Our Mutual Friend and Victorian Education - Essay Example

Our Mutual Friend and Victorian Education Charles Dickens was not a man of formal education. His education, which he acknowledged to have been irregular, and somewhat insignificant, started in Chatman, as a pupil at a dame school. In 1821 he moved to Revd William Giles’s School, and his experiences there were indeed very constructive, inspiring him with hopes of “growing up to be a learned and distinguished man” (Johnson, 1969). Then, in 1824, Dickens’s schooling was broken off for a year due to his father’s debts. He later resumed at Wellington House Classical and Commercial Academy, the inspiration for Salem House in David Copperfield (1850). Moreover, his personal circumstances did not afford him university terms. Consequently, most of what he had learned he had had to teach himself. However, it was through his education, both formal and informal, that he was able to rise in life. From being taken out of school because his father could not pay for it, to being courted to take trips across the pond to conduct lectures, speeches and readings, his was a case of remarkable social elevation through letters. Possibly for this reason, education is often found in Dickens’s writings, as he was a firm believer in the ability of proper education to improve lives and “as a way to avoid social catastrophe” (Schlicke, 1999: 442). In his novel Our Mutual Friend, one can clearly see this association between Dickens and education through the characters of Charley and Lizzie Hexam as they each are profoundly affected by their experience or inexperience with ‘proper’ education. In his portrayal of education in Our Mutual Friend, Dickens describes a prevalent example of a school of his times, to which the poorer classes of society were obliged to send their children. This can be seen in the scathing words he utilises in Chapter 1 “Of an Educational Character” in Book the Second : The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a book – the streets being, for pupils of his degree, the great Preparatory Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without and before book – was a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of waking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise, as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours. (Vol, 1 p. 261) The picture displayed in this novel is not very different from the one he drew in other novels in which the educational system is seen to be little more than a means of keeping children under the control of someone rather than running wild through the streets. There is very little effectiveness illustrated in getting children to actually understand the lessons and very little indication that understanding is even assessed as children simply mark time until they are permitted to leave. However, critics have come to agree that by the time Dickens wrote Our Mutual Friend, he had sufficient knowledge of how the schools for the poor worked in order to describe them accurately. This is pointed out by John Manning in his work Dickens on Education: “If one takes into account the social conditions that existed in England during Dickens’s lifetime and the actual practices followed in the charity schools, it is apparent that the general impression he conveys of these schools is on the whole a true one” (1959: 63). Moreover, Manning continues by moving on to Dickens’s personal experiences as a schoolboy when he states that from “all the available knowledge concerning Dickens’s own schooldays, it may reasonably be inferred that he had no first-hand experience as a schoolboy of either a church school or a charity school, but when he became a man his genuine interest in the education of the poor made him a frequent visitor to such schools in the London district” (Manning, 1959: 63). In fact, Dickens’ interest in education is also seen through his objectives of “often searching for an opportunity to expose the weaknesses of the church schools and charity schools. There is no doubt that Dickens knew both the problems and the issues” (Manning, 1959: 63). Within the story, Bradley Headstone is the sort of teacher Dickens loves to hate, who has mechanically acquired a warehouse of knowledge that he only used to barter for money and social status. He did not impart education, but instead he traded in it. He was the product of the educational system of the time which produced teachers so that they may make their students useful for producing material goods for the society, not for bringing in them an intellectual and social awareness. The schools themselves were run according to a monitorial plan, in a mechanical, monotonous way that did nothing to encourage intellectual curiosity and everything to further learning by rote without comprehension. In fact, Miss Peecher’s pupil Mary Anne illustrates this mechanical nature of education in Dickens’s times: “One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb active to say. Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person plural, verb active to say” (Vol. 1: 269). The interaction between this teacher and her pupil is uncomfortably reminiscent of Bitzer’s definition of a horse in Hard Times and illustrates the disconnection encouraged within this sort of mechanical knowledge. However, Dickens continues to present his characters as real people, with more than one aspect of character. Neither Miss Peecher nor Headstone are inherently superficial: Miss Peecher is capable of genuine love quite apart from her fantasies, and underneath Headstone’s ‘decent’ (Vol. 1: 265) exterior is concealed a man that is ready to commit murder for the sake of his passions, and who tragically ends his own life as a result. But in the hands of the educational system these individuals are made into somewhat puppet-like figures of “respectability”, and machine-like counters where “knowledge” can be obtained. What is worse they create ruthless social climbers like Charlie Hexam and automatons like Mary Anne. Dickensian critique of his contemporary educational system was also targeted at its lack of provisions for moral education. Charley Hexam, after he is brought up by his sister, and later somewhat assisted by Headstone, turns upon both once they tend to become hindrance rather than help towards his social ambitions. He has no human values, no tenderness, and no sense of gratitude. In short, he has no emotions and will possibly grow up to be another Vennering or Fledgeby, knowing, understanding, and respecting only money and a hollow sense of social acceptability. On the other hand, Lizzie Hexam, who has never had the benefit of an education, is seemingly more “educated” even in the eyes of the mechanical teacher Bradley Headstone, and her own deluded brother Charley. Thus, the following dialogue in Chapter 1 “Of an Educational Character” in Book the Second, between the teacher and the pupil is revealing: “‘I suppose – your sister –‘ with a curious break both before and after the words – ‘has received hardly any teaching, Hexam?’ ‘Hardly any, sir.’ ‘Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father’s objections. I remember them in your case. Yet – your sister – scarcely looks or speaks like an ignorant person.’ ‘Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr. Headstone. Too much, perhaps, without teaching. I used to call the fire at home her books, for she was always full of fancies – sometimes quite wise fancies, considering – when she sat looking at it’” (Vol 1: 282). This dialogue makes very clear the Dickensian view that imagination, a keen curiosity, and a willingness to learn can easily take the place of formal education. Furthermore, because of her natural moral uprightness, Lizzie does not get corrupted where her brother does. The sort of education that Charley received corrupted him into ambitions of social superiority at the cost of the very people who helped him, whereas Lizzie remained untainted in her convictions to the end. Thus, Dickensian criticism is obvious here: “To insist that Dickens was keen on education is to miss half the point. What he also recognized was that in a class-divided society, education itself has a double tendency, to corrupt as well as to liberate” (Gross & Pearson, 1962: 215). Not only were educational standards appalling, but educational standards were called out as having different intentions at different levels – expensive private education was designed to produce lords and business owners while free or low-cost public schools were designed to produce factory workers and drones. Dickens had a lifelong commitment to education, and to the improvement of education especially for the poor. He was somewhat of a visionary who was able to see that though education itself cannot be a bad thing, the circumstances in which it is imparted and the manner of its delivery has a great impact on the results it can have on the human psyche, as G. K. Chesterton outlines in his work Appreciations and Criticism of the Works of Charles Dickens: It is singular that Dickens, who was not only a radical and a social reformer, but one who would have been particularly concerned to maintain the principle of modern popular education, should nevertheless have seen so clearly this potential evil in the mere educationalism of our time – the fact that merely educating the democracy may easily mean setting to work to despoil it of all the democratic virtues. It is better to be Lizzie Hexam and not know how to read and write than to be Charlie Hexam and not know how to appreciate Lizzie Hexam. It is not only necessary that the democracy should be taught; it is also necessary that the democracy should be taught democracy. Otherwise it will certainly fall a victim to that snobbishness and system of worldly standards which is the most natural and easy of all the forms of human corruption (Chesterton, 1911). As these observations demonstrate, much of the education provided in Dickens’s lifetime was sponsored with an economic goal in mind, much like the establishing of the poor houses, of which Betty is so fearful. Dickens was against the mechanical deployment of education amongst the common folk in order to make them useful to the manufacturing industry while providing them little in the way of enlightenment. Partially as a result of the dialogue Dickens started in his community following his portrayal of the educational system, the New Poor law of 1834 was established. John Reed explains in his work Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness as being “designed to correct these and other abuses, but, as Derek Fraser observes, both outdoor relief and distortion of the labour market continued after the 1834 law. The real impetus behind the law was a moral one, seeking to convert idle persons into industrious, and thus useful, members of the community. The education of pauper children was a high priority, rescuing the young from poverty by giving them rudimentary education and some industrial training while at the same time establishing habits of usefulness, industry, and virtue valuable in a free market economy” (Reed, 1995: 30). As Dickens had suggested through his stories, the entire country would necessarily benefit from a school system that both educated children for the positions they were expected to fulfil in the factories as well as provided them with the education they would need to create success in the open market. This ensures latent talent such as Lizzie’s is utilized in furtherance of the state while important moral and ethical standards created when one feels closely connected to one’s society are not drilled out of the child through mechanistic standards and treatment as exhibited in Charley. In Our Mutual Friend, Dickens attempted to reveal the consequences of his contemporary education for society in general. He tried to show how the current monitorial system could only breed a race of Charley Hexams with no moral or ethical principles whatsoever other than the pursuit of money and social status. He illustrates through this character how these interests in gaining for the self supersede any concerns regarding the effects this pursuit might have on others. According to many critics today, despite the fact that Dickens does not provide a concrete alternative to the contemporary system of education, his emphasis on moral values has become his contribution to education in Britain: Dickens believed in the extension of education on sound principles to all citizens; yet he did not offer specific strategies for achieving this aim. He exposed what he considered abuses and deficiencies, and praised what he believed were positive developments. He was a pioneer in introducing the theme of education into prose fiction, and proved, in his correspondence, journalism, and speeches, that he had greater familiarity with the subject than most of his rivals. In the year of his death Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which further raised the standard of teacher training and effectively inaugurated compulsory schooling. If Dickens made any practical contribution to achieving this end, it was by reinforcing the publics sense of moral feeling, and providing additional momentum for change (Schlicke, 1992: 217-218). By introducing memorable characters into the public dialogue, Dickens necessarily also introduced the potential issues he saw as needing to be addressed within the nation’s educational system. By leaving the questions he asks unanswered, he further ensured these issues remained popular topics in the national debate. Dickens was not well-informed on the prevalent scientific theories on education, but he was able to conclude on his own that education was supposed to help children grow into well-balanced, kind, and imaginative adults. Thus, the Dickensian approach on education can be adequately summed up in these words by Manning: “He requested for the children their rightful place in any school system. He put children first; appealed for a happy school life; pleaded for the development of their imagination, care for their health, kind treatment of their feelings; and encouraged confidence in their essential right to live as children. It seems reasonable to conclude that Dickens knew little about educational theory. Yet anything that placed children first and extended a sympathetic helping hand to guide them along pleasanter pathways always drew his interest, sympathy, and support” (205). Summing up all of his theories and observations in this his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend, Dickens was eloquent enough to express these opinions through a gallery of characters, with a sagacity, wit, and aggression unmatched in the considerable literary output during a long and illustrious career. Through his characters he captured the nation’s heart; through their stories he captured their imaginations; through their heartache, he captured their attention to bring about real change for the real society in which he lived. Works Cited Chesterton, G.K. Appreciations and Criticism of the Works of Charles Dickens. (1911). April 30, 2009 Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend. Vol. 1 & 2. London: GE Fabbri Limited, (1865) 2004. Gross, John & Gabriel Pearson. Dickens and the Twentieth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. Johnson, E. D. H. Charles Dickens: An Introduction to his Novels. “Professional Career” (1969) in the paperback Random House Study in Language and Literature Series. April 30, 2009 Manning, John. Dickens on Education. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959. Reed, John R. Dickens and Thackeray: Punishment and Forgiveness. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1995. Schlicke, Paul (Ed.). Oxford Reader’s Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Read More