But they never taught honour at the grinders’ school, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy; insomuch that many of the friends and masters of past grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational said, Let us have a better one; but the governing powers of the grinders’ company were always ready forthem, by picking out a few boyswho had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the grinders’ institution.
But they never taught honour at the grinders’ school, where the system that prevailed was particularly strong in the engendering of hypocrisy; insomuch that many of the friends and masters of past grinders said, if this were what came of education for the common people, let us have none. Some more rational said, Let us have a better one; but the governing powers of the grinders’ company were always ready forthem, by picking out a few boyswho had turned out well in spite of the system, and roundly asserting that they could have only turned out well because of it. Which settled the business of those objectors out of hand, and established the glory of the grinders’ institution.
In David Copperfield, Uriah Heep, utterly detestable in character, is the natural product of the system of training under which both he and his father were brought up. Uriah said:
“Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not much else that I know of—from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man that they were determined to bring him on. ‘Be umble, Uriah,’ says father, ‘and you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,’ says father, ‘and you’ll do!’ And really it ain’t done bad!”It was the first time it had ever occurred to me that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression.
“Father and me was both brought up at a foundation school for boys; and mother, she was likewise brought up at a public, sort of charitable, establishment. They taught us all a deal of umbleness—not much else that I know of—from morning to night. We was to be umble to this person, and umble to that; and to pull off our caps here, and to make bows there; and always to know our place, and abase ourselves before our betters. And we had such a lot of betters! Father got the monitor medal by being umble. So did I. Father got made a sexton by being umble. He had the character, among the gentlefolks, of being such a well-behaved man that they were determined to bring him on. ‘Be umble, Uriah,’ says father, ‘and you’ll get on. It was what was always being dinned into you and me at school; it’s what goes down best. Be umble,’ says father, ‘and you’ll do!’ And really it ain’t done bad!”
It was the first time it had ever occurred to me that this detestable cant of false humility might have originated out of the Heep family. I had seen the harvest, but had never thought of the seed. I had never doubted his meanness, his craft and malice; but I fully comprehended now, for the first time, what a base, unrelenting, and revengeful spirit must have been engendered by this early, and this long, suppression.
David himself tells how he suffered after the death of his mother from the cold neglect of Mr. Murdstone and Jane Murdstone. No child can be so destitute as the child who is neglected through dislike.
And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I can not look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition—apart from all friendly notice, apartfrom the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts—which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write.What would I have given to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept! to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me, and they sullenly, sternly, steadily overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him—and succeeded.I was not actively ill used. I was not beaten or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness—whether I should have lain down in my lonely room and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out.
And now I fell into a state of neglect, which I can not look back upon without compassion. I fell at once into a solitary condition—apart from all friendly notice, apartfrom the society of all other boys of my own age, apart from all companionship but my own spiritless thoughts—which seems to cast its gloom upon this paper as I write.
What would I have given to have been sent to the hardest school that ever was kept! to have been taught something, anyhow, anywhere! No such hope dawned upon me. They disliked me, and they sullenly, sternly, steadily overlooked me. I think Mr. Murdstone’s means were straitened at about this time; but it is little to the purpose. He could not bear me; and in putting me from him he tried, as I believe, to put away the notion that I had any claim upon him—and succeeded.
I was not actively ill used. I was not beaten or starved; but the wrong that was done to me had no intervals of relenting, and was done in a systematic, passionless manner. Day after day, week after week, month after month, I was coldly neglected. I wonder sometimes, when I think of it, what they would have done if I had been taken with an illness—whether I should have lain down in my lonely room and languished through it in my usual solitary way, or whether anybody would have helped me out.
But the greatest lesson in wrong training given in David Copperfield is the character development of Steerforth. He was ruined by the misdirected love of his mother, and his life is a fine psychological study.
He was a boy of unusually good ability and great attractiveness. He possessed by nature every element of power and grace required to make him a strong, true, and very successful man; but the love of his mother degenerated to pride and admiration, indulgence was substituted for guidance, and the strong woman became weak at the vital point of training her boy. She allowed him to become selfish and vain by yielding to his caprices. She thought she was making his character strong by allowing no restraint to be put upon it. She failed to distinguish between license and liberty. She had conceived the ideal of the need of freedom, but she knew naught of the true harmony between control and spontaneity. She allowed the spontaneity, and gloried in his resistance to control. She was blind to the balancing element in “the perfect law of liberty.” She made her boy a powerful enginewithout a governor valve. So his selfhood became selfishness, and his character was wrecked. Among other immoral opinions that he gained from his mother’s training was the idea that he belonged to a select class superior to common humanity. How Dickens hated this thought! Rosa Dartle asked Steerforth about
“That sort of people—are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? I want to know so much.”“Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,” said Steerforth, with indifference. “They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked or hurt very easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say—some people contend for that, at least, and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them; but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse, rough skins, they are not easily wounded.”
