Quote
"One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests."
John Stuart Mill

Study Note
Most encyclopedias have a "micro" section and a "macro" section which give introductory information and then more in-depth information about a subject, respectively. It would be useful practice for your student to research at the library and try to get some introductory information about Charles Dickens and/or John Stuart Mill.

Jane Smiley has written a book about the life of Charles Dickens, but it is different from the standard book which chronicles the events of his life by date. Jane Smiley gives the reader a view of Dickens as Dickens' own contemporaries may have seen him, and tells how his books shaped his life every bit as much as his life shaped his books!

Hard Times/Utilitarianism Unit Study for 9th or 10th grade

See Week 1 for information on credits, goals, and materials list for this study.

Week 2

Weekly Reading Assignments

Week 1: Book the First, Chapter I through Chapter V
("The One Thing Needful" through "The Key-Note")
Week 2: Book the First, Chapter VI through Chapter IX
("Sleary's Horsemanship" through "Sissy's Progress")
Week 3: Book the First, Chapter X through Chapter XIV
("Stephen Blackpool" through "The Great Manufacturer")
Week 4: Book the First, Chapter XV through Book the Second,
Chapter II ("Father and Daughter" through "Mr. James Harthouse")
Week 5: Book the Second, Chapter III through Chapter VI
("The Whelp" through "Fading Away")
Week 6: Book the Second, Chapter VII through Chapter X
("Gunpowder" through "Mrs. Sparsit's Staircase")
Week 7: Book the Second, Chapter XI through Book the Third, Chapter II
("Lower and Lower" through "Very Ridiculous")
Week 8: Book the Third, Chapter III through Chapter V
("Very Decided" through "Found")
Week 9: Book the Third, Chapter VI through Chapter IX
("The Starlight" through "Final")

Assignments

Week 2: The student should be introduced to the topic of philosophy. We do not want to overwhelm the student, but simply introduce a working definition to show the student that there are people who devote their lives to understanding and studying the conduct of a society as a whole, as well as analyzing the outcomes of the acts of a society as a whole as they pertain to ethics, morality, quality of life, etc. These people include policy-makers in government, authors, professors who teach entire generations of students, religious leaders, and so on.

Introduce the student to English philospher, John Stuart Mill. Place the birth and death of John Stuart Mill on your timeline.
Facts about John Stuart Mill:

• Was a prominent English philosopher and economist in the 19th century.
• Born in 1806 in London.
• Received a very strenuous (by many accounts, too much so) academic training under his father, James Mill, who was a strict disciplinarian and also an economist and philosopher.
• From 1836 to 1856 was a prominent figure in the British East India Company.

The student will read the reading assignment for week 2.

Have the student use a standard college dictionary to write the definition for:

• philosophy
• East India Company (or East India Trading Company)
• ethereal
• irascible
• remonstrate
• connivance
• abscond
• inveigle

It would be nice if the student could incorporate these words into his notes, as use of these words in the final paper would help the student to really learn and remember the definitions.

The student will write the answer to the following essay question in his notebook.

Essay Question:

As Mr. Gradgrind and Mr. Bounderby are taking Sissy away from the circus people, Sleary lays down his philosophy and asks that they make the best of the horse/circus people, not the worst of them. What do you think Dickens was trying to say by allowing Sleary to express a "philosophy?" Is it symbolic that Sleary's speech was literally hard to understand?

Something to think about:

Do you see any similarities between young Thomas Gradgrind's life and the life of John Stuart Mill?

These are terms you may not have heard of in their current context and may want to make note of:

• stow that--shut up
• ochre--gold
• missed his tip--fell or missed a jump
• goosed--booed or hissed at
• morrithed--as in "to morris," or run away. Also refers to a dance in extravagant costume.

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