Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of crime were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention—it might always have been worth remarking that the fact wasexactly the reverse.
Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of crime were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention—it might always have been worth remarking that the fact wasexactly the reverse.
The great prophets of modern education—Pestalozzi, Froebel, Barnard, and Mann—strongly condemned corporal punishment. These were men of clear insight and correct judgment. The opinion of one such man is worth more than the views of ten thousand ordinary men in regard to the subject of their special study. They were prophet souls who saw the higher truth toward which the race had been slowly growing, and revealed it.
Their revelations have been appreciated and adopted more and more fully as they have been understood more and more clearly. In the case of corporal punishment and all forms of coercion Dickens has been the John the Baptist and the Paul of the revelation of the gospel of sympathy for the child.
Not one blow in a thousand is given to a child now as compared with the time of Dickens’s childhood. Corporal punishment is prohibited in the schools of France,Italy, Switzerland, Finland, Brazil, New Jersey, and in the following cities: New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Albany, Syracuse, Toledo, and Savannah. In Washington and Philadelphia teachers voluntarily gave up the practice of whipping. This is true of the majority of individual teachers in the cities of America, and the number of those who do without all forms of coercive discipline is rapidly increasing.
The whipping of girls is prohibited in Saxony, Hessen, Oldenburg, and in many cities. Few girls are now whipped in schools anywhere. Corporal punishment has been abolished for the higher grades in Norway and in the lower grades in Saxony, Hessen, Bremen, and Hamburg. In the last-named city the cane is kept under lock and key. In some places the consent of parents must be obtained before children may be whipped, in some places the number of strokes is limited; in other places a record is kept of every case of corporal punishment and reports made monthly to the school boards. Everywhere action has been taken to prohibit or restrict the use of the once universally respected and universally dominant rod.
All wise trainers of children recognise the value of obedience, but truly wise trainers no longer aim to make children merely submissively obedient, nor even willingly responsive in their obedience. They try to make them independently, co-operatively, and reverently obedient; independent in free development of will, co-operative in unity of effort with their fellows and their adult guides, and reverent in their attitude to law. The substitution of independence for subserviency, of co-operation for formal, responsive obedience, and of reverence for law for fear of law are the most important development in child training.
In Dickens’s ideal school, Doctor Strong’s, there was “plenty of liberty.”
Gladstone’s criticism, when over seventy, of his own teachers was that they were afraid of freedom. He said: “I did not learn to set a due value on the imperishable and inestimable principles of human liberty. The temperwhich I think prevailed among them was that liberty was regarded with jealousy, and fear could not be wholly dispensed with.” The true teacher is not afraid of freedom, but makes it the dominant element in his training and in his educational theory.
May the profounder truth in regard to child training spread to the ends of the earth! May the time soon come when there shall be no disciples of Susan Nipper’s doctrine, “that childhood, like money, must be shaken and rattled and jostled about a good deal to keep it bright”! May Christian civilization soon be free from such memories as the remembrance of Mr. Obenreizer, in No Thoroughfare, had of his parents: “I was a famished naked little wretch of two or three years when they were men and women with hard hands to beat me”! May Christ’s teaching soon be so fully understood that there will be no child anywhere like the shivering little boy in The Haunted Man, who was “used already to be worried and hunted like a beast, who crouched down as he was looked at, and looked back again, and interposed his arm to ward off the expected blow, and threatened to bite if he was hit”! May teachers and all trainers of children learn the underlying philosophy of the statement made by Dickens, in connection with the schools of the Stepney Union, in The Uncommercial Traveller: “In the moral health of these schools—where corporal punishment is unknown—truthfulness stands high”!
THE DOCTRINE OF CHILD DEPRAVITY.
Dickens heartily accepted Froebel’s view of the doctrine of child depravity. They did not teach that the child is totally divine, but neither did they believe that a being created in God’s image is entirely depraved.
They recognised very clearly that the doctrine of child depravity was the logical (or illogical) basis of the theory of corporal punishment and all forms of coercion. What more natural or more logical than the practice of checking the outflow of a child’s inner life if we believe his inner life to be depraved? The firm belief in the doctrine of child depravity compelled conscientious men to be repressive and coercive in their discipline. Dickens understood this fully, and therefore he gave the doctrine no place in his philosophy.
Mrs. Pipchin’s training was based squarely on the doctrine of child depravity, for “the secret of her management of children was to give them everything that they didn’t like, and nothing that they did.” If the training of children under the “good oldrégime,” for which some reactionary philosophers are still pleading, is carefully analyzed, it will be found that Mrs. Pipchin’s plan was the commonly approved plan, and it was the perfectly logical outcome of the doctrine that the child, being wholly depraved, desired everything it should not have and objected to everything it should have.
That was a touching question addressed by a little boy to his father: “Say, papa, did mamma stop you from doing everything you wished to do whenyouwere a little boy?”
How Dickens despised the awful theology of theMurdstones, who would not let David play with other children, because they believed “all children to be a swarm of little vipers [though therewasa child once set in the midst of the Disciples], and held that they contaminated one another”!
How he laughed at Mrs. Varden and Miggs, her maid!
