Mr Wopsle's Great-aunt's School
In chapters 7 and 10 of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, we encounter a school conducted by Mr Wopsle's great aunt. Here Dickens narrate the educational practices of his own time. Dickens does not mention it a school, but an Educational Scheme or Course. It is conducted in a little general shop, which also serves as the great-aunt's sitting room and bed room. The great-aunt spends much of the time asleep. The children play, fight, pull one another's toes and make terrible noise. Biddy who is in charge of the shop and the school maintains some semblance of teaching. Even writing is left to the children's own amusement. We may call this Dame's school.
We, in Malabar also had similar institutions conducted by teachers called Ashan. Traditionally they were conducted by men. Later, before the advent of kindergarten women also used to conduct this. These women were called Ashathis. In Malabar these institutions provided skills in writing letters in sands. Later, Primary schools were started by British government (Government of Madras Presidency) to encourage the spread of modern education especially among the non-Brahmin and lower castes. Among Brahmin boys the education was confined to memorizing the verses of Vedas. Few of them went for writing letters and alphabets in vernacular. It may be recalled that the British introduced Madras Education Code in Malabar, when British parliament had been discussing compulsory universal education in Great Britain. The account of Mr Wopsle's Great-aunt's School is a criticism of the existing education system in Britain. Dickens captures the ground realities and evades long speech.
Before 1870 in England there was no comprehensive national system providing education for every child.
Education was supplied through a patchwork of institutions.
• Dame's schools usually conducted in private homes.
• Church and denominational schools.
• Sunday schools.
Elementary Education Bill was introduced by William Edward Forster in 1870. The Bill provided for school boards and school districts. Compulsory and universal education came later under 1880 Act.
England had no state education. Schools had been allowed to develop in line with the country's class structure. The United States by comparison, had begun establishing a public school system based on common education for all its citizens by the 1830s. Citizens' groups of England had been voicing for compulsory universal education and by 1880 Act this was introduced.
Dickens gives us a glimpse of a largely , fragmented and class aligned irregular system of elementary education. Wopsle's great-aunt could very well understand the mockery of children, but she could only totter because of her old age and rheumatic paroxysm. Look at the narrative, "There was no prohibition against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with ink (when there was any).
He is not describing a properly organised class. Children of different ages and at different levels were present in the Dame's school.
There must have been pupils of different ages and at different levels of literacy. Most of them might use slate and stylus. Consider the following facts.
• The class is conducted in a little general shop, which also serves great-aunt's sitting room as well as bedroom.
• The great-aunt spends much of the time asleep.
• The children play, fight, pull one another's toes and make a terrible noise.
• Biddy tries to maintain some semblance of teaching.
• Even writing is left to the children's own amusement.
• The scarcity of ink is another small, but telling detail. Dickens adds it casually, but it contributes to the picture of an impoverished and neglected educational scheme.
Dickens calls this an "Educational Scheme or Course" and describes something that is almost the opposite of education. These are the features of Educational Scheme or Course.
• A sleeping teacher.
• A ragged, almost useless text book.
• A de-faced Bible.
• Uncontrolled children.
• Inadequate lighting.
• Irregular supplies of writing materials.
And yet Biddy, a young girl with very limited formal education, is the one who actually possesses the desire and ability to teach.
The contrast becomes especially meaningful when Pip subsequently asks Biddy to teach him.
Dickens is making us distinguish between an institution and a person who genuinely teaches.
Great Expectations was published in 1861, but Pip's story is set earlier. And Biddy becomes all the more interesting in that setting.
In chapter 7 Dickens's choice of words is particularly effective. Pip describes Biddy:
"Her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at heel."
Then he immediately qualifies:
"This description must be received, however, with a weekday limitation. On Sundays, she went to church elaborated."
Dickens does not describe her face, figure, or beauty. He describes her through her extremities.
There is a reason for this. Biddy is an orphan who has been brought up by hand. She works in the shop, assists educational establishment and performs domestic duties. On Sundays she transforms herself for church. Her poverty does not allow her to maintain herself as she wishes. Social convention demands her to put best of what she had. Even in her distress conditions she has a sense of personal dignity.
Dickens does not give us a sociological report. He portrays human lives from which we discover sociology.
Dickens does not bring the words "poverty" or "starvation" into the narrative, but the story reflects it. This is one of Dickens's remarkable strength as a novelist. He does not announce poverty; he makes us encounter it through ordinary details of life.
An interesting contrast with Pip
Pip is conscious of his social appearance after his visit to Miss Havisham's house. Estella has made him feel common and inferior.
Biddy, however, is not troubled by the distinction between her weekday appearance and her Sunday appearance. She accepts her circumstances without surrendering her dignity. The weekday Biddy is a working woman, very busy with her daily schedule, and has not enough time for personal care; Sunday Biddy is free from work schedule, a young woman who wants to appear respectable in her community.
Comparison of three schools in three novels
• Mr Wopsle's Great-aunt's School in Great Expectations is an informal Dame's school which charge twopence a week from each child. She herself is poor, in-firm and poorly educated. The children are left largely to themselves. Biddy is the real source of educational effort.
• Salem House in David Copperfield is a privately operated boarding school for boys, run by Mr Creakle.
The boys are sent away from their families. The school's defining characteristics are punishment, fear, and the arbitrary authority of the headmaster.
• Dotheboy's Hall in Nicholas Nickleby is an institution that exploits poor children under the guise of education. A Yorkshire boarding school run by Wackford Squeers. It is an exploitative establishment where children are neglected, inadequately fed and cruelly treated, and deprived of genuine education.
It is better to compare them as three different social institutions. Most disturbing of the three is Dotheboy's Hall.
Dickens's personal experience behind the three schools
Dickens himself attended a dame school in Chatham during his childhood. Salem House is based substantially on Wellington House Academy in London. Dickens's investigation of Yorkshire Boarding schools inspired him to draw Dotheboy's Hall.
In Malabar, after the coming of primary schools under organised sector, pre-primary education was left to the care of Ashan Pallikoodam. But this did not last long. There is a third institutional development that emerged out of the necessity of attracting students to primary level education.
Kindergartens
Originated in Great Britain in the wake of Industrial Revolution, and the harbinger of this idea was Robert Owen. In 1816 he opened the first Infant School at the New Lanark Mills and gave it his close personal supervision. Switzerland, Germany, and Italy had similar experiments initiated by different personalities who emphasized different approach to child
St Joseph Nursery School, established in 1862 was the first nursery school in Calicut, at the initiative of Mother Veronica, the foundress of Apostolic Carmel. Later the government and aided schools started pre-primary schools to attract students to their fold.
The expanded structure of Malabar's pre-primary sector covers Anganwadis established under Integrated Child Development Scheme; kindergartens attached to existing primary schools in both private and aided schools. This has contributed to the disappearance of Ashan Pallikoodam.
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