Gradgrind

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Mr Thomas Gradgrind is the notorious headmaster in Dickens's novel Hard Times. His name is now used generically to refer to someone who is hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers.[1]

In the story, he was the father of five children, naming them after prominent utilitarians such as Robert Malthus. He also ran a model school where young pupils were treated as pitchers which were to be filled to the brim with facts.[2] This satirised James Mill who attempted to develop his sons into perfect utilitarians.[3]

Gradgrind is the most dynamic character in Hard Times since he recognized that emotions are important when his daughter Louisa had an emotional breakdown.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. “Name of the mill-owner in Dickens's Hard Times (1854), ‘a man of facts and calculations’, used allusively for: one who is hard and cold, and solely interested in facts.” 
  2. ^ Charles Dickens (1854). Hard Times. “Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.” 
  3. ^ KS Keefover (September 1983), “Accountability—A Historical Perspective”, The Educational Forum: 365-372, <http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a790148896~db=all> 


This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.

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