“If you hadn’t the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I don’t think you could abear it, I raly don’t.”“Miggs,” said Mrs. Varden, “you’re profane.”“Begging your pardon, mim,” returned Miggs with shrill rapidity, “such was not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, though I am but a servant.”“Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,” retorted her mistress, looking round with dignity, “is one and the same thing. How dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful fellow-beings—mere”—said Mrs. Varden, glancing at herself in a neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more becoming fashion—“mere worms and grovellers as we are!”“I do not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,” said Miggs, confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in the throat as usual, “and I did not expect it would be took as such. I hope I know my own unworthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and all my fellow-creatures as every practicable Christian should.”
“If you hadn’t the sweetness of an angel in you, mim, I don’t think you could abear it, I raly don’t.”
“Miggs,” said Mrs. Varden, “you’re profane.”
“Begging your pardon, mim,” returned Miggs with shrill rapidity, “such was not my intentions, and such I hope is not my character, though I am but a servant.”
“Answering me, Miggs, and providing yourself,” retorted her mistress, looking round with dignity, “is one and the same thing. How dare you speak of angels in connection with your sinful fellow-beings—mere”—said Mrs. Varden, glancing at herself in a neighbouring mirror, and arranging the ribbon of her cap in a more becoming fashion—“mere worms and grovellers as we are!”
“I do not intend, mim, if you please, to give offence,” said Miggs, confident in the strength of her compliment, and developing strongly in the throat as usual, “and I did not expect it would be took as such. I hope I know my own unworthiness, and that I hate and despise myself and all my fellow-creatures as every practicable Christian should.”
Oliver Twist was described by the philanthropists who cared for him as “under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the very devil himself.”
Mr. Grimwig had no faith in boys, and he tried hard to shake Mr. Brownlow’s faith in Oliver.
“He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Grimwig pettishly.“Don’t know?”“No. I don’t know. I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys: mealy boys and beef-faced boys.”“And which is Oliver?”“Mealy. I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy—a fine boy, they call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf. I know him! The wretch!”“Come,” said Mr. Brownlow, “these are not the characteristics of young Oliver Twist; so he needn’t excite your wrath.”“They are not,” replied Mr. Grimwig. “He may have worse. He is deceiving you, my good friend.”“I’ll swear he is not,” replied Mr. Brownlow warmly.“If he is not,” said Mr. Grimwig, “I’ll——” and down went the stick.“I’ll answer for that boy’s truth with my life!” said Mr. Brownlow, knocking the table.“And I for his falsehood with my head!” rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking the table also.“We shall see,” said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger.“We will,” replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; “we will.”
“He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.
“I don’t know,” replied Mr. Grimwig pettishly.
“Don’t know?”
“No. I don’t know. I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys: mealy boys and beef-faced boys.”
“And which is Oliver?”
“Mealy. I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy—a fine boy, they call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf. I know him! The wretch!”
“Come,” said Mr. Brownlow, “these are not the characteristics of young Oliver Twist; so he needn’t excite your wrath.”
“They are not,” replied Mr. Grimwig. “He may have worse. He is deceiving you, my good friend.”
“I’ll swear he is not,” replied Mr. Brownlow warmly.
“If he is not,” said Mr. Grimwig, “I’ll——” and down went the stick.
“I’ll answer for that boy’s truth with my life!” said Mr. Brownlow, knocking the table.
“And I for his falsehood with my head!” rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking the table also.
“We shall see,” said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger.
“We will,” replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; “we will.”
Dickens always pleaded for more faith in children.
In Great Expectations poor Pip was continually reminded of the fact that he was “naterally wicious,” and at the great Christmas dinner party Mr. Pumblechook took him as the illustration of his theological discourse on “swine” and Mrs. Hubble commiserated Mrs. Gargery about the trouble he had caused her by all his waywardness.
“Trouble?” echoed my sister, “trouble?” And then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there.
“Trouble?” echoed my sister, “trouble?” And then entered on a fearful catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I had contumaciously refused to go there.
Again, when Pip was just beginning his life away from home his guardian, Mr. Jaggers, said to him at their first interview: “I shall by this means be able to checkyour bills, and to pull you up if I find you outrunning the constable. Of course you’ll go wrong somehow, but that’s no fault of mine.”
“Of course you’ll go wrong somehow,” was an inspiring start in life for a young gentleman.
Abel Magwitch, Pip’s friend, told him near the close of his career how he came to lead such a dissipated and criminal life. He evidently had ability and possessed a deep sense of gratitude, and might have developed the other virtues if he had been treated properly. Dickens used him as an illustration of the fact that society fails often to do the best for a boy and make the most out of him through sheer lack of faith in childhood, and that this lack of faith results from the belief that a boy is so depraved that he would rather do wrong than right, and that when he starts to do wrong there is no hope of his reform.
“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it. That’smylife pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.“I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged. I’ve been locked up, as much as a silver teakittle. I’ve been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no more notion where I was born, than you have—if so much. I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a-thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with him, and left me wery cold.“I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies altogether, only as the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did.“So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with as little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off or tookhim up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up.“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name being hardened. ‘This is a terrible hardened one,’ they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on ’em—they had better a-measured my stomach—and others on ’em giv’ me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about the devil.”