“That sort of people—are they really animals and clods, and beings of another order? I want to know so much.”
“Why, there’s a pretty wide separation between them and us,” said Steerforth, with indifference. “They are not to be expected to be as sensitive as we are. Their delicacy is not to be shocked or hurt very easily. They are wonderfully virtuous, I dare say—some people contend for that, at least, and I am sure I don’t want to contradict them; but they have not very fine natures, and they may be thankful that, like their coarse, rough skins, they are not easily wounded.”
He was trained to despise work, which is a good start toward the utter loss of character. A boy who despises his fellow-beings whom he assumes to rank below him, and who also despises work, instead of recognising the duty of every man to be a producer or a distributor of power, may easily fall into moral degeneracy.
“Help yourself, Copperfield!” said Steerforth. “We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me—the more shame for me!”
“Help yourself, Copperfield!” said Steerforth. “We’ll drink the daisies of the field, in compliment to you; and the lilies of the valley that toil not, neither do they spin, in compliment to me—the more shame for me!”
His character lacked seriousness. He had the fatal levity that led him to discuss the most sacred subjects in a flippant manner.
His mother knew that Creakle’s school was not a proper place for him, but she wished to make him conscious of his superiority even over his teacher, and she knew that Creakle, tyrannical bully though he was, would yield to Steerforth, because his mother was wealthy.
“It was not a fit school generally for my son,” said she; “far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance eventhan that selection. My son’s high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there.”
“It was not a fit school generally for my son,” said she; “far from it; but there were particular circumstances to be considered at the time, of more importance eventhan that selection. My son’s high spirit made it desirable that he should be placed with some man who felt its superiority, and would be content to bow himself before it; and we found such a man there.”
What a perversion of the ideal of freedom in the development of character, to suppose that it could only reach perfection by a consciousness of superiority; by having some one who should control him bow down before him! No man in the world is truly free who has a desire to dominate some one else—another man, a woman, or a child. Yet Mrs. Steerforth sacrificed her son’s education in order that his manly spirit might be cultivated by the subordination of the man who should have governed him. She showed better judgment in deciding that a coercive tyrant like Creakle would make a subservient sycophant.
“My son’s great capacity was tempted on there by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride,” the fond lady went on to say. “He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. It was like himself.”
“My son’s great capacity was tempted on there by a feeling of voluntary emulation and conscious pride,” the fond lady went on to say. “He would have risen against all constraint; but he found himself the monarch of the place, and he haughtily determined to be worthy of his station. It was like himself.”
As Steerforth began consciously to feel his better nature surrendering to his sensuality, he experienced the pangs that all strong natures feel at the loss of moral power, and one time when he and David were visiting Mr. Peggotty at Yarmouth he seemed to be moody and disposed to sadness. He said suddenly to David when they were alone one day:
“David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!”“My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?”“I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!” he exclaimed. “I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!”There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.“It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,” he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney piece, with his face toward thefire, “than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser and be the torment to myself that I have been, in this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half hour!”
“David, I wish to God I had had a judicious father these last twenty years!”
“My dear Steerforth, what is the matter?”
“I wish with all my soul I had been better guided!” he exclaimed. “I wish with all my soul I could guide myself better!”
There was a passionate dejection in his manner that quite amazed me. He was more unlike himself than I could have supposed possible.
“It would be better to be this poor Peggotty, or his lout of a nephew,” he said, getting up and leaning moodily against the chimney piece, with his face toward thefire, “than to be myself, twenty times richer and twenty times wiser and be the torment to myself that I have been, in this Devil’s bark of a boat, within the last half hour!”
He had already begun to poison the fountains of little Emily’s purity.
When Steerforth, after running away with Emily and deserting her, was drowned and brought home, Rosa Dartle, who had loved him, charged his mother with his ruin. She had a scar on her lip, made by a hammer thrown by Steerforth when he was a boy.
“Do you remember when he did this?” she proceeded. “Do you remember when in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, marked until I die with his high displeasure, and moan and groan for what you made him!”“Miss Dartle,” I entreated her, “for Heaven’s sake——”“Iwillspeak,” she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. “Be silent you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud false son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!”She clinched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches.“Youresent his self-will!” she exclaimed. “Youinjured by his haughty temper!You, who opposed to both, when your hair was gray, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth!You, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you rewarded,now, for your years of trouble?”“Miss Dartle,” said I, “if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother——”“Who feels for me?” she sharply retorted. “She has sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!”
