Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 38

It is a mere question of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. 20 You might hope to get some other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, or Augustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind; but into the head of Thomas Gradgrind--no, sir!

Indeed, he seemed to be a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts.

"Girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely 5 pointing with his square forefinger. "I don't know that girl. Who is that girl?"

"Sissy Jupe, sir," explained number twenty, blus.h.i.+ng, standing up, and curtsying.

"Sissy is not a name," said Mr. Gradgrind. "Don't 10 call yourself Sissy. Call yourself Cecilia."

"Father calls me Sissy, sir," returned the young girl in a trembling voice and with another curtsy.

"Then he has no business to do it," said Mr. Gradgrind.

"Tell him he mustn't. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What 15 is your father?"

"He belongs to the horse riding, if you please, sir."

Mr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.

"We don't want to know anything about that, here. 20 You mustn't tell us about that, here. Your father breaks horses, don't he?"

"If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horses in the ring, sir."

"You mustn't tell us about the ring, here. Very well, 25 then. Describe your father as a horse breaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say."

"Oh, yes, sir!"

"Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and a horse breaker. Give me your definition of a horse." 30

Sissy Jupe was thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.

"Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!" said Mr. Gradgrind. "Girl number twenty possessed of no facts in reference to one of the commonest of animals!

Some boy's definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours."

The square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly 5 on Bitzer, perhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which irradiated Sissy.

"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind, "your definition of a horse."

"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth: namely, 10 twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisors.

Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron.

Age known by marks in the mouth."

"Now, girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind, "you 15 know what a horse is."

She curtsied again and would have blushed deeper, if she could have blushed deeper than she had blushed all this time.

The third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at 20 cutting and drying, was he; a government officer; always in training, always with a system to force down the general throat, always to be heard of at the bar of his little public office.

"Very well," said this gentleman briskly, smiling and 25 folding his arms. "That's a horse. Now, let me ask you, girls and boys, would you paper a room with representations of horses?"

After a pause, one half the children cried in a chorus, "Yes, sir!" Upon which the other half, seeing in the 30 gentleman's face that "yes" was wrong, cried out in a chorus, "No, sir!"--as the custom is in these examinations.

"Of course not. Why wouldn't you?"

A pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing, ventured to answer, "Because I wouldn't paper a room at all; I'd paint it."

"You _must_ paper it," said the gentleman rather warmly. 5

"Yes, you must paper it," said Thomas Gradgrind, "whether you like it or not. Don't tell _us_ you wouldn't paper it. What do you mean, boy?"

"I'll explain to you, then," said the gentleman, after a dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with representations 10 of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of a room in reality--in fact?

Do you?"

"Yes, sir!" from one half. "No, sir!" from the other.

"Of course not," said the gentleman, with an indignant 15 look at the wrong half. "Why, then, you are not to see anywhere what you don't see in fact; you are not to have anywhere what you don't have in fact. What is called taste is only another name for fact. This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery," said the gentleman. "Now 20 I'll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet a room, would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?"

There being a general conviction by this time that "No, sir!" was always the right answer to this gentleman, the 25 chorus of "No," was very strong. Only a few feeble stragglers said, "Yes"; among them Sissy Jupe.

"Girl number twenty," said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength of knowledge.

Sissy blushed and stood up. 30

"So you would carpet your room with representations of flowers, would you?" said the gentleman. "Why?"

"If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers," returned the girl.

"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them and have people walking over them with heavy boots?" 5

"It wouldn't hurt them, sir. They wouldn't crush and, wither, if you please, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I fancy--"

"Aye, aye, aye! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. 10 "That's it! You are never to fancy."

"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind."

"You are to be in all things regulated and governed,"

said the gentleman, "by Fact. You must discard the word 15 'fancy' altogether. You have nothing to do with it.

You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down the walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon the walls. You must 20 use," said the gentleman, "for all these purposes, combinations and modifications (in primary colors) of mathematical figures which are susceptible of proof and demonstration.

This is the new discovery. This is Fact. This is taste." 25

--_Hard Times._

1. Make a list of adjectives that fit the character of Gradgrind.

2. Does d.i.c.kens agree with Gradgrind's ideas of teaching? Prove your answer. Define irony; sarcasm.

Does either of these words apply to d.i.c.kens's presentation of Gradgrind?

3. What do you think of Gradgrind's theories? How far do you agree with him? In what do you disagree?