“Dear boy and Pip’s comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I’ll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you’ve got it. That’smylife pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend.
“I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except hanged. I’ve been locked up, as much as a silver teakittle. I’ve been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I’ve no more notion where I was born, than you have—if so much. I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a-thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me—a man—a tinker—and he’d took the fire with him, and left me wery cold.
“I know’d my name to be Magwitch, chrisen’d Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know’d the birds’ names in the hedges to be chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies altogether, only as the birds’ names come out true, I supposed mine did.
“So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul that see young Abel Magwitch, with as little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, and either drove him off or tookhim up. I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent that I reg’larly grow’d up took up.
“This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there warn’t many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name being hardened. ‘This is a terrible hardened one,’ they says to prison wisitors, picking out me. ‘May be said to live in jails, this boy.’ Then they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some on ’em—they had better a-measured my stomach—and others on ’em giv’ me tracts what I couldn’t read, and made me speeches what I couldn’t understand. They always went on agen me about the devil.”
Poor old Toby Veck, in The Chimes, reflected the theories that Dickens wished to overthrow.
“It seems as if we can’t go right, or do right, or be righted,” said Toby. “I hadn’t much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can’t make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have—a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against.”
“It seems as if we can’t go right, or do right, or be righted,” said Toby. “I hadn’t much schooling, myself, when I was young; and I can’t make out whether we have any business on the face of the earth, or not. Sometimes I think we must have—a little; and sometimes I think we must be intruding. I get so puzzled sometimes that I am not even able to make up my mind whether there is any good at all in us, or whether we are born bad. We seem to be dreadful things; we seem to give a deal of trouble; we are always being complained of and guarded against.”
The most realistic picture of the influence of the child-depravity ideal on the training of childhood is given in Mrs. Clennam, in Little Dorrit. She was a hard, malignant, dishonest, unsympathetic woman, who had deliberately driven Arthur’s mother to madness and blighted his father’s life in the name of her false religion, and blasphemously claimed that she was doing it in God’s stead, as his devoted servant. Yet she was sure she was truly religious, and had a pious vanity in the fact that she was “filled with an abhorrence of evil doers.” She was filled with gladness, too, at the prospect of marrying a man of like training with herself. Speaking of the training of herself and her husband she said:
“You do not know what it is to be brought up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no lightyouth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us—these were the themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil doers. When old Mr. Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. He told me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last. He told me that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had acknowledged him as one; and that from his school days to that hour, his uncle’s roof had been a sanctuary to him from the contagion of the irreligious and dissolute.”
“You do not know what it is to be brought up strictly and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no lightyouth of sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us—these were the themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me with an abhorrence of evil doers. When old Mr. Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. He told me, that besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had lived in a starved house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and where every day was a day of toil and trial like the last. He told me that he had been a man in years long before his uncle had acknowledged him as one; and that from his school days to that hour, his uncle’s roof had been a sanctuary to him from the contagion of the irreligious and dissolute.”
Speaking of her training of Arthur, she said:
“I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined and lost boy; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance into this condemned world.”
“I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise predestined and lost boy; to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance into this condemned world.”
Dickens describes her religious character as such as might naturally be expected to develop in a woman whose childhood revealed to her only the self-abnegation and terrors of religion and the utter contempt for humanity shrouded in the doctrine of child depravity. She had seen God as an awful character of sleepless watchfulness to see her evil doing and record it, of wrathfulness, and of vengeance, but never of loving sympathy and forgiveness. So she fitted her religion to the character that such training had formed in her.
Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite Thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale heaven.
Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite Thou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to scale heaven.
The old discipline and the old training were based on the belief that children like to do wrong better than to do right. There could be no greater error, or one more certain to lead to false principles of training, and prevent the recognition of the true methods of developing character in childhood.
Children do not like to do wrong better than to do right. They like to do. They like to do the things they themselves plan to do. They like to do the things that are interesting to themselves. Their lack of wisdom leaves them at the mercy of their interests, and without guidance their constructiveness may turn to destructiveness. When it does so, it is because of the neglect of their adult guides to surround them with plenty of suitable material for construction or transformation adapted to their stage of development. With a sufficient variety of material for constructive plays the child will rarely exhibit destructive tendencies, and when he does so, the wisdom of his adult guide should find little trouble in changing his interest centre from the wrong to the right. The skilful trainer changes the interest centre without making the child conscious of adult interference.
It costs little to supply the child with sand and blocks, and soft clay, and colors, and colored paper, and blunt scissors and gum, and other similar materials—much less than is usually spent for toys; yet such materials would save parents from much worry, and help them to get rid of the wrong ideals, and they would preserve the natural tendency of children to constructiveness, and afford them an opportunity for the comfort and the development of real self-activity.
The child’s most dominant tendency is activity in using the material things of his environment to transform them into new forms or relationships in harmony with his own plans. This tendency is intended to accomplish four great purposes in the child’s development. It reveals the child’s own powers to himself, it develops his originality, it trains him to use his constructive powers, and it gives him the habit of transforming his environment to suit his own plans. If he is not supplied with suitable materialto play with he will appropriate the material he finds most available. In this way, through the absolute neglect of his adult guides, he has acquired a bad reputation.