“Do you remember when he did this?” she proceeded. “Do you remember when in his inheritance of your nature, and in your pampering of his pride and passion, he did this, and disfigured me for life? Look at me, marked until I die with his high displeasure, and moan and groan for what you made him!”
“Miss Dartle,” I entreated her, “for Heaven’s sake——”
“Iwillspeak,” she said, turning on me with her lightning eyes. “Be silent you! Look at me, I say, proud mother of a proud false son! Moan for your nurture of him, moan for your corruption of him, moan for your loss of him, moan for mine!”
She clinched her hand, and trembled through her spare, worn figure, as if her passion were killing her by inches.
“Youresent his self-will!” she exclaimed. “Youinjured by his haughty temper!You, who opposed to both, when your hair was gray, the qualities which made both when you gave him birth!You, who from his cradle reared him to be what he was, and stunted what he should have been! Are you rewarded,now, for your years of trouble?”
“Miss Dartle,” said I, “if you can be so obdurate as not to feel for this afflicted mother——”
“Who feels for me?” she sharply retorted. “She has sown this. Let her moan for the harvest that she reaps to-day!”
To show that the seed for the harvest had been sown by his mother was Dickens’s aim in the delineation of his character. Yet she loved him as a part of her own life. She said to Mr. Peggotty, when he came to plead with her for Emily:
“My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth.”
“My son, who has been the object of my life, to whom its every thought has been devoted, whom I have gratified from a child in every wish, from whom I have had no separate existence since his birth.”
There was a double sadness in David’s soliloquy about Steerforth, who had been his friend:
In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more toward all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him.
In the keen distress of the discovery of his unworthiness, I thought more of all that was brilliant in him, I softened more toward all that was good in him, I did more justice to the qualities that might have made him a man of a noble nature and a great name, than ever I had done in the height of my devotion to him.
In Bleak House a great deal of attention is paid to child training.
Esther’s sadness because of her neglected birthday touches a tender chord.
It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays; none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one another; there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year.
It was my birthday. There were holidays at school on other birthdays; none on mine. There were rejoicings at home on other birthdays, as I knew from what I heard the girls relate to one another; there were none on mine. My birthday was the most melancholy day at home in the whole year.
There is more than mere sentiment in birthday celebrations both at home and in school. It develops a pleasant consciousness of individuality and community—two of the greatest educational ideals.
The cruelty of telling children of any supposed blight of heredity or of any other shadow that arrogant conventionality dares to throw over them, is criticised in the hard, gloomy way in which Esther’s godmother referred to her mother.
Even worse than this in the refinement of its cruelty was her parting injunction. It is a shameful thing to make a child believe that she is different from other children in any sense of either badness or goodness.
“Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.”I went up to my room and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy, at any time, to anybody’s heart, and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.
“Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.”
I went up to my room and crept to bed, and laid my doll’s cheek against mine wet with tears, and holding that solitary friend upon my bosom cried myself to sleep. Imperfect as my understanding of my sorrow was, I knew that I had brought no joy, at any time, to anybody’s heart, and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me.
Dickens evidently meant to reveal more than her godmother’s cruelty in her closing moralizings. She made the mistake of using self-denial and diligent work as curses instead of blessings. They were for the time none the less curses to the child, however.
The gross negligence of parents in regard to the sacredness of the children’s retiring hour is exposed in the management of the Jellyby children. Indeed, Mrs. Jellyby may be regarded as several volumes of treatises on how not to train children. Caddy expressed her views of the training they received by saying: “I wish I was dead. I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us.” She wisely added: “Oh, don’t talk of duty as a child! where’s ma’s duty as a parent?” Esther said wisely:
It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd; but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself.
It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd; but I need scarcely observe that I kept this to myself.
Esther describes the process of putting the children to bed one evening she was visiting at the Jellyby home:
Mrs. Jellyby stopped for a moment her conversation with Mr. Quale, on the Brotherhood of Humanity, long enough to order the children to bed.As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon, and overturned them into cribs.Peepy was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself with a slip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most, the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure withwhich she said everything, “Go along, you naughty Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.
Mrs. Jellyby stopped for a moment her conversation with Mr. Quale, on the Brotherhood of Humanity, long enough to order the children to bed.
As Peepy cried for me to take him to bed, I carried him upstairs, where the young woman with the flannel bandage charged into the midst of the little family like a dragon, and overturned them into cribs.
Peepy was the unfortunate child who had fallen downstairs, who now interrupted the correspondence by presenting himself with a slip of plaster on his forehead, to exhibit his wounded knees, in which Ada and I did not know which to pity most, the bruises or the dirt. Mrs. Jellyby merely added, with the serene composure withwhich she said everything, “Go along, you naughty Peepy!” and fixed her fine eyes on Africa again.
