt and, as a result, the family finances teetered on the brink.

His wife, Elizabeth, made an attempt to improve the familyfortunes by opening a school for young ladies. But this proved unsuccessful and, in 1824, John Dickens was arrested for debt and was sent to the Marshalsea Debtors Prison, where he was joined by his wife and children with the exceptions of Charles and his older sister Fanny, who were found lodgings elsewhere.

Dickens later told his primary biographer, John Forster, how his father had turned to him before being taken away and had tearfully told him that "the sun was set on him for ever." "I really believed at the time," Dickens informed Forster, "that these words had broken my heart."

That Charles was traumatised by this episode of his childhood is undeniable. Thinly disguised references to itcrop up time and time again in his fiction and the image

of the debtors prison looms over several of his novels. Indeed, he later recalled to John Forster how, when he first went to visit his father at the Marshalsea Prison, "...he was waiting for me in the lodge.. and [we] cried very much... And he told me, I remember, ...that if a man had twenty pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; but that a shilling spent the other way would make him wretched..." This same advice is given by Mr Micawber, a character based upon John Dickens, to the protagonist of Dickens's most autobiographical novel - David Copperfield.

Charles was found work at Warren's Blacking Warehouse - onthe site now occupied by Charing Cross Railway Station - and the sensitive 11 year old boy, who had genuinely believed he was destined to be a gentlemen, suffered the indignity of finding himself pasting labels onto pots of boot polish. The trauma of his time at the blacking warehouse stayed with him for the rest of his life.His torment at his situation was made worse by the fact that his older sister, Fanny, was enrolled at the Royal College of Music and received the type of education that young Charles longed for.

Instead, he found himself working with boys and men whom he considered to be very much his social inferiors and, with his family living in the Marshalsea Prison, a fact hekept hidden from his workmates, he found himself virtuallyabandoned. Left to his own devices, he began exploring allparts of London and, in so doing, he became acquainted with all the highs and the lows that the Victorian Metropolis had to offer.He couldn't have known it then, but this period of his life was to be his making as he gained an unrivalled

knowledge of the City with which the majority of his fiction would later become indelibly linked.

John Dickens had been in the Marshalsea Debtors Prison for14 weeks when his mother died and left him a little money.With this small inheritance he was able to secure his release, although he wasn't totally debt free.But he seems to have been genuinely concerned by the misery his actions had caused his son and, in 1825, he took Charles away from the blacking factory, and despite vociferous objections from Elizabeth, who wanted their sonto continue bringing in a useful weekly wage, John sent him to school at Wellington House Academy on Hampstead Road.

In 1832, at age 20, Dickens was energetic, increasingly self-confident, enjoyed mimicry and popular entertainment, lacked a clear, specific sense of what he wanted to become, and yet knew he wanted fame. Drawn to the theatre — he became an early member of the Garrick — he landed an acting audition at Covent Garden, where the manager George Bartley and the actor Charles Kemble were to see him. Dickens prepared meticulously and decided to imitate the comedian Charles Mathews, but ultimately he missed the audition because of a cold. Before another opportunity arose, he had set out on his career as a writer.

In 1833 he submitted his first story, "ADinner at Poplar Walk", to the London periodical Monthly Magazine. William Barrow, a brother of his mother, offeredhim a job on The Mirror of Parliament and he worked in the House of Commons for the first time early in 1832. He