The instinct that leads the child to transform his material environment should lead to the conscious desire and determination to improve the physical, intellectual, and spiritual conditions around him at maturity. It is therefore a very essential element in his training, and to check or neglect it may weaken and warp his character as much as it was intended to strengthen and direct it.
Thus the children have been coerced because men believed them to be depraved, and the coercion has developed the apparent depravity.
The darkest clouds have been lifted from the vision of adults and from the lives of the little ones by the breaking of the power of the doctrine of child depravity. The teacher especially has a more hopeful field opened to him. His great work of training is no longer restricted to putting blinders on the eyes of children to prevent their seeing evil, and bits in their mouths to keep them from going wrong. He believes that every child has an element of divinity, however small and enfeebled by heredity or encrusted by evil environment, and that his chief duty is to arouse this divinity (his selfhood or individuality) to consciousness and start it on its conscious growth toward the divine. The revelation of this new and grander ideal has led to all intelligent child study for the purpose of discovering what adulthood can do, and especially what childhood itself can do, in accomplishing its most perfect training for its highest destiny.
Dickens expressed his general faith in childhood in Mrs. Lirriper’s remark to the Major about Jemmy:
“Ah, Major,” I says, drying my eyes, “we needn’t have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don’t come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy—they do, thank God!”
“Ah, Major,” I says, drying my eyes, “we needn’t have been afraid. We might have known it. Treachery don’t come natural to beaming youth; but trust and pity, love and constancy—they do, thank God!”
He taught his philosophy of the origin of many of the evils that are attributed to child depravity in Nobody’sStory. “Nobody” means the workingman. He says to the Master:
“The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of unnatural restraint and the denial of humanizing enjoyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. They will spread far and wide. They always do; they always have done—just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last.”
“The evil consequences of imperfect instruction, the evil consequences of pernicious neglect, the evil consequences of unnatural restraint and the denial of humanizing enjoyments, will all come from us, and none of them will stop with us. They will spread far and wide. They always do; they always have done—just like the pestilence. I understand so much, I think, at last.”
There is profoundness in these doctrines.
CRAMMING.
Although Dickens paid much more attention in his writings to the methods of training than to the methods of teaching, he studied the methods of teaching sufficiently to recognise some of their gravest defects. Dombey and Son is unquestionably the greatest book ever written to expose the evils of cramming. Doctor Blimber, Cornelia, and Mr. Feeder, when closely studied, represent in the varied phases of their work all the worst forms of cramming.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had always ready a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.In fact, Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hothouse, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the dryest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the prematureproductions, and they didn’t keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had “gone through” everything) suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains.The doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up and a mouth that was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch that when the doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, and, with his other hand behind him and a scarcely perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphinx, and settled his business.Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead—stone dead—and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a ghoul.As to Mr. Feeder, B. A., Dr. Blimber’s assistant, he was a kind of human barrel organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of Dr. Blimber’s young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits inthree weeks. He had all the care of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterward departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world.But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the doctor’s hothouse all the time; and the doctor’s glory and reputation were great when he took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends.Upon the doctor’s doorsteps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father’s. His other hand was locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how loose and cool the other!The doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the mantelshelf. “And how do you do, sir?” he said to Mr. Dombey; “and how is my little friend?”“Very well I thank you, sir,” returned Paul, answering the clock quite as much as the doctor.“Ha!” said Dr. Blimber. “Shall we make a man of him?”“Do you hear, Paul?” added Mr. Dombey; Paul being silent.“Shall we make a man of him?” repeated the doctor.“I had rather be a child,” replied Paul.
Whenever a young gentleman was taken in hand by Doctor Blimber, he might consider himself sure of a pretty tight squeeze. The doctor only undertook the charge of ten young gentlemen, but he had always ready a supply of learning for a hundred, on the lowest estimate; it was at once the business and delight of his life to gorge the unhappy ten with it.
In fact, Doctor Blimber’s establishment was a great hothouse, in which there was a forcing apparatus incessantly at work. All the boys blew before their time. Mental green peas were produced at Christmas, and intellectual asparagus all the year round. Mathematical gooseberries (very sour ones too) were common at untimely seasons, and from mere sprouts of bushes, under Doctor Blimber’s cultivation. Every description of Greek and Latin vegetable was got off the dryest twigs of boys, under the frostiest circumstances. Nature was of no consequence at all. No matter what a young gentleman was intended to bear, Doctor Blimber made him bear to pattern, somehow or other. This was all very pleasant and ingenious, but the system of forcing was attended with its usual disadvantages. There was not the right taste about the prematureproductions, and they didn’t keep well. Moreover, one young gentleman, with a swollen nose and an excessively large head (the oldest of the ten who had “gone through” everything) suddenly left off blowing one day, and remained in the establishment a mere stalk. And people did say that the doctor had rather overdone it with young Toots, and that when he began to have whiskers he left off having brains.