Here Mrs. Jellyby was guilty of two wrongs, one of commission, the other of omission. She did a positive wrong in unjustly calling the child “naughty” when he was merely unfortunate. Even if children are so badly guided that they do wrong, it is a serious mistake to make them feel consciously “bad” by calling them unpleasant names. It is always wrong to define in the child’s consciousness a passing wave of evil.
Mrs. Jellyby’s sin of omission was her neglect of the opportunity of sympathizing with the suffering boy, and of training him to bear suffering bravely by the suggestion that he was “a brave little soldier home from the war.”
Mr. Jarndyce, in speaking of Harold Skimpole’s children, said, when Richard Carstone asked if he had any children:
“Yes, Rick! Half a dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to look afterhim. He is a child, you know!” said Mr. Jarndyce.“And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?” inquired Richard.“Why, just as you may suppose,” said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance suddenly falling. “It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole’s children have tumbled up somehow or other——”
“Yes, Rick! Half a dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to look afterhim. He is a child, you know!” said Mr. Jarndyce.
“And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?” inquired Richard.
“Why, just as you may suppose,” said Mr. Jarndyce, his countenance suddenly falling. “It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole’s children have tumbled up somehow or other——”
Again Dickens was impressing the responsibility of parents for the care and proper training of their children.
Mr. Jarndyce accounted for the utterly unpractical nature of Mr. Skimpole by saying:
“Why, he is all sentiment, and—and susceptibility, and—and sensibility—and—and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them, and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them; and so he became what he is.”
“Why, he is all sentiment, and—and susceptibility, and—and sensibility—and—and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them, and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them; and so he became what he is.”
Mrs. Pardiggle was given as a type of the philanthropic woman who doesnotneglect her children, but whose training is worse—much worse than Mrs. Jellyby’s neglect. The Jellyby children had as much motherly sympathy as the Pardiggles, and they had freedom. There is always this advantage in neglect. Louisa Gradgrind gave utterance to a philosophical principle when she said to her father: “Oh! if you had only neglected me, what a much better and much happier creature I should have been.” Dickens did not teach that neglect is good training, but he did teach that it is a lighter curse than the Gradgrind or Pardiggle training.
The Jellyby children had a slight chance to turn out moderately well, but the Pardiggle children were certain to be morose, hypocritical, and vicious. They were certain to hate all forms of Christian philanthropy. Mrs. Pardiggle’s intentions were undoubtedly good, but she destroyed the character of her children, nevertheless.
“These, young ladies,” said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility, after the first salutations, “are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket money, to the amount of five and threepence to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and ninepence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never through life to use tobacco in any form.”We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled—though they were certainly that too—but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians I could really have supposed Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. The face of each child as the amount of his contribution was mentioned darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far theworst. I must except, however, the little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable.“You have been visiting, I understand,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “at Mrs. Jellyby’s?”We said yes, we had passed one night there.“Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society, and deserves a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African project—Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course withmyyoung family. I take them everywhere.”I was afterward convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child these words extorted a sharp yell. He turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.“They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half past six o’clock in the morning all the year round, including, of course, the depth of winter,” said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, “and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a school lady, I am a visiting lady, I am a reading lady, I am a distributing lady; I am on the local linen box committee, and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive—perhaps no one’s more so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general—in short, that taste for the sort of thing—which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours, and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings, and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on one occasion,after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening.”Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night.“You may have observed, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “in some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F. R. S., one pound. That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made, not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others.”
“These, young ladies,” said Mrs. Pardiggle with great volubility, after the first salutations, “are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket money, to the amount of five and threepence to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and ninepence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never through life to use tobacco in any form.”
We had never seen such dissatisfied children. It was not merely that they were weazened and shrivelled—though they were certainly that too—but they looked absolutely ferocious with discontent. At the mention of the Tockahoopo Indians I could really have supposed Egbert to be one of the most baleful members of that tribe, he gave me such a savage frown. The face of each child as the amount of his contribution was mentioned darkened in a peculiarly vindictive manner, but his was by far theworst. I must except, however, the little recruit into the Infant Bonds of Joy, who was stolidly and evenly miserable.
“You have been visiting, I understand,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “at Mrs. Jellyby’s?”
We said yes, we had passed one night there.
“Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society, and deserves a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African project—Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course withmyyoung family. I take them everywhere.”
I was afterward convinced (and so was Ada) that from the ill-conditioned eldest child these words extorted a sharp yell. He turned it off into a yawn, but it began as a yell.
“They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half past six o’clock in the morning all the year round, including, of course, the depth of winter,” said Mrs. Pardiggle rapidly, “and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a school lady, I am a visiting lady, I am a reading lady, I am a distributing lady; I am on the local linen box committee, and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive—perhaps no one’s more so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general—in short, that taste for the sort of thing—which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours, and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings, and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on one occasion,after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening.”