rented rooms at Furnival's Inn and worked as a political journalist, reporting on Parliamentary debates, and he travelled across Britain to cover election campaigns for the Morning Chronicle.His journalism, in the form of sketches in periodicals, formed his first collection of pieces, published in 1836: Sketches by Boz — Boz being a family nickname he employed as a pseudonym for some years. Dickens apparently adopted it from the nickname "Moses", which he had given to his youngest brother Augustus Dickens, after a character in Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. When pronouncedby anyone with a head cold, "Moses" became "Boses" — latershortened to Boz. Dickens's own name was considered "queer" by a contemporary critic, who wrote in 1849: "Mr Dickens, as if in revenge for his own queer name, does bestow still queerer ones upon his fictitious creations." He would contribute to and edit journals throughout his literary career. In January 1835 the Morning Chronicle launched an evening edition, under the editorship of the Chronicle's music critic, George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Dickens to contribute Street Sketches and Dickens became aregular visitor to his Fulham house, excited by Hogarth's friendship with a hero of his, Walter Scott, and enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters — Georgina, Mary,and nineteen-year-old Catherine.Professionally and socially Dickens made rapid progress. He became friendly with William Harrison Ainsworth, the author of the highwayman novel Rookwood (1834), whose bachelor salon in Harrow Road had become the meeting placefor a set that included Daniel Maclise, Benjamin Disraeli,Edward Bulwer-Lytton, and George Cruikshank. All these became his friends and collaborators, with the exception of Disraeli, and he met his first publisher, John Macrone,at the house. The success of Sketches by Boz led to a proposal from publishers Chapman and Hall for Dickens to

supply text to match Robert Seymour's engraved illustrations in a monthly letterpress. Seymour committed suicide after the second instalment, and Dickens, who wanted to write a connected series of sketches, hired "Phiz" to provide the engravings (which were reduced from four to two per instalment) for the story. The resulting story became The Pickwick Papers, and though the first fewepisodes were not successful, the arrival in the fourth episode of the Cockney Sam Weller, Phiz's first as illustrator, marked a sharp climb in its popularity. The final instalment sold 40,000 copies.

In November 1836 Dickens accepted the job of editor of Bentley's Miscellany, a position he held for three years, until he fell out with the owner. In 1836 as he finished the last instalments of The Pickwick Papers, he began writing the beginning instalments of Oliver Twist — writing as many as 90 pages a month — while continuing work on Bentley's and also writing four plays, the production of which he oversaw. Oliver Twist, published in1838, became one of Dickens's better known stories, with dialogue that transferred well to the stage because he waswriting stage plays at the same time) and, more importantly, it was the first Victorian novel with a childprotagonist.

Middle yearsIn late November 1851, Dickens moved into Tavistock House where he wrote Bleak House (1852–53), Hard Times (1854) and Little Dorrit (1856). It was here that he indulged in the amateur theatricals which are described in Forster's "Life". During this period he worked closely with the novelist and playwright Wilkie Collins. In 1856, his income from writing allowed him to buy Gad's Hill Place inHigham, Kent. As a child, Dickens had walked past the

house and dreamed of living in it. The area was also the scene of some of the events of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, and this literary connection pleased him.

In 1857, Dickens hired professional actresses for the playThe Frozen Deep, which he and his protégé Wilkie Collins had written. Dickens fell deeply in love with one of the actresses, Ellen Ternan, and this passion was to last the rest of his life. Dickens was 45 and Ternan 18 when he made the decision, which went strongly against Victorian convention, to separate from his wife, Catherine, in 1858—divorce was still unthinkable for someone as famous as he was. When Catherine left, never to see her husband again, she took with her one child, leaving the other children tobe raised by her sister Georgina who chose to stay at Gad's Hill.

During this period, whilst pondering a project to give public readings for his own profit, Dickens was approachedby Great Ormond Street Hospital to help it survive its first major financial crisis through a charitable appeal. His 'Drooping Buds' essay in Household Words earlier in 3 April 1852 was considered by the hospital's founders to have been the catalyst for the hospital's success. Dickens, whose philanthropy was well-known, was asked by his friend, the hospital's founder Charles West, to preside over the appeal, and he threw himself into the task, heart and soul.

Last yearsOn 9 June 1865, while returning from Paris with Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst rail crash. The first seven carriages of the train plunged off a cast ironbridge that was under repair. The only first-class carriage to remain on the track was the one in which

Dickens was travelling. Before rescuers arrived, Dickens tended and comforted the wounded and the dying with a flask of brandy and a hat refreshed with water, and saved some lives. Before leaving, he remembered the unfinished manuscript for Our Mutual Friend, and he returned to his carriage to retrieve it.[101] Dickens later used this experience as material for his short ghost story, "The Signal-Man", in which the central character has a premonition of his own death in a rail crash. He also based the story on several previous rail accidents, such as the Clayton Tunnel rail crash of 1861. Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquest to avoid disclosing that he had been travelling with Ternan and her mother, which would have caused a scandal.