The doctor was a portly gentleman in a suit of black, with strings at his knees, and stockings below them. He had a bald head, highly polished; a deep voice, and a chin so very double that it was a wonder how he ever managed to shave into the creases. He had likewise a pair of little eyes that were always half shut up and a mouth that was always half expanded into a grin, as if he had, that moment, posed a boy, and were waiting to convict him from his own lips. Insomuch that when the doctor put his right hand into the breast of his coat, and, with his other hand behind him and a scarcely perceptible wag of his head, made the commonest observation to a nervous stranger, it was like a sentiment from the sphinx, and settled his business.
Miss Blimber, too, although a slim and graceful maid, did no soft violence to the gravity of the house. There was no light nonsense about Miss Blimber. She kept her hair short and crisp, and wore spectacles. She was dry and sandy with working in the graves of deceased languages. None of your live languages for Miss Blimber. They must be dead—stone dead—and then Miss Blimber dug them up like a ghoul.
As to Mr. Feeder, B. A., Dr. Blimber’s assistant, he was a kind of human barrel organ, with a little list of tunes at which he was continually working, over and over again, without any variation. He might have been fitted up with a change of barrels, perhaps, in early life, if his destiny had been favourable; but it had not been; and he had only one, with which, in a monotonous round, it was his occupation to bewilder the young ideas of Dr. Blimber’s young gentlemen. The young gentlemen were prematurely full of carking anxieties. They knew no rest from the pursuit of stony-hearted verbs, savage noun-substantives, inflexible syntactic passages, and ghosts of exercises that appeared to them in their dreams. Under the forcing system, a young gentleman usually took leave of his spirits inthree weeks. He had all the care of the world on his head in three months. He conceived bitter sentiments against his parents or guardians in four; he was an old misanthrope in five; envied Curtius that blessed refuge in the earth in six; and at the end of the first twelvemonth had arrived at the conclusion, from which he never afterward departed, that all the fancies of the poets, and lessons of the sages, were a mere collection of words and grammar, and had no other meaning in the world.
But he went on blow, blow, blowing, in the doctor’s hothouse all the time; and the doctor’s glory and reputation were great when he took his wintry growth home to his relations and friends.
Upon the doctor’s doorsteps one day, Paul stood with a fluttering heart, and with his small right hand in his father’s. His other hand was locked in that of Florence. How tight the tiny pressure of that one; and how loose and cool the other!
The doctor was sitting in his portentous study, with a globe at each knee, books all round him, Homer over the door, and Minerva on the mantelshelf. “And how do you do, sir?” he said to Mr. Dombey; “and how is my little friend?”
“Very well I thank you, sir,” returned Paul, answering the clock quite as much as the doctor.
“Ha!” said Dr. Blimber. “Shall we make a man of him?”
“Do you hear, Paul?” added Mr. Dombey; Paul being silent.
“Shall we make a man of him?” repeated the doctor.
“I had rather be a child,” replied Paul.
Paul’s reply is one of the most touchingly beautiful of even Dickens’s wonderful expressions—wonderful in their exquisite simplicity and their profound philosophy. When this book was written Dickens was beginning to get the conception of the great truth, which he illustrated at length in Hard Times and other works, that it is a crime against a child to rob it of its childhood.
When Doctor Blimber in his cold, formal manner asked Paul “why he preferred to be a child,” the little fellow was unable to answer, and as they stared at him, he at length put his hand on the neck of Florence and burst into tears.
“Mrs. Pipchin,” said his father in a querulous manner, “I am really very sorry to see this.”“Never mind,” said the doctor blandly, nodding his head to keep Mrs. Pipchin back. “Nev-er mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, Mr. Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little friend to acquire——”“Everything, if you please, doctor,” returned Mr. Dombey firmly.“Yes,” said the doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes and his usual smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. “Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I dare say. I dare say. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr. Dombey?”
“Mrs. Pipchin,” said his father in a querulous manner, “I am really very sorry to see this.”
“Never mind,” said the doctor blandly, nodding his head to keep Mrs. Pipchin back. “Nev-er mind; we shall substitute new cares and new impressions, Mr. Dombey, very shortly. You would still wish my little friend to acquire——”
“Everything, if you please, doctor,” returned Mr. Dombey firmly.
“Yes,” said the doctor, who, with his half-shut eyes and his usual smile, seemed to survey Paul with the sort of interest that might attach to some choice little animal he was going to stuff. “Yes, exactly. Ha! We shall impart a great variety of information to our little friend, and bring him quickly forward, I dare say. I dare say. Quite a virgin soil, I believe you said, Mr. Dombey?”
On leaving, Mr. Dombey said to Paul:
“You’ll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man, won’t you?”“I’ll try,” returned the child wearily.“And you’ll soon be grown up now?” said Mr. Dombey.“Oh! very soon!” replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed rapidly across his features like a strange light.
“You’ll try and learn a great deal here, and be a clever man, won’t you?”
“I’ll try,” returned the child wearily.
“And you’ll soon be grown up now?” said Mr. Dombey.
“Oh! very soon!” replied the child. Once more the old, old look passed rapidly across his features like a strange light.
After his father and Florence had left him the doctor said to Cornelia:
“Cornelia, Dombey will be your charge at first. Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on. Take him round the house, Cornelia, and familiarize him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.”Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom. Here there were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very grave indeed.Mr. Feeder, B. A., had his Virgil stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one, with his face like a dirty window from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his task instony stupefaction and despair—which, it seemed, had been his condition ever since breakfast time.