Alfred glowered at us as if he never could, or would, forgive the injury of that night.
“You may have observed, Miss Summerson,” said Mrs. Pardiggle, “in some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F. R. S., one pound. That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made, not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others.”
Mrs. Pardiggle invited Esther and Ada to go out with her to visit a “wicked brickmaker” in the neighbourhood. Ada walked ahead with Mrs. Pardiggle and Esther followed with the five children. She had an interesting experience.
I am very fond of being confided in by children, and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me, on the ground that his pocket money was “boned” from him. On my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connection with his parent (for he added sulkily “By her!”), he pinched me and said, “Oh, then! Now! Who are you?Youwouldn’t like it, I think! What does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call itmyallowance, and never let me spend it?” These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind, and the minds of Oswald and Francis, that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way; screwing up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix at the same time stamped upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who, on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated, stood, in fact, pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook shop, that he terrified me by becomingpurple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people, as from these unnaturally constrained children, when they paid me the compliment of being natural.
I am very fond of being confided in by children, and am happy in being usually favoured in that respect, but on this occasion it gave me great uneasiness. As soon as we were out of doors, Egbert, with the manner of a little footpad, demanded a shilling of me, on the ground that his pocket money was “boned” from him. On my pointing out the great impropriety of the word, especially in connection with his parent (for he added sulkily “By her!”), he pinched me and said, “Oh, then! Now! Who are you?Youwouldn’t like it, I think! What does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call itmyallowance, and never let me spend it?” These exasperating questions so inflamed his mind, and the minds of Oswald and Francis, that they all pinched me at once, and in a dreadfully expert way; screwing up such little pieces of my arms that I could hardly forbear crying out. Felix at the same time stamped upon my toes. And the Bond of Joy, who, on account of always having the whole of his little income anticipated, stood, in fact, pledged to abstain from cakes as well as tobacco, so swelled with grief and rage when we passed a pastry-cook shop, that he terrified me by becomingpurple. I never underwent so much, both in body and mind, in the course of a walk with young people, as from these unnaturally constrained children, when they paid me the compliment of being natural.
In the brickmaker’s hovel they heard something of how the very poor brought up children, or failed to bring them up, in Dickens’s time. The brickmaker was lying at full length on the floor, smoking his pipe. He gave them no welcome.
I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. I wants a end of being drawed like a badger. Now you are a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom—I know what you’re a-going to be up to. Well! You haven’t got no occasion to be up to it. I’ll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin’? Yes, she is a-washin’. Look at the water. Smell it! That’s wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin, instead? An’t my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty—it’s nat’rally dirty, and it’s nat’rally onwholesome; and we’ve had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides.
I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. I wants a end of being drawed like a badger. Now you are a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom—I know what you’re a-going to be up to. Well! You haven’t got no occasion to be up to it. I’ll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin’? Yes, she is a-washin’. Look at the water. Smell it! That’s wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin, instead? An’t my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty—it’s nat’rally dirty, and it’s nat’rally onwholesome; and we’ve had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides.
The utter carelessness of some “society gentlemen” in regard to the education of their children is referred to in the description Caddy Jellyby gave of her lover, the son of the great Turveydrop.
Caddy told me that her lover’s education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. “He does it with the best intention,” observed Caddy, “but it hasn’t the effect he means, poor fellow!” Caddy then went on to reason how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing school, and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. “Besides, it’s not as if I was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs,” said Caddy. “I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to ma!”
Caddy told me that her lover’s education had been so neglected that it was not always easy to read his notes. She said if he were not so anxious about his spelling, and took less pains to make it clear, he would do better; but he put so many unnecessary letters into short words that they sometimes quite lost their English appearance. “He does it with the best intention,” observed Caddy, “but it hasn’t the effect he means, poor fellow!” Caddy then went on to reason how could he be expected to be a scholar when he had passed his whole life in the dancing school, and had done nothing but teach and fag, fag and teach, morning, noon, and night! And what did it matter? She could write letters enough for both, as she knew to her cost, and it was far better for him to be amiable than learned. “Besides, it’s not as if I was an accomplished girl, who had any right to give herself airs,” said Caddy. “I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to ma!”
The products of the fashionable education of Dickens’s time (there is not so much of it now, thanks largely to Dickens) were shown in the cousins of Sir Leicester Dedlock.
The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities; the major part, amiable and sensible, and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them.
The rest of the cousins are ladies and gentlemen of various ages and capacities; the major part, amiable and sensible, and likely to have done well enough in life if they could have overcome their cousinship; as it is, they are almost all a little worsted by it, and lounge in purposeless and listless paths, and seem to be quite as much at a loss how to dispose of themselves as anybody else can be how to dispose of them.