IEvidence of Dickens's interest in the important subject ofeducation appears in his fiction, journalism and public speeches. While he was sensitive to the various educational developments which occurred in his lifetime, he stopped short of offering practical solutions to problems, and his work only reflects a selected range of

issues and institutions. He was a strong believer in universal, non-sectarian education, though not necessarilyunder a state system. He never joined any of the reformingsocieties, and seemed more comfortable dealing with particular cases and large principles, rather than legislation and administration. His general outlook on thesubject is encapsulated in a speech he gave in Birmingham in 1844; he said, "If you would reward honesty, if you would give encouragement to good, if you would stimulate the idle, eradicate evil, or correct what is bad, education - comprehensive liberal education - is the one thing needful, and the one effective end" (Speeches 63).

Dickens's early years coincided with the state's growing sense of responsibility for the instruction of its citizens. Access to education varied tremendously, according to location, gender, and class. Those who could pay for their schooling had access to several types of institutions - though quality was by no means guaranteed. Dickens's own experience is case in point: his education, which he acknowledged to have been "irregular" (letter of July 1838), and relatively slight, began in Chatham, wherehe was a pupil at a dame-school - a deficient private establishment with an unqualified woman at its head, similar to the one run by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt (GE 7). Then in 1821 he moved on to the Rev. William Giles's School, where his experiences were more positive. He parted with Giles in 1822, when the Dickens family transferred to London, and in 1824, when they moved into the Marshalsea, Dickens went to reside with a Mrs. Roylance, the original of Mrs. Pipchin (DS 8). His formal schooling resumed in 1825, when he was sent to Wellington House Classical and Commercial Academy, run by the sadistic William Jones, who was the original for Mr. Creakle, and whose school was the inspiration for Salem

House (DC 5-7). Dickens's experiences prompted two other recollections of Wellington House: in his essay "Our School' he noted that Jones ("the Chief") had a penchant for ruling ciphering-books, and then "smiting the palms ofoffenders with the same diabolical instrument" (HW 4, 11 October 1851); in a speech of 1857 he remarked that it wasJones's business "to make as much out of us and put as little into us as possible" (Speeches 240). There were, however, positive aspects to Dickens's time at the school:he spoke well of the English teacher, Mr. Taylor, who had features in common with Mr. Mell (DC 5-7, 63), and the Latin master, who "took great pains when he saw intelligence and a desire to learn" (HW 4, 11 October 1851). By the time Dickens left in 1827 he had won the Latin prize.

While Dickens, as the son of a clerk, acquired some formaleducation, provision for the poor was far less readily assured. Wider access was facilitated by the non-sectarianBritish and Foreign School Society (founded 1808), and thestrongly religious National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the EstablishedChurch (founded 1811); both used the large-scale monitorial system, and between them they administered over18,000 schools by 1851. Dickens objected to the National Society's insistence on church intervention in education, declaring that the "Catechism is wholly inapplicable to the state of ignorance that now prevails" (letter of 16 September 1843). This comment is characteristic of a larger controversy: for much of the nineteenth century theissue of religious education proved to be the key obstaclein developing a pervasive national school system. Dickens developed this idea imaginatively in "A December Vision," which contains a portrait of priests and teachers arguing

over -- but never agreeing on -- what to teach (HW 2, 14 December 1850).

Dickens found an ally in his promotion of non-sectarian education and concern for the poor and deprived in James Kay-Shuttleworth (1804-77), a former assistant poor-law commissioner, statistician, and critic of the monitorial system, who in 1839 became the first secretary of the Committee of the Privy Council on Education, and laid the foundation for a national system of popular education. He opened the first teacher training college (in Battersea, 1840); reported on the training of pauper children (1841);instituted the pupil-teacher apprentice system to counter the shortage and poor quality of elementary teachers (1846); and developed an inspectorate for those schools which received government grants. Dickens made his acquaintance in 1846, and found that they shared an interest in Ragged Schools (right) -- those institutions which, as their name suggests, accepted the raggedest of children. In 1843 Dickens began his frequent visits to these schools, and became one of their most prominent supporters, though he was also aware of their limitations -- particularly the lack of qualified teaching staff. Ragged Schools found their way into his journalism (HW 4, 13 March 1852) and his fiction, where Charley Hexam calls his first school a "temple of good intentions" (OMF 2.1). Dickens even wrote to Kay-Shuttleworth proposing that theyestablish a model ragged school; he enthusiastically declared, "surely you and I could set one going' (letter of 28 March 1846).

While Kay-Shuttleworth's influence and expertise were recognised by both Dickens and Angela Burdett-Coutts (who enlisted the reformer's aid in developing the mark system for Urania Cottage), there were other issues on which he

and Dickens diverged - particularly educational methods, school inspections, and teacher training. One strategy singled out by Dickens for criticism in Hard Times was theobject lesson, originally conceived by the Swiss educationalist Johann Pestalozzi (1746-1827) as a method of instruction deriving from children's own experiences, and suited to their particular stage of development, but distorted in its translation to England by Charles and Elizabeth Mayo, particularly through the latter's Lessons on Objects (1831). Form acquired ascendancy over subject matter, producing lessons whose vocabulary and content (including Latinate phrases and scientific jargon) were not suited to children's experience. Kay-Shuttleworth helped to popularize the object lesson by including it in the curriculum for his Battersea teacher training college,which then became the model for many others. Dickens's critique is embodied in the exchange between Gradgrind, Bitzer and Sissy Jupe over the proper definition of a horse. Bitzer, who has learned a definition by rote, classifies it as a "Quadruped" and "Gramnivorous," whereasSissy, the horse-breaker's daughter dubbed "Girl number twenty," is reprimanded for possessing "no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals" (HT 1.2). The object lesson is also recalled in Nicholas Nickleby, where Squeers describes a horse as "a quadruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the grammar knows" (NN 8).

IIThe educational critique in Hard Times confirms Dickens's familiarity with pedagogical developments. He had read Kay-Shuttleworth's Public Education (1853), and lamented the "supernatural dreariness" of its supporting tables andstatistics (letter of 1 April 1853); also, Dickens asked W.H. Wills to obtain for him a copy of the Education Committee's examination for teachers, for use in the opening chapters (see letter of 25 January 1854). The novel's depiction of the government inspector, identified as the "third gentleman" (HT1.2), owes its inspiration to

the art critic and designer Henry Cole (1808-82), one of the prime movers behind the Great Exhibition of 1851, who had recently been appointed Superintendent of the Department of Practical Art. Dickens reflected the recent introduction of elementary drawing into the curriculum, and satirized Coles's direction of industrial design for consumer goods, by having this "professed pugilist" test the children's judgment about whether or not to "paper a room with representations of horses" (HT 1.2). The decidedly negative response, and the equation of taste with fact - which Cole seems to have received with good humour (see letter of 17 June 1854) - confirms Dickens's disapproval of such unimaginative exponents of rational aesthetics.

The presentation of Mr. M'Choakumchild is further evidenceof Dickens's interest in contemporary developments. The schoolmaster is the product of Kay-Shuttleworth's pupil-teacher system, which apprenticed proficient boys and girls to school managers for five years, before allowing them to enter the training colleges for a maximum of threeyears, and then to graduate as certified teachers; the scheme produced its first "Queen's Scholars" in 1853. While Dickens had argued against the employment of unqualified individuals as teachers (HW 4, 13 March 1852; HW 5, 11 September 1852), he also deprecated what he considered "Kayshuttleworthian nonsense" (letter of 9 December 1856). Thus he presented M'Choakumchild as one ofthose who had "been lately turned at the same time, in thesame factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforte legs" (HT 1.2). The list of subjects mastered, ranging from "Orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody"to "all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries" left little time to develop teaching skills. AsDickens noted, "If he had only learnt a little less, how

infinitely better he might have taught much more" (HT 1.2).