“Cornelia, Dombey will be your charge at first. Bring him on, Cornelia, bring him on. Take him round the house, Cornelia, and familiarize him with his new sphere. Go with that young lady, Dombey.”
Cornelia took him first to the schoolroom. Here there were eight young gentlemen in various stages of mental prostration, all very hard at work, and very grave indeed.
Mr. Feeder, B. A., had his Virgil stop on, and was slowly grinding that tune to four young gentlemen. Of the remaining four, two, who grasped their foreheads convulsively, were engaged in solving mathematical problems; one, with his face like a dirty window from much crying, was endeavouring to flounder through a hopeless number of lines before dinner; and one sat looking at his task instony stupefaction and despair—which, it seemed, had been his condition ever since breakfast time.
After being shown through the dormitories, Cornelia told him dinner would be ready in fifteen minutes, and that in the meantime he had better go into the schoolroom among his “friends.”
His friends were all dispersed about the room except the stony friend, who remained immovable. Mr. Feeder was stretching himself in his gray gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to pull the sleeves off.“Heigh-ho-hum!” cried Mr. Feeder, shaking himself like a cart horse “oh dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!”“You sleep in my room, don’t you?” asked a solemn young gentleman, whose shirt collar curled up the lobes of his ears.“Master Briggs?” inquired Paul.“Tozer,” said the young gentleman.Paul answered yes; and Tozer, pointing out the stony pupil, said that it was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either Briggs or Tozer, though he didn’t know why.“Is yours a strong constitution?” inquired Tozer.Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied thathethought not also, judging from Paul’s looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul saying “Yes,” all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan.
His friends were all dispersed about the room except the stony friend, who remained immovable. Mr. Feeder was stretching himself in his gray gown, as if, regardless of expense, he were resolved to pull the sleeves off.
“Heigh-ho-hum!” cried Mr. Feeder, shaking himself like a cart horse “oh dear me, dear me! Ya-a-a-ah!”
“You sleep in my room, don’t you?” asked a solemn young gentleman, whose shirt collar curled up the lobes of his ears.
“Master Briggs?” inquired Paul.
“Tozer,” said the young gentleman.
Paul answered yes; and Tozer, pointing out the stony pupil, said that it was Briggs. Paul had already felt certain that it must be either Briggs or Tozer, though he didn’t know why.
“Is yours a strong constitution?” inquired Tozer.
Paul said he thought not. Tozer replied thathethought not also, judging from Paul’s looks, and that it was a pity, for it need be. He then asked Paul if he were going to begin with Cornelia; and on Paul saying “Yes,” all the young gentlemen (Briggs excepted) gave a low groan.
At dinner no boy was allowed to speak; every one was compelled to listen to the tedious discourse of Doctor Blimber on the customs of the Romans. The cramming of youth was continued with great dignity even during meals. One boy, Johnson, was unfortunate enough to choke himself by too suddenly swallowing his water in order to catch Doctor Blimber’s eye when he began an account of the dinners of Vitellius; and to punish him for his breach of manners, Doctor Blimber said before the boys were dismissed from the table:
“Johnson will repeat to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, thefirst chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr. Feeder, in half an hour.”
“Johnson will repeat to-morrow morning before breakfast, without book, and from the Greek Testament, thefirst chapter of the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Ephesians. We will resume our studies, Mr. Feeder, in half an hour.”
It used to be a common practice to cultivate a loving reverence for God by using the Bible as a means of punishment. This was in harmony with the old educational and the old theological ideal of punishment, as the supreme means available for guiding children properly. It was considered a perfectly appropriate use of the best book to use it for this best of purposes.
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew; Mr. Feeder did likewise. During the half hour the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered arm in arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house. But nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor Blimber and Mr. Feeder, were resumed.Tea was served in a style no less polite than dinner; and after tea the young gentlemen, rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day or to get up the already looming tasks of to-morrow. After prayers and light refreshments at eight o’clock or so, the “young gentlemen” were sent to bed by the doctor rising and solemnly saying, “We will resume our studies at seven to-morrow”; the pupils bowed again, and went to bed.In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn’t for his mother and a blackbird he had at home. Tozer didn’t say much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself moodily and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain as far as Briggs and Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and often woke afterward, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare; and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree, talked unknown tongues, or scraps of Greek and Latin—it was all one to Paul—which, in the silence of night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
The young gentlemen bowed and withdrew; Mr. Feeder did likewise. During the half hour the young gentlemen, broken into pairs, loitered arm in arm up and down a small piece of ground behind the house. But nothing happened so vulgar as play. Punctually at the appointed time the gong was sounded, and the studies, under the joint auspices of Doctor Blimber and Mr. Feeder, were resumed.
Tea was served in a style no less polite than dinner; and after tea the young gentlemen, rising and bowing as before, withdrew to fetch up the unfinished tasks of that day or to get up the already looming tasks of to-morrow. After prayers and light refreshments at eight o’clock or so, the “young gentlemen” were sent to bed by the doctor rising and solemnly saying, “We will resume our studies at seven to-morrow”; the pupils bowed again, and went to bed.