In Little Dorrit Mrs. General is used as a type of two varieties of false training. Her pupils were never to be allowed to know that there was anything vulgar or wrong in the world. She believed the good old theory, that adulthood had two duties in developing purity of character, one to prevent children knowing that there was any evil, the other to chain them back or beat them back from evil, if they accidentally found it and wished to investigate it. She never thought of training a child to do its part in reducing the evil around him. Seclusion and exclusion took the place of community in her perverted philosophy.
She believed, too, in educating the surface. She did not work from within intellectually or spiritually. She varnished the surface that it might receive the proper society polish, therefore neither heart nor head required much attention. According to her theory, young ladies should never be so unladylike as to have great purposes or great ideas. Unfortunately some of her descendants are still living.
“Fanny,” observed Mrs. General, “at present forms too many opinions. Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.“I have conversed with Amy several times since we have been residing here on the general subject of the formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder.”
“Fanny,” observed Mrs. General, “at present forms too many opinions. Perfect breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative.
“I have conversed with Amy several times since we have been residing here on the general subject of the formation of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder.”
Her father sent for Amy to reprove her for her lack of what Mrs. General regarded as true culture, and Amy said:
“I think, father, I require a little time.”“Papa is a preferable mode of address,” observed Mrs. General. “Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips; especially prunes and prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company—on entering a room, for instance—papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.“If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable should ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.”
“I think, father, I require a little time.”
“Papa is a preferable mode of address,” observed Mrs. General. “Father is rather vulgar, my dear. The word papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism are all very good words for the lips; especially prunes and prism. You will find it serviceable, in the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company—on entering a room, for instance—papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, prunes and prism.
“If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of my poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr. Dorrit will have no further cause of anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking, as an instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable should ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good breeding, it hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A truly refined mind will seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant.”
Great Expectations has numerous illustrations of bad training. Mrs. Gargery had many of the worst characteristics of disrespectful and coercive adulthood. She abused Pip for asking questions, scolded him, thimbled him, and sent him to bed in the dark. She told him he was on the way to commit murder and a great variety of crimes, because criminals always “begin by asking questions.” She kept him in a state of constant terror. She tried in every possible way to lower his opinion of himself, which is a crime against childhood. One of the worst features of the old education was its teaching of a spurious humility, a depreciation of selfhood. One of the greatest weaknesses of humanity is the general lack of true faith of men and women in their own powers. He was told thathe was “naterally wicious,” and made the butt of all the observations relating to boys who possessed any vices whatever.
Dickens revealed all these characteristics to condemn them.
Pip discussed a very grave question for students of children when he was accounting for the fact that he deliberately misstated facts so systematically in answering the questions of his sister and Mr. Pumblechook, in regard to Miss Havisham and the peculiarities of her mysterious home.
When I reached home my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine—which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity—it is the key to many reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as my eyes had seen it I should not be understood.Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine.
When I reached home my sister was very curious to know all about Miss Havisham’s, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length.
If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden in mine—which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity—it is the key to many reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham’s as my eyes had seen it I should not be understood.
Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my obstinacy was adamantine.
Two thoughts are worthy of note in this part of Pip’s training: abuse, especially of the thumping, bumping, shaking variety, makes a child obstinate; and many of childhood’s difficulties arise from not being understood, or the fear of being misunderstood.
Pip resented, as all children do, more than they can show, the unpleasant habit of taking patronizing liberties with them.
And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. I can not conceive why everybody of his standing who visited atour house should always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronize me.
And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into my eyes. I can not conceive why everybody of his standing who visited atour house should always have put me through the same inflammatory process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to patronize me.
And Mr. Pumblechook! What could a boy do but hate him?
Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel) that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him—as it were, to operate upon—and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, “Now, mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did so. Now, mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way—which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do—and would hold me before him by the sleeve: a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself.
Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel) that if these hands could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise cart, they would have done it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind that he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him—as it were, to operate upon—and he would drag me up from my stool (usually by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, “Now, mum, here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did so. Now, mum, with respections to this boy!” And then he would rumple my hair the wrong way—which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do—and would hold me before him by the sleeve: a spectacle of imbecility only to be equalled by himself.
Mrs. Pocket’s training was given as an illustration of the folly of giving girls no practical education.
Her father had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who, in the nature of things, must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge.So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless.
Her father had directed Mrs. Pocket to be brought up from her cradle as one who, in the nature of things, must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of plebeian domestic knowledge.
So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but perfectly helpless and useless.
Her home proved that she had grown up a credit to her training. There never was a family more utterlywithout order, management, or system than Mrs. Pocket’s. Servants and children indulged in unending turmoil and conflict. Dickens added a grim humour to the picture by saying:
Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for he was a most delightful lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was at home and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby’s having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic.
Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for he was a most delightful lecturer on domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But Mrs. Pocket was at home and was in a little difficulty, on account of the baby’s having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply externally or to take as a tonic.
Mrs. Pocket continued to read her one book about the dignities of the titled aristocracy, and prescribed “Bed” as a sovereign remedy for baby.
Dickens believed a mother should find her highest joy and most sacred duty in training her own children. Mrs. Pocket was a type to be avoided.
The description of the dinner at Mr. Pocket’s, after which the six children were brought in, and Mrs. Pocket attempted to mind the baby, is one of the raciest bits of Dickens’s humour. One observation in connection with the dinner is worth studying.
After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs—a sagacious way of improving their minds.
After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring comments on their eyes, noses, and legs—a sagacious way of improving their minds.
How few yet clearly understand this profound criticism of bad training! How many children are still made vain and frivolous by having their attention directed especially to their physical attributes and their dress, rather than to the things that would yield them much greater immediate happiness and a much truer basis for future development!
In his last book, Edwin Drood, Dickens showed that he still hated the tyranny that dwarfs and distorts the souls of children.
Neville Landless described his own training to histutor, who had won his confidence as it had never been won before.
“We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat and clothes to wear.“This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as a grinding one. It was well he died when he did, or I might have killed him.”Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful pupil in consternation.“I surprise you, sir?” he said, with a quick change to a submissive manner.“You shock me; unspeakably shock me.”The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then said: “You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.“I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. This has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly wanting in I do not know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts—I have not even a name for the thing, you see—that you have had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been accustomed.”
“We lived with a stepfather there. Our mother died there, when we were little children. We have had a wretched existence. She made him our guardian, and he was a miserly wretch who grudged us food to eat and clothes to wear.
“This stepfather of ours was a cruel brute as well as a grinding one. It was well he died when he did, or I might have killed him.”
Mr. Crisparkle stopped short in the moonlight and looked at his hopeful pupil in consternation.
“I surprise you, sir?” he said, with a quick change to a submissive manner.
“You shock me; unspeakably shock me.”
The pupil hung his head for a little while, as they walked on, and then said: “You never saw him beat your sister. I have seen him beat mine, more than once or twice, and I never forgot it.
“I have had, sir, from my earliest remembrance, to suppress a deadly and bitter hatred. This has made me secret and revengeful. I have been always tyrannically held down by the strong hand. This has driven me, in my weakness, to the resource of being false and mean. I have been stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth. This has caused me to be utterly wanting in I do not know what emotions, or remembrances, or good instincts—I have not even a name for the thing, you see—that you have had to work upon in other young men to whom you have been accustomed.”
Hatred instead of love; product, a secret and revengeful character. “Tyrannically held down by a strong hand”; product, falseness and meanness. “Stinted of education, liberty, money, dress, the very necessaries of life, the commonest pleasures of childhood, the commonest possessions of youth”; product, a manhood utterly barren in true emotions, or pleasant memories, or good instincts.
No other writer has described so many phases of bad training as Dickens.
GOOD TRAINING.
Dickens wrote much less about good training than about bad training. It was the part of a true philosopher and a profound student of human nature to do so. Pictures of wrong treatment of children accomplished a double purpose. They made men hate the wrong, and made them more clearly conscious of the right than pictures of the right alone could have done. Descriptions of ideal conditions can not make as deep impressions as descriptions of utterly bad conditions in the present stage of human evolution.
His revelation of cruel tyranny, of will breaking, of cramming, of dwarfing of individuality, of distorting of imagination, of harshness, of lack of sympathy, of evil in a hundred hideous forms, made men more conscious of their corresponding opposites than attempts to reveal these opposites by direct effort could have done; and in addition it stirred in human hearts everywhere the determination to remove or remedy the wrong.
Little Nell’s grandfather gave her a good training. Omitting poverty and loneliness, and some strange companionships, she had a training calculated to make her the supremely pure and attractive child she was. Her grandfather loved her passionately; he had never been unkind to her, he had taught her carefully in the virtues that are learned by the unselfish performance of duty; she had the opportunity for simple, loving service, and she was trained to have profound reverence for and true faith in God.
Her grandfather left her alone every night, yet she was never afraid. Dickens describes their usual parting in the evening.
Then she ran to the old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.“Sleep soundly, Nell,” he said in a low voice, “and angels guard thy bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.”“No, indeed,” answered the child fervently, “they make me feel so happy!”“That’s well; I know they do; they should,” said the old man. “Bless thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.”“You’ll not ring twice,” returned the child. “The bell wakes me, even in the middle of a dream.”
Then she ran to the old man, who folded her in his arms and bade God bless her.
“Sleep soundly, Nell,” he said in a low voice, “and angels guard thy bed! Do not forget thy prayers, my sweet.”
“No, indeed,” answered the child fervently, “they make me feel so happy!”
“That’s well; I know they do; they should,” said the old man. “Bless thee a hundred times! Early in the morning I shall be home.”
“You’ll not ring twice,” returned the child. “The bell wakes me, even in the middle of a dream.”
The Toodle family is painted in direct contrast to the Dombey family in the relationship of parents to children. Mrs. Toodle came to nurse Paul Dombey when his mother died. Mr. Toodle himself came too, and Mr. Dombey called him in to speak to him.
He was a strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes sat negligently; with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its natural tint, perhaps, by smoke and coal-dust; hard knotty hands; and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. A thorough contrast in all respects to Mr. Dombey, who was one of those close-shaved, close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp like new bank notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and tightened as by the stimulating action of golden shower baths.“You have a son, I believe?” said Mr. Dombey.“Four on ’em, sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!”“Why, it’s as much as you can afford to keep them!” said Mr. Dombey.“I couldn’t hardly afford but one thing in the world less, sir.”“What is that?”“To lose ’em, sir.”“Can you read?” asked Mr. Dombey.“Why, not partick’ler, sir.”“Write?”“With chalk, sir?”“With anything?”“I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to it,” said Toodle, after some reflection.“And yet,” said Mr. Dombey, “you are two or three and thirty, I suppose?”“Thereabout, I suppose, sir,” answered Toodle, after more reflection.“Then why don’t you learn?” asked Mr. Dombey.“So I’m agoing to, sir. One of my little boys is agoing to learn me, when he’s old enough, and been to school himself.”
He was a strong, loose, round-shouldered, shuffling, shaggy fellow, on whom his clothes sat negligently; with a good deal of hair and whisker, deepened in its natural tint, perhaps, by smoke and coal-dust; hard knotty hands; and a square forehead, as coarse in grain as the bark of an oak. A thorough contrast in all respects to Mr. Dombey, who was one of those close-shaved, close-cut moneyed gentlemen who are glossy and crisp like new bank notes, and who seem to be artificially braced and tightened as by the stimulating action of golden shower baths.
“You have a son, I believe?” said Mr. Dombey.
“Four on ’em, sir. Four hims and a her. All alive!”
“Why, it’s as much as you can afford to keep them!” said Mr. Dombey.
“I couldn’t hardly afford but one thing in the world less, sir.”
“What is that?”
“To lose ’em, sir.”
“Can you read?” asked Mr. Dombey.
“Why, not partick’ler, sir.”
“Write?”
“With chalk, sir?”
“With anything?”
“I could make shift to chalk a little bit, I think, if I was put to it,” said Toodle, after some reflection.
“And yet,” said Mr. Dombey, “you are two or three and thirty, I suppose?”
“Thereabout, I suppose, sir,” answered Toodle, after more reflection.
“Then why don’t you learn?” asked Mr. Dombey.
“So I’m agoing to, sir. One of my little boys is agoing to learn me, when he’s old enough, and been to school himself.”
What a beautiful picture of the true relationship that should exist between a mother and her children is given in the reception to Mrs. Toodle when she went home to visit her family!
“Why, Polly!” cried her sister. “You! what a turn youhavegiven me! who’d have thought it! come along in, Polly! How well you do look, to be sure! The children will go half wild to see you, Polly, that they will.”That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to Polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. Even then, the smallest Toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with both arms round her neck; while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the air, to kiss her round the corner.
“Why, Polly!” cried her sister. “You! what a turn youhavegiven me! who’d have thought it! come along in, Polly! How well you do look, to be sure! The children will go half wild to see you, Polly, that they will.”
That they did, if one might judge from the noise they made, and the way in which they dashed at Polly and dragged her to a low chair in the chimney corner, where her own honest apple face became immediately the centre of a bunch of smaller pippins, all laying their rosy cheeks close to it, and all evidently the growth of the same tree. As to Polly, she was full as noisy and vehement as the children; and it was not until she was quite out of breath, and her hair was hanging all about her flushed face, and her new christening attire was very much dishevelled, that any pause took place in the confusion. Even then, the smallest Toodle but one remained in her lap, holding on tight with both arms round her neck; while the smallest Toodle but two mounted on the back of the chair, and made desperate efforts, with one leg in the air, to kiss her round the corner.
Unfortunately the eldest Toodle, nicknamed Biler, was sent to the grinders’ school by Mr. Dombey, and he was so badly treated that he played truant and got into bad company; but his mother clung to him and treated him kindly, and hoped for him still. Mr. Carker went home with Biler to satisfy himself in regard to his family.