MURDERING THE INNOCENTS

THOMAS GRADGRIND, sir. A man of realities. A man of facts andrncalculations. A man who proceeds upon the principle that two and two arernfour, and nothing over, and who is not to be talked into allowing forrnanything over. Thomas Gradgrind, sir—peremptorily Thomas—ThomasrnGradgrind. With a rule and a pair of scales, and the multiplicationrntable always in his pocket, sir, ready to weigh and measure any parcel ofrnhuman nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to. It is a merernquestion of figures, a case of simple arithmetic. You might hope to getrnsome other nonsensical belief into the head of George Gradgrind, orrnAugustus Gradgrind, or John Gradgrind, or Joseph Gradgrind (allrnsupposititious, non-existent persons), but into the head of ThomasrnGradgrind—no, sir!rnrnIn such terms Mr. Gradgrind always mentally introduced himself, whetherrnto his private circle of acquaintance, or to the public in general. Inrnsuch terms, no doubt, substituting the words ‘boys and girls,’ for ‘sir,’rnThomas Gradgrind now presented Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchersrnbefore him, who were to be filled so full of facts.rnrnIndeed, as he eagerly sparkled at them from the cellarage beforernmentioned, he seemed a kind of cannon loaded to the muzzle with facts,rnand prepared to blow them clean out of the regions of childhood at onerndischarge. He seemed a galvanizing apparatus, too, charged with a grimrnmechanical substitute for the tender young imaginations that were to bernstormed away.rnrn‘Girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind, squarely pointing with hisrnsquare forefinger, ‘I don’t know that girl. Who is that girl?’rnrn‘Sissy Jupe, sir,’ explained number twenty, blushing, standing up, andrncurtseying.rnrn‘Sissy is not a name,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Don’t call yourself Sissy.rnCall yourself Cecilia.’rnrn‘It’s father as calls me Sissy, sir,’ returned the young girl in arntrembling voice, and with another curtsey.rnrn‘Then he has no business to do it,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘Tell him hernmustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?’rnrn‘He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please, sir.’rnrnMr. Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with hisrnhand.rnrn‘We don’t want to know anything about that, here. You mustn’t tell usrnabout that, here. Your father breaks horses, don’t he?’rnrn‘If you please, sir, when they can get any to break, they do break horsesrnin the ring, sir.’rnrn‘You mustn’t tell us about the ring, here. Very well, then. Describernyour father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?’rnrn‘Oh yes, sir.’rnrn‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, andrnhorsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.’rnrn(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)rnrn‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, forrnthe general behoof of all the little pitchers. ‘Girl number twentyrnpossessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals!rnSome boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer, yours.’rnrnThe square finger, moving here and there, lighted suddenly on Bitzer,rnperhaps because he chanced to sit in the same ray of sunlight which,rndarting in at one of the bare windows of the intensely white-washed room,rnirradiated Sissy. For, the boys and girls sat on the face of therninclined plane in two compact bodies, divided up the centre by a narrowrninterval; and Sissy, being at the corner of a row on the sunny side, camernin for the beginning of a sunbeam, of which Bitzer, being at the cornerrnof a row on the other side, a few rows in advance, caught the end. But,rnwhereas the girl was so dark-eyed and dark-haired, that she seemed tornreceive a deeper and more lustrous colour from the sun, when it shonernupon her, the boy was so light-eyed and light-haired that the self-samernrays appeared to draw out of him what little colour he ever possessed.rnHis cold eyes would hardly have been eyes, but for the short ends ofrnlashes which, by bringing them into immediate contrast with somethingrnpaler than themselves, expressed their form. His short-cropped hairrnmight have been a mere continuation of the sandy freckles on his foreheadrnand face. His skin was so unwholesomely deficient in the natural tinge,rnthat he looked as though, if he were cut, he would bleed white.rnrn‘Bitzer,’ said Thomas Gradgrind. ‘Your definition of a horse.’rnrn‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders,rnfour eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshyrncountries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod withrniron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and much more) Bitzer.rnrn‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horsernis.’rnrnShe curtseyed again, and would have blushed deeper, if she could havernblushed deeper than she had blushed all this time. Bitzer, after rapidlyrnblinking at Thomas Gradgrind with both eyes at once, and so catching thernlight upon his quivering ends of lashes that they looked like the antennærnof busy insects, put his knuckles to his freckled forehead, and sat downrnagain.rnrnThe third gentleman now stepped forth. A mighty man at cutting andrndrying, he was; a government officer; in his way (and in most otherrnpeople’s too), a professed pugilist; always in training, always with arnsystem to force down the general throat like a bolus, always to be heardrnof at the bar of his little Public-office, ready to fight all England.rnTo continue in fistic phraseology, he had a genius for coming up to thernscratch, wherever and whatever it was, and proving himself an uglyrncustomer. He would go in and damage any subject whatever with his right,rnfollow up with his left, stop, exchange, counter, bore his opponent (hernalways fought All England) to the ropes, and fall upon him neatly. Hernwas certain to knock the wind out of common sense, and render thatrnunlucky adversary deaf to the call of time. And he had it in charge fromrnhigh authority to bring about the great public-office Millennium, whenrnCommissioners should reign upon earth.rnrn‘Very well,’ said this gentleman, briskly smiling, and folding his arms.