Dickens and the Ragged Schools
By Guus de Landtsheer.
Looking for information I could use for a speech about: Dickens and Education, I bumped
into the so-called 'Ragged schools'. These were Victorian institutions which name is so clear
to us that we don't have to translate them into Dutch.
By the time Dickens wrote 'A Christmas Carol', in 1843, he was already one of the most
popular authors in England. That summer, he paid a visit to the Field Lane "ragged school" in
London. These were institutions where dedicated teachers worked in appalling conditions to
give poor children a basic education. In general they were set up and run by church
organisations to provide some basic education to the children of the very poor.
Dickens was profoundly moved by the visit, and asked himself how could he help to inspire
people to help the poor. First he thought of writing a pamphlet to expose the hardships of the
poor. Then he realised that far more people would read it if it was in the form of a short story.
He wrote the story in six weeks, and published it at his own expense in time for Christmas. It
was a huge success, and sold 6,000 copies on the first day of publication. Charles Dickens
would go on reading tours in Britain and America where he also read "A Christmas Carol"
out loud.
A ragged school in Whitechapel (London):
'30 000 children hunted, flogged, imprisoned, but not taught."
Forster also deals with the worries of Dickens about the Ragged Schools:
In Life of Dickens, book 5 chapter I. (AGAIN IN ENGLAND), we find the next fragment, of
Dickens' involvement in a newspaper called the DAILY NEWS and his commitment to the
improvement of the Ragged Schools:
W3-
The story goes that on the way home from such a reading, a factory owner in Vermont said
to his wife, "Ifeel that after listening to Mr. Dickensreading of 'A Christmas CarolI
should break the custom we have hitherto observed of opening the works on Christmas Day".