In the confidence of their own room upstairs, Briggs said his head ached ready to split, and that he should wish himself dead if it wasn’t for his mother and a blackbird he had at home. Tozer didn’t say much, but he sighed a good deal, and told Paul to look out, for his turn would come to-morrow. After uttering those prophetic words, he undressed himself moodily and got into bed. Briggs was in his bed too, and Paul in his bed too, before the weak-eyed young man appeared to take away the candle, when he wished them good-night and pleasant dreams. But his benevolent wishes were in vain as far as Briggs and Tozer were concerned; for Paul, who lay awake for a long while, and often woke afterward, found that Briggs was ridden by his lesson as a nightmare; and that Tozer, whose mind was affected in his sleep by similar causes, in a minor degree, talked unknown tongues, or scraps of Greek and Latin—it was all one to Paul—which, in the silence of night, had an inexpressibly wicked and guilty effect.
As Paul was going downstairs in the morning Miss Blimber called him into her room, and, pointing to a pile of new books on her table, said:
“These are yours, Dombey.”“All of ’em, ma’am?” said Paul.“Yes,” returned Miss Blimber; “and Mr. Feeder will look you out some more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, Dombey.”“Thank you, ma’am,” said Paul.“I am going out for a constitutional,” resumed Miss Blimber; “and while I am gone—that is to say, in the interval between this and breakfast, Dombey—I wish you to read over what I have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. Don’t lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs, and begin directly.”“Yes, ma’am,” answered Paul.There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Having at last amassed the whole library and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from Tozer to the effect that he “was in for it now”; which was the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal, for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss Blimber upstairs.“Now, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, “how have you got on with those books?”They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin—names of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and preliminary rules—a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul had spelled out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof afterward obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which, grafted itself on to number two. So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic hæc hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, orthree times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.“Oh, Dombey, Dombey!” said Miss Blimber, “this is very shocking.”
“These are yours, Dombey.”
“All of ’em, ma’am?” said Paul.
“Yes,” returned Miss Blimber; “and Mr. Feeder will look you out some more very soon, if you are as studious as I expect you will be, Dombey.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Paul.
“I am going out for a constitutional,” resumed Miss Blimber; “and while I am gone—that is to say, in the interval between this and breakfast, Dombey—I wish you to read over what I have marked in these books, and to tell me if you quite understand what you have got to learn. Don’t lose time, Dombey, for you have none to spare, but take them downstairs, and begin directly.”
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Paul.
There were so many of them, that although Paul put one hand under the bottom book and his other hand and his chin on the top book, and hugged them all closely, the middle book slipped out before he reached the door, and then they all tumbled down on the floor. Having at last amassed the whole library and climbed into his place, he fell to work, encouraged by a remark from Tozer to the effect that he “was in for it now”; which was the only interruption he received till breakfast time. At that meal, for which he had no appetite, everything was quite as solemn and genteel as at the others; and when it was finished, he followed Miss Blimber upstairs.
“Now, Dombey,” said Miss Blimber, “how have you got on with those books?”
They comprised a little English, and a deal of Latin—names of things, declensions of articles and substantives, exercises thereon, and preliminary rules—a trifle of orthography, a glance at ancient history, a wink or two at modern ditto, a few tables, two or three weights and measures, and a little general information. When poor Paul had spelled out number two, he found he had no idea of number one; fragments whereof afterward obtruded themselves into number three, which slided into number four, which, grafted itself on to number two. So that whether twenty Romuluses made a Remus, or hic hæc hoc was troy weight, or a verb always agreed with an ancient Briton, orthree times four was Taurus a bull, were open questions with him.
“Oh, Dombey, Dombey!” said Miss Blimber, “this is very shocking.”
So Paul’s cramming went on day by day. The delicate little boy, who should not have been sent to school at all, was forced to memorize confused masses of words that had no meaning to him, but he learned to repeat the words, and so got the credit of doing well, and because he learned easily was driven harder and harder. The more easily he carried his burden the higher it was piled on his back.
It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; and the doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen’s nearest relations, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack.Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great progress, and was naturally clever, Mr. Dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, however high and false the temperature at which the doctor kept his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows and to stir the fire.When the midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at Doctor Blimber’s. Any such violent expression as “breaking up” would have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never broke up. They would have scorned the action.Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by astarched white cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs. Tozer, his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he couldn’t be in that forward state of preparation too soon—Tozer said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this declaration might appear with that passage in Tozer’s essay on the subject, wherein he had observed “that the thoughts of home and all its recollections awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight,” and had also likened himself to a Roman general, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours’ march of the Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling place of Mrs. Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a dreadful uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this uncle took him to the play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a giant, or a dwarf, or a conjurer, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of mortal apprehension; not foreseeing where he might break out, or what authority he might not quote against him.As to Briggs,hisfather made no show of artifice about it. He never would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family (then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental piece of water in Kensington Gardens without a vague expectation of seeing Master Briggs’s hat floating on the surface and an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul’s bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of those festive periods with genteel resignation.