‘That’s a horse. Now, let me ask you girls and boys, Would you paper arnroom with representations of horses?’rnrnAfter a pause, one half of the children cried in chorus, ‘Yes, sir!’rnUpon which the other half, seeing in the gentleman’s face that Yes wasrnwrong, cried out in chorus, ‘No, sir!’—as the custom is, in thesernexaminations.rnrn‘Of course, No. Why wouldn’t you?’rnrnA pause. One corpulent slow boy, with a wheezy manner of breathing,rnventured the answer, Because he wouldn’t paper a room at all, but wouldrnpaint it.rnrn‘You _must_ paper it,’ said the gentleman, rather warmly.rnrn‘You must paper it,’ said Thomas Gradgrind, ‘whether you like it or not.rnDon’t tell _us_ you wouldn’t paper it. What do you mean, boy?’rnrn‘I’ll explain to you, then,’ said the gentleman, after another and arndismal pause, ‘why you wouldn’t paper a room with representations ofrnhorses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of rooms inrnreality—in fact? Do you?’rnrn‘Yes, sir!’ from one half. ‘No, sir!’ from the other.rnrn‘Of course no,’ said the gentleman, with an indignant look at the wrongrnhalf. ‘Why, then, you are not to see anywhere, what you don’t see inrnfact; you are not to have anywhere, what you don’t have in fact. What isrncalled Taste, is only another name for Fact.’ Thomas Gradgrind noddedrnhis approbation.rnrn‘This is a new principle, a discovery, a great discovery,’ said therngentleman. ‘Now, I’ll try you again. Suppose you were going to carpet arnroom. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers uponrnit?’rnrnThere being a general conviction by this time that ‘No, sir!’ was alwaysrnthe right answer to this gentleman, the chorus of NO was very strong.rnOnly a few feeble stragglers said Yes: among them Sissy Jupe.rnrn‘Girl number twenty,’ said the gentleman, smiling in the calm strength ofrnknowledge.rnrnSissy blushed, and stood up.rnrn‘So you would carpet your room—or your husband’s room, if you were arngrown woman, and had a husband—with representations of flowers, wouldrnyou?’ said the gentleman. ‘Why would you?’rnrn‘If you please, sir, I am very fond of flowers,’ returned the girl.rnrn‘And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and havernpeople walking over them with heavy boots?’rnrn‘It wouldn’t hurt them, sir. They wouldn’t crush and wither, if yournplease, sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty andrnpleasant, and I would fancy—’rnrn‘Ay, ay, ay! But you mustn’t fancy,’ cried the gentleman, quite elatedrnby coming so happily to his point. ‘That’s it! You are never to fancy.’rnrn‘You are not, Cecilia Jupe,’ Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, ‘to dornanything of that kind.’rnrn‘Fact, fact, fact!’ said the gentleman. And ‘Fact, fact, fact!’ repeatedrnThomas Gradgrind.rnrn‘You are to be in all things regulated and governed,’ said the gentleman,‘by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed ofrncommissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact,rnand of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether.rnYou have nothing to do with it. You are not to have, in any object ofrnuse or ornament, what would be a contradiction in fact. You don’t walkrnupon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers inrncarpets. You don’t find that foreign birds and butterflies come andrnperch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birdsrnand butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds goingrnup and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls.rnYou must use,’ said the gentleman, ‘for all these purposes, combinationsrnand modifications (in primary colours) of mathematical figures which arernsusceptible of proof and demonstration. This is the new discovery. Thisrnis fact. This is taste.’rnrnThe girl curtseyed, and sat down. She was very young, and she looked asrnif she were frightened by the matter-of-fact prospect the world afforded.rnrn‘Now, if Mr. M’Choakumchild,’ said the gentleman, ‘will proceed to givernhis first lesson here, Mr. Gradgrind, I shall be happy, at your request,rnto observe his mode of procedure.’rnrnMr. Gradgrind was much obliged. ‘Mr. M’Choakumchild, we only wait forrnyou.’rnrnSo, Mr. M’Choakumchild began in his best manner. He and some one hundredrnand forty other schoolmasters, had been lately turned at the same time,rnin the same factory, on the same principles, like so many pianoforternlegs. He had been put through an immense variety of paces, and hadrnanswered volumes of head-breaking questions. Orthography, etymology,rnsyntax, and prosody, biography, astronomy, geography, and generalrncosmography, the sciences of compound proportion, algebra, land-surveyingrnand levelling, vocal music, and drawing from models, were all at the endsrnof his ten chilled fingers. He had worked his stony way into HerrnMajesty’s most Honourable Privy Council’s Schedule B, and had taken thernbloom off the higher branches of mathematics and physical science,rnFrench, German, Latin, and Greek. He knew all about all the Water Shedsrnof all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all thernpeoples, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all thernproductions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all theirrnboundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass. Ah,rnrather overdone, M’Choakumchild. If he had only learnt a little less,rnhow infinitely better he might have taught much more!rnrnHe went to work in this preparatory lesson, not unlike Morgiana in thernForty Thieves: looking into all the vessels ranged before him, one afterrnanother, to see what they contained. Say, good M’Choakumchild. Whenrnfrom thy boiling store, thou shalt fill each jar brim full by-and-by,rndost thou think that thou wilt always kill outright the robber Fancyrnlurking within—or sometimes only maim him and distort him!