The two main themes in Hard Times by Charles Dickens are those of anti-industrialism (and the subsequent mechanization of humans) and a harsh criticism of fact-based educations that deny what Dickens refers to as Fancy. While the themes are distinct, they are closely entwined.

Abusive Educational Systems

Hard Times opens with a lecture on the importance of facts. “Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sire!” (1)

If the reader feels beaten over the head with Facts, imagine the students sitting in the classroom where this fictive lecture was given. However, while the story is fiction it reveals an undeniable reality. The truth is that even today’s educational systems often fall into the pragmatic realm of Fact based education, similar to the one depicted by Dickens.

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