A passionate engagement with the education of children pervades Dickens’s writing. In fiction, throughout his extended career as a journalist and in his daily correspondence he argued strenuously on their behalf: to take their educational needs seriously, to treat pupils with kindness, to provide intelligent and well-informed instruction, and, most importantly, to be “devilish sharp in what we do to children” (Letters 4: 653). This paper has two sections. It begins with a brief comment about the biographical context of that remark as it is refracted in Dickens’ fiction. The latter section shows Dickens’s opinions concerning the teaching of English history and the control of the curriculum that loses none of its urgency as Government ministers seek to implement notions of ‘British values’ that provoke fierce opposition from a range of opponents.
