Dickens' Hard Times as a Critique of the Educational System Industrialization made Victorian England a brave new world. A world devoid of justice, humanity and emotions. In Hard Times, Dickens criticizes this world in several ways; they are pollution problems, factory accidents, divorce laws, utilitarian ideals, and the education system. The goal of this essay is to focus strictly on Dickens's critique of the educational system influenced by industrialization. In his novel, Dickens shows us how children were indoctrinated from an early age that "in life you only need facts" (47). “The Gradgrind School in Hard Times was modeled on the so-called Birbeck Schools inaugurated by William Ellis in 1848 to teach the principles of political economy to poor children…” (Thomas 52). Children were taught that they should not do anything or believe anything that was contrary to the facts. The “Gradgrindian educational project is based on…Enlightenment insights” (Wainwright 179); in which all knowledge must be verified by science. Teachers even went so far as to say that: “Taste is just another name for Fact” (51). In Hard Times, Dickens "attacks [this] education based on statistics, figures and facts..." (Taine 33). Dickens criticizes the Victorian education system for dehumanizing children, killing imagination, and destroying the importance of emotions. The Victorian education system dehumanized children by treating them like mathematical figures. He tried to turn them all into little utilitarian robots interested only in facts. When children enter the classroom, they are described as "little pots arranged here and there in order, ready to have imperial gallons of fac...... middle of paper......Mutual friend. Ed. Norman Page . New York: Macmillan Press, 1979.Thomas, Deborah Hard Times: A Fable of Fragmentation and Integrity New York:Twayne Publishers, 1997.Wainwright, Valerie "On Commodities, Virtues, and Hard Times." Giuliano and Timko New York: AMS Press, 1998. The student may want to begin the article with the following quote: "Next month I will publish a story in a volume now coming out in Household, entitled Hard Times. I have patiently built it." , with a view to its publication in a compact and economical form. It contains what I devoutly hope will shock some people in the face of a terrible mistake of our day, when thus presented" (Guiliano 893). Charles Dickens in a letter to Thomas Carlyle, July 13, 1854