While M'Choakumchild features only briefly in Hard Times, in Our Mutual Friend a teacher occupies a far more prominent position in the narrative. Bradley Headstone, described as a "highly certificated stipendiary schoolmaster" (OMF 2.1) is also a product of the training college system, and his conception follows the 1861 reportof the Newcastle Commission, appointed to examine the possibility of extending sound elementary education to allclasses. Its investigations revealed that the basics of education were being neglected, as Kay-Shuttleworth's colleges emphasised academic endeavour to the extent that graduates became out of touch with their pupils, and thus could not do their job properly. Our Mutual Friend considers the sociological development of the new generation of teachers: Headstone, and his pupil-teacher Charley Hexam, are products of the best education available to individuals from poor backgrounds, who are encouraged to rise above their social origins in their quest for respectability. The training college experience is again presented unsympathetically by Dickens: Headstone"had acquired mechanically a great store of teacher's knowledge," to the point where his mental "wholesale warehouse" was "always ready to meet the demands of retaildealers" (OMF 2.1); though relatively well paid, and thus reflecting the enhanced status of qualified teachers, he displays a vicious temperament, which proves to be his undoing.

Headstone's respectability is precarious. He falls for Lizzie Hexam, but because of his obnoxious behaviour is rejected. Dickens exacerbates this feeling of injustice bypositing as his rival Eugene Wrayburn - the indolent,

briefless barrister, who has the benefit of a public school education. Their confrontation (which recalls the exchange between Steerforth and Mr. Mell in DC 7) serves as an indictment of the whole teaching profession. Dickenscontinually takes Wrayburn's side in the rivalry over Lizzie, stressing the "boyish weakness" and "great selfishness" of Headstone's speech, and presenting his short temper and "consciously bad grace" as evidence of unworthiness. While Headstone declares that he has a "right to be considered a better man" than Wrayburn, with "better reasons for being proud," the latter calmly counters, "How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge, or how I can cast stones that were never in my hand, is a problem for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove" (OMF 2.6). By making the character of Headstone a significant element in the plot, Dickens highlights several considerations for the new generation of teachers:the struggle to achieve the essential certificate and become a "Queen's Scholar"; the conceit prompted by the achievement of this status; the temptation to disregard their roots as a safeguard of respectability; and their jealousy of social groups who enjoy privilege without having to work for it.

Because the middle-class fee-paying institutions of Dickens's day did not depend on either charitable subscriptions or state funding, there was greater variation in standards and conditions, and thus more opportunity for imaginative expression. Many of the establishments for girls - about which Dickens knew relatively little - are presented comically, including Minerva House, in which the pupils "acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing" (SB 47); Westgate House, to which Mr. Pickwick is lured by the threat of Jingle's elopement (PP 16); Mrs. Wackles's day

school, where "writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination" are taught (OCS 8); Miss Monflathers's Boarding and Day Establishment, into which "nothing in the shape of a man - no, not even a milkman - was suffered, without special license, to pass" (OCS 31), and the "Lilliputian College" in "Tom Tiddler's Ground" run by Miss Pupford, who gives a lecture on the mythology of the heathens, "always carefully excluding Cupid from recognition" (CS 14). The perspective adopted in these portraits is that of a casual adult observer, who visits an establishment generally kept by a mature, narrow-mindedspinster. The humourous character of these vignettes is evidence of a typically patriarchal perspective: Dickens shared with most men of his time an ideal of femininity which emphasised the teaching of domestic crafts and responsibilities, rather than imaginative or intellectual pursuits.

When Dickens turns his attention to fee-paying establishments for boys, they are treated far more seriously, and the perspective is generally that of the anguished pupil. Such is the character of Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby, run by the sadistic Wackford Squeers(NN 8, 9, 12, 13). The novel served as a vehicle for exposing the dreadful conditions in the Yorkshire schools - those private venture boarding schools which catered forunwanted -- often illegitimate - children, who were kept throughout the year at cheap rates. Dickens travelled under a pseudonym to visit these establishments with Phiz in 1838, and denounced them as examples of "the monstrous neglect of education in England"; he claimed that Squeers and his school were "faint and feeble pictures of an existing reality, purposely subdued and kept down lest they should be deemed impossible" (1839 preface to NN). InNicholas's first sight of the "bare and dirty" classroom

