Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Thomas Gradgrind, the owner of an experimental private school in Coketown, insists that the children under his command only learn facts. Believe that the world has no place for fantasy or imagination. His own five children are models of fact-based education. Having never allowed them to learn anything about the humanities, they are unaware of literature and any conception of human beings as individuals. Even fairy tales and nursery rhymes had been excluded from his education.
One day, while walking home from school, Gradgrind is immensely upset and hurt to find his two oldest children, Louisa and Tom, trying to look through the canvas walls of a circus tent. It reassures him even less to discover that the two young men have absolutely no regrets for acting against the principles on which they were raised and educated. Later, Gradgrind and his industrial friend, Mr. Josiah Bounderby, discuss possible means by which children could have been misled from the study of the facts. They conclude that another student, Sissy Jupe, whose father is a circus clown, had influenced the young Gradgrinds.
Having decided to remove Sissy Jupe from school, Bounderby and Gradgrind immediately set out to tell the girl's father. When they arrive at the inn where the Jupes are staying, they discover that the father has abandoned his daughter. Moved by sentiment, Gradgrind decides to keep the girl at home and let her be educated at his school, all against the advice of Bounderby, who thinks that Sissy Jupe will only be a bad influence on the Gradgrind children.
Years pass and Louisa and young Tom have matured. Gradgrind knows that Bounderby, who is thirty years older than her daughter, has long wanted to marry Louisa. Educated away from feelings, she agrees to marry Bounderby. Tom, a Bounderby bank clerk, is very happy that his sister is marrying Bounderby; he wants a friend to help him if he gets into trouble there. In fact, he advises his sister to marry Bounderby for this reason, and she, loving her brother, agrees to help him by marrying the rich banker.
Bounderby is very happy to be married to Louisa. After his marriage, he places his elderly housekeeper in a bank room. Mrs. Sparsit does not like Louisa and is determined to keep an eye on her for the good of her employer. After marriage, everything seems quiet at the bank, at the Gradgrind house, and at the Bounderby residence.
Meanwhile, Gradgrind had been elected a member of Parliament for his district. It sends from London a young aspiring politician, James Harthouse, who will collect data on the industrial city of Coketown, data that will be used in a survey of economic and social life in Britain. To facilitate the young man's labors, Gradgrind delivers a letter of introduction to Bounderby, who immediately tells Harthouse the story of his career, from the street scoundrel to the industrialist and banker. Harthouse thinks Bounderby is a fool, but he is very interested in pretty Louisa.
Through his friendship with Bounderby, Harthouse meets Tom Gradgrind, who lives with the Bounderbys. Harthouse takes advantage of Tom's drinking problem to learn more about Louisa. She had heard that she had been subjected to a dehumanizing upbringing and feels that she will fall for seduction due to her loveless marriage to the pompous Bounderby. For these reasons, Harthouse decides to try ...