It was not that Miss Blimber meant to be too hard upon him, or that Doctor Blimber meant to bear too heavily on the young gentlemen in general. Cornelia merely held the faith in which she had been bred; and the doctor, in some partial confusion of his ideas, regarded the young gentlemen as if they were all doctors, and were born grown up. Comforted by the applause of the young gentlemen’s nearest relations, and urged on by their blind vanity and ill-considered haste, it would have been strange if Doctor Blimber had discovered his mistake, or trimmed his swelling sails to any other tack.
Thus in the case of Paul. When Doctor Blimber said he made great progress, and was naturally clever, Mr. Dombey was more bent than ever on his being forced and crammed. In the case of Briggs, when Doctor Blimber reported that he did not make great progress yet, and was not naturally clever, Briggs senior was inexorable in the same purpose. In short, however high and false the temperature at which the doctor kept his hothouse, the owners of the plants were always ready to lend a helping hand at the bellows and to stir the fire.
When the midsummer vacation approached, no indecent manifestations of joy were exhibited by the leaden-eyed young gentlemen assembled at Doctor Blimber’s. Any such violent expression as “breaking up” would have been quite inapplicable to that polite establishment. The young gentlemen oozed away, semi-annually, to their own homes; but they never broke up. They would have scorned the action.
Tozer, who was constantly galled and tormented by astarched white cambric neckerchief, which he wore at the express desire of Mrs. Tozer, his parent, who, designing him for the Church, was of opinion that he couldn’t be in that forward state of preparation too soon—Tozer said, indeed, that choosing between two evils, he thought he would rather stay where he was, than go home. However inconsistent this declaration might appear with that passage in Tozer’s essay on the subject, wherein he had observed “that the thoughts of home and all its recollections awakened in his mind the most pleasing emotions of anticipation and delight,” and had also likened himself to a Roman general, flushed with a recent victory over the Iceni, or laden with Carthaginian spoil, advancing within a few hours’ march of the Capitol, presupposed, for the purposes of the simile, to be the dwelling place of Mrs. Tozer, still it was very sincerely made. For it seemed that Tozer had a dreadful uncle, who not only volunteered examinations of him, in the holidays, on abstruse points, but twisted innocent events and things, and wrenched them to the same fell purpose. So that if this uncle took him to the play, or, on a similar pretence of kindness, carried him to see a giant, or a dwarf, or a conjurer, or anything, Tozer knew he had read up some classical allusion to the subject beforehand, and was thrown into a state of mortal apprehension; not foreseeing where he might break out, or what authority he might not quote against him.
As to Briggs,hisfather made no show of artifice about it. He never would leave him alone. So numerous and severe were the mental trials of that unfortunate youth in vacation time, that the friends of the family (then resident near Bayswater, London) seldom approached the ornamental piece of water in Kensington Gardens without a vague expectation of seeing Master Briggs’s hat floating on the surface and an unfinished exercise lying on the bank. Briggs, therefore, was not at all sanguine on the subject of holidays; and these two sharers of little Paul’s bedroom were so fair a sample of the young gentlemen in general, that the most elastic among them contemplated the arrival of those festive periods with genteel resignation.
Dickens did not wish to lay all the blame for the stupid process of cramming on the teachers. He properly revealed to parents that they were even more to blame than the teachers, because they got what theydemanded. Doctor Blimber summed up the whole philosophy of the adulthood of his time in regard to a child’s education when he said to his daughter, “Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!”
The standard of knowledge cramming fixed by parents and school boards is changing very slowly. Even yet a teacher’s success is measured and his chances of re-engagement decided in most places by the answer to the question, “How does he bring the children on?”
When asked by Doctor Blimber what he wished his little sickly son to learn, Mr. Dombey answered, “Oh, everything.”
When Paul learned easily, his father pressed for more studies; and because Briggs was dull, his father demanded that he be driven harder at school, and made the poor boy’s life miserable at home by tedious lessons during the holidays.
The uncle who made Tozer wretched by asking him unexpected questions on all occasions is a type of an ogre who sometimes blights the lives of children still.
Dickens had a beautiful sympathy with childhood in its sufferings not merely on account of deliberate cruelty and neglect, but because of the burdens placed upon it by adults who, with the best intentions, robbed it of its natural rights of joyousness and freedom.
Whenever Doctor Blimber was informed that Paul was “old-fashioned” or “peculiar,” he said, as he had said when Paul first came, that study would do much; and he also said, as he said on that occasion, “Bring him on, Cornelia! Bring him on!”
Just before the close of the term Paul fainted and had to be carried to his room, and after an examination the physician advised Doctor Blimber to “release the young gentleman from his books just now, the vacation being so near at hand.”
It was so very considerate to release him from study, when he was utterly unable to study any longer.
At the close of the school party when he was leaving—
Cornelia, taking both Paul’s hands in hers, said, “Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. God bless you!” And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it—though shewasa Forcer.
Cornelia, taking both Paul’s hands in hers, said, “Dombey, Dombey, you have always been my favourite pupil. God bless you!” And it showed, Paul thought, how easily one might do injustice to a person; for Miss Blimber meant it—though shewasa Forcer.
Paul never returned to school. His life was sacrificed to his father’s desire to have him “learn everything.”
In a brief look at the results of Doctor Blimber’s teaching, Dickens tersely outlines three common results of cramming: