Read the following passage from the beginning of Charles Dickens' 1854 novel Hard Times. In the passage, Mr. Gradgrind, a succes
sful businessman and leader of Coketown, tells the headmaster of Coketown's school what kind of education he wants the school to provide: '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 any 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. . . ' The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker's square forefinger emphasized his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster's sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker's voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial. . . . The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders, — nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat with an unaccommodating grasp, like a stubborn fact, as it was, — all helped the emphasis. Make a prediction. Based on the passage, what themes, or central ideas, do you think will be developed in the novel? Describe at least two. Then explain why you think these themes will be developed. Be sure to use specific details from the passage to support your ideas.
