Of je van geestelijke wreedheid kunt spreken bij het educatieve duo Gradgrind, de schooleigenaar, en M' Choakumchild,
de pas afgestudeerde pedagoog uit Hard Times, is de vraag. Zeker is in ieder geval wel dat ook hier vol overtuiging
gewerkt wordt aan het pletten van de kinderziel, door middel van het uitbannen van iedere vorm van fancy, laten we voor
het gemak zeggen fantasie en het benadrukken van het enige wat voor deze aardspositivisten van de opkomende
industriële samenleving van belang is en dat zijn facts. Een citaat:
Dickens begint met niet mis te verstane kritiek op de onderwijskundige begage van Mr. M' Choakumschild:
He and some one hundred andforty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time, in the same factory, on
the same principle, like so many pianoforte legs...waarop een uitgebreide opsomming volgt van de vakken en
wetenschappen waarin onderhavig voorbeeld voor de leergierige jeugd zich heeft bekwaamd. Vervolgens verzucht te
schrijver:
Ah, rather overdone, M' Choakumchild. If he had ony learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might
have taught much more.
De al eerder genoemde Gradgrind, de baas, zeg maar van onze M' Choakumchild, is een man die geen twijfel over
zichzelf en zijn leerdoelen laat bestaan:
^homas Gradgrind, Sir. A man of realities. A man offacts and calculations. A man who proceeds
upon the principle that two and two are four, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into
allowing for anything overNow what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but
Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.
Verderop in de roman werpt een gesprek tussen Louisa en Sissy Jupe. alias 'girl number twenty', een aardig licht op de
aanpak van Mr. M'Choakumchild. Het woord is aan Sissy:
'Then Mr. M' Choakumchild said that he would try me again. And he said, This schoolroom is an
immense town, and in it there are a million of inhabitants, and only five-and-twenty are starved to
death in the streets, in the course of a year. What is your remark on that proportion? And my remark
was - for I couldn 't think of a better one - that I thought it must be just as hard upon those who were
starved, whether the others were a million, or a million million. And that was wrong too.
The Mr. M' Choakumchild said he would try me once more. And he said, Here are the stutterings-
'Statistics,said Louisa.
'Yes Miss Louisa - they always remind me of stuttering, and that's another of my mistakes - of accidents upon the sea.
And I find (Mr. M'Choakumchild said) that in a given time a hundred thousand persons went to sea on long voyages, and
-nly five hundred of them were drowned or burned to death. What is the percentage? And I said Miss;here Sissy fairly
obbed as confessing with extreme contrition to het greatest error; 'I said it was nothing.
Een geheel ander soort schoolmeester treffen wij aan in The Old Curiosity Shop. Een blik in de klas:
Then began the hum of conning over lessons and getting them by heart, the whispered jest and stealthy
game, and all the noise and drawl of school; and in the midst of the din sat the poor schoolmaster, the
very image of meekness and simplicity, vainly attempting to fix his mind upon the duties of the day.
De man is namelijk begaan met het tragisch lot van een van fijn leerlingen, die op sterven ligt.
Zo begaan dat hij de klas uiteindelijk een middag vrijaf geeft, wat hem niet door iedereen in dank wordt afgenomen:
...and one old lady, finding that she could not inflame or irritate the peacable schoolmaster by
talking to him, bounced out of his house and talked at him for half-an-hour outside his own window,
to another old lady, saying that of course he would deduct this half-holiday from his weekly charge,
or of course he would naturally expect to have an opposition started against him; there was no want
of idle chaps in that neighbourhood (here the old lady raised her voice), and some chaps who were
too idle even to be schoolmasters, might soon find that there were other chaps put over their heads...
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