Part 17 (1/2)

”Iere neverof parents far advanced in life, and I half believe I was born advanced in life myself No personality is intended toward the naeneral growth of people seem to have come into existence buds, I seem to have come into existence a chip I was a chip--and a very dry one--when I first beca the educators who have tried to save the child froht to a free, rich, real childhood The saddest sight in the world to him was a child such as he pictured in A Tale of Two Cities: ”The children of St Antoine had ancient faces and grave voices”

In Barbox Brothers Mr Jackson said of hiible book, with the earlier chapters all torn out and throay My childhood had no grace of childhood, my youth had no charinning?”

dickens tried to save all children fro

CHAPTER VII

INDIVIDUALITY

dickens began to write definitely about individuality in Martin Chuzzlewit in 1844 Martin described a coely devoid of individual traits of character that any one of theed minds with the other and nobody would have found it out”

In David Copperfield he makes Traddles, as trained by Mr Creakle, say: ”I have no invention at all, not a particle I suppose there never was a young inality than I have”

David hientleht as well have been born caterpillars”

David emphasizes the phase of individuality that teaches the power of each individual to do soood, when he said to Martha when she spoke of the river as the end of her useless life:

”In the nae, before whom you and all of us must stand at his dread tiood, if ill”

In Bleak House Sir Leicester Dedlock is represented as of opinion that he should at least think for every one in connection with his estate

The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned--would never recover hiasp and die

The same absolute contempt for the individuality of the poor is ridiculed in The Chilish squire who used to act on the assumption that he had to care for the workhbourhood, as he did for his horses and other animals

”I do my duty as the Poor Man's Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his reat moral lesson which that class requires--that is, entire Dependence on myself They have no business whatever with--with the persons tell them otherwise, and they becouilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude--which is undoubtedly the case--I am their Friend and Father still It is so ordained It is in the nature of things They needn't trouble the I will think for theood for them; I am their perpetual parent Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence”

It is strange that men so commonly ascribe to Providence the dreadful conditions which have resulted fronorance and selfishness, and which Providence intendedof the influence of the chancery suit on Richard Carstone, said:

”The character of ed by the circu them It would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences, and escape theh, if I ht it retted that Richard's education had not counteracted those influences or directed his character He had been eight years at a public school, and had learned, I understood, to make Latin verses of several sorts, in the most admirable manner But I never heard that it had been anybody's business to find out what his natural bent was, or where his failings lay, or to adapt any kind of knowledge to _him_ _He_ had been adapted to the verses, and had learned the art ofthem to such perfection, that if he had ree I suppose he could only have gone on ed his education by forgetting how to do it

Still, although I had no doubt that they were very beautiful, and very ireat h life, I did doubt whether Richard would not have profited by so them quite so ood abilities, but who do not use them persistently in the accomplishment of any one purpose, and who never seem to find the sphere for which they are best fitted They are man-products, not God-products When Richard, after several atteh enthusiasm for a feeeks, decided to be a physician, Esther said:

Mistrusting that he only ca never hadout for hiuided to the discovery, he was taken with the newest idea, and was glad to get rid of the trouble of consideration, I wondered whether the Latin verses often ended in this, or whether Richard's was a solitary case

Richard very often cah he soon failed in his letter writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good tehtful But though I liked him more and more the better I knew hiretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration The system which had addressed him in exactly the samein character and capacity, had enabled hih his tasks, alith fair credit, and often with distinction; but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been reat qualities, without which no high place can be h excellent servants, they were very bad masters If they had been under Richard's direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies

Any educational system that ”addresses hundreds of boys exactly in the same manner” must destroy their individuality

In Hard Tiraded, sensual, dissipated criminal, and dickens accounts for his failure by the unnatural restraint, constant oversight, and the strangling of his iination in his cradle and afterward In other words, the boy's selfhood never had a chance to develop, and every power he had naturally to , true, and independent had helped to work his ruin