the hopeless situation of the boys (Squeers's "proper and natural enemies") is highlighted: "With every kindly sympathy and affection blasted in its birth, with every young and healthy feeling flogged and starved down, with every revengeful passion that can foster in swollen heartseating its evil way to their core in silence, what an incipient Hell was breeding here!" (NN 8). Pathos is elicited through the character of Smike, a "crushed boy" whose "long and very sad history" is punctuated by "stripes and blows, stripes and blows, morning, noon, and night" (NN 7, 12); his suffering and eventual death are directly attributable to Squeers's sadistic regime. This formidable - and largely undeniable - attack on such schools lent imaginative weight to indictments which had been circulating about such places as William Shaw's BowesAcademy at Greta Bridge, and helped to speed their demise.While Squeers's designs are undeniably malevolent, in Dombey and Son Dickens focuses on a well-intentioned schoolmaster whose shortcoming is a deficient methodology.Little Paul progresses from Mrs. Pipchin's, where the system was "not to encourage a child's mind to develop andexpand itself like a young flower, but to open it by forcelike an oyster" (DS 8), to Dr. Blimber's academy, where heis sent by a father impatient for his son's advancement. The pompous Blimber runs "a great hothouse, in which therewas a forcing apparatus incessantly at work," assisted by his daughter Cornelia, "dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages," and Mr. Feeder, BA, the "human barrel-organ" (DS 8, 11, 12). Dickens seized the opportunity to offer a critique on the premature acquisition of mathematical skill, but more importantly ofclassical languages, which were not only essential for university entrance, but were seen as valued culture-tokens for increasing self-respect. The boys' plight is communicated through Mr. Feeder's method of instruction:

"They knew no rest from the pursuit of strong-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them intheir dreams" (DS 11). They reach the conclusion that "allthe fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were amere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world" (DS 12). It is interesting to note that although Paul Dombey's death is accelerated by the Blimber regime he -- and other pupils like Toots - regard the school with affection.

While most of his fictional portraits are of children's schools, Dickens was also a strong, vocal supporter of adult education, particularly mechanics' institutes -- those establishments offering instruction to subscribing artisans and skilled workers; by 1850 there were about 700such foundations, claiming a membership of 100,000. Dickens was elected president of mechanics' institutes in Chatham, Birmingham, and Reading, and gave readings to raise funds for them; despite this seriousness of purpose,he was not averse to offering a comical account in "Dullborough Town' (UT 12). He was also present at variousfoundings, soirees, and prize-givings from 1843 onward, giving speeches which reviewed resources and achievements,fees levied, number of volumes in the libraries, and courses offered. In 1844 he proclaimed of the Liverpool Mechanics' Institution: "Every man who has felt the advantages of, or has received improvement in, this place,carries its benefits into the society in which he moves, and puts them out at compound interest, and what the blessed sum may be at last, no man can tell" (Speeches 54).

Conclusion

Dickens believed in the extension of education on sound principles to all citizens; yet he did not offer specific strategies for achieving this aim. He exposed what he considered abuses and deficiencies, and praised what he believed were positive developments. He was a pioneer in introducing the theme of education into prose fiction, andproved, in his correspondence, journalism and speeches, that he had greater familiarity with the subject than mostof his rivals. In the year of his death Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which further raised the standard of teacher training and effectively inaugurated compulsory schooling. If Dickens made any practical contribution to achieving this end, it was by reinforcing the public's sense of moral feeling, and providing additional momentum for change.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adrian, A., "Nicholas Nickleby and Educational Reform', Nineteenth Century Fiction 4 (1949).Altick, R., "Education, Print and Paper in Our Mutual Friend', in C. de L. Ryals (ed.), Nineteenth-Century Literary Perspectives: Essays in Honor of Lionel Stevenson(1974).Collins, P., Dickens and Education (rev. edn., 1964).Collins, P., "Dickens and the Ragged Schools," Dickensian 55 (1959).

Gilmour, R., "The Gradgrind School: Political Economy in the Classroom," Victorian Studies 11 (1967).Kay-Shuttleworth, J., Four Periods of Public Education (1862).Shatto, S., "A complete course, according to question and answer," Dickensian 70 (1974).