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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Gradgrind</span></span>
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<p><b>Thomas Gradgrind</b> is the notorious school board Superintendent in <a href="Charles_Dickens" title="Charles Dickens">Dickens</a>'s 1854 novel <i><a href="Hard_Times_(novel)" title="Hard Times (novel)">Hard Times</a></i> who is dedicated to the pursuit of profitable enterprise.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> His name is used generically to refer to someone who is hard and only concerned with cold facts and numbers.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="In_the_story">In the story</h2></div>
<p>In the story, Gradgrind is the father of five children, naming them after prominent <a href="Utilitarianism" title="Utilitarianism">utilitarians</a>. He also ran a model school where young pupils were treated as machines, or <a href="Pitcher_(container)" title="Pitcher (container)">pitchers</a> which were to be filled to the brim with <a href="Fact" title="Fact">facts</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-hardtimes_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-hardtimes-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> This satirised the Scottish philosopher <a href="James_Mill" title="James Mill">James Mill</a> who attempted to develop his sons into perfect utilitarians.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> His physical description personified this characterisation of the rigid and insistent <a href="Pedagogue" class="mw-redirect" title="Pedagogue">pedagogue</a>,
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</style><blockquote class="templatequote"><p>The speaker's obstinate carriage, square coat, square legs, square shoulders - nay, his very neckcloth, trained to take him by the throat...</p></blockquote><div class="templatequotecite"><p style="display: inline; padding-left: 2.3em;">— Charles Dickens, <i>Hard Times</i><sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></div>
<p>In a famous passage, a visiting official asks one of Gradgrind's students, "Suppose you were going to carpet a room. Would you use a carpet having a representation of flowers upon it?" The character Sissy Jupe replies, ingenuously, that she would because, "If you please, Sir, I am very fond of flowers".
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<blockquote class="templatequote"><p>"And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have people walking over them with heavy boots?"<br>
</p><p>"It wouldn't hurt them, Sir. They wouldn't crush and wither, if you please, Sir. They would be the pictures of what was very pretty and pleasant, and I would fancy..... -"<br>
</p><p>"Ay, Ay, Ay! But you mustn't fancy," cried the gentleman, quite elated by coming so happily to his point. "That's it! You are never to fancy."<br>
"You are not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind".<br>
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"Fact, Fact, Fact!" said the gentleman. And "Fact, Fact, Fact!" repeated Thomas Gradgrind.<sup id="cite_ref-hardtimes_3-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-hardtimes-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup></p></blockquote>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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<li id="cite_note-1"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-1">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><style data-mw-deduplicate="TemplateStyles:r1238218222">
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</style><cite id="CITEREFRoberts2006" class="citation book cs1">Roberts, Chris (2006). <i>Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind Rhyme</i>. Thorndike Press. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-7862-8517-4</bdi>.</cite></span>
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<li id="cite_note-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-2">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation book cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.oed.com"><i>Oxford English Dictionary</i></a>. Oxford University Press. <q>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.</q></cite></span>
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<li id="cite_note-hardtimes-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink">^ <a href="#cite_ref-hardtimes_3-0"><sup><i><b>a</b></i></sup></a> <a href="#cite_ref-hardtimes_3-1"><sup><i><b>b</b></i></sup></a></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFCharles_Dickens1854" class="citation book cs1">Charles Dickens (1854). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/786"><i>Hard Times</i></a>. Macmillan. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-333-58073-8</bdi>. <q>Thomas Gradgrind to the little pitchers before him, who were to be filled so full of facts.</q></cite> <span class="cs1-hidden-error citation-comment"><code class="cs1-code">{{cite book}}</code>: </span><span class="cs1-hidden-error citation-comment">ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)</span>. "What I want is, Facts:" chapter 1. "Fact, fact, fact!:" chapter II</span>
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<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFKS_Keefover1983" class="citation journal cs1">KS Keefover (September 1983). "Accountability—A Historical Perspective". <i>The Educational Forum</i>. <b>47</b> (3): <span class="nowrap">365–</span>372. <a href="Doi_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="Doi (identifier)">doi</a>:<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://doi.org/10.1080%2F00131728309335979">10.1080/00131728309335979</a>.</cite></span>
</li>
<li id="cite_note-5"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-5">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFStewart2001" class="citation book cs1">Stewart, Garrett (2001). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://books.google.com/books?id=wPe7uCbGvPUC">"10 Dickens and Language"</a>. <i>The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens</i>. Cambridge University Press. pp. <span class="nowrap">137–</span>138. <a href="ISBN_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="ISBN (identifier)">ISBN</a> <bdi>978-0-521-66964-1</bdi>.</cite></span>
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<p><span typeof="mw:File"></span> This article incorporates text from a publication now in the <a href="Public_domain" title="Public domain">public domain</a>: <cite id="CITEREFWood1907" class="citation encyclopaedia cs1"><a href="James_Wood_(encyclopaedist)" title="James Wood (encyclopaedist)">Wood, James</a>, ed. (1907). "<a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Nuttall_Encyclop%C3%A6dia/G#Gradgrind" class="extiw external" title="s:The Nuttall Encyclopædia/G">Gradgrind</a>". <i><a href="The_Nuttall_Encyclop%C3%A6dia" title="The Nuttall Encyclopædia">The Nuttall Encyclopædia</a></i>. London and New York: Frederick Warne. <q><b>Gradgrind</b>, a character in "Hard Times," who weighs and measures everything by a hard and fast rule and makes no allowances.</q></cite>
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</style><div id="Charles_Dickens&#039;s_Hard_Times83" style="font-size:114%;margin:0 4em"><a href="Charles_Dickens" title="Charles Dickens">Charles Dickens</a>'s <i><a href="Hard_Times_(novel)" title="Hard Times (novel)">Hard Times</a></i></div></th></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="navbox-group" style="width:1%">Characters</th><td class="navbox-list-with-group navbox-list navbox-odd hlist" style="width:100%;padding:0"><div style="padding:0 0.25em">
<ul></ul>
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<ul><li><i><a href="Hard_Times_(1915_film)" title="Hard Times (1915 film)">Hard Times</a></i> (1915)</li>
<li><i><a href="Hard_Times_(1988_film)" title="Hard Times (1988 film)">Hard Times</a></i> (1988)</li></ul>
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<ul><li><i><a href="Hard_Times_(British_TV_series)" title="Hard Times (British TV series)">Hard Times</a></i> (1977)</li></ul>
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