McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson LXXVIII · Part 8: Dickens, Irving and poems of the heart
84. Squeers's Method (Charles Dickens)
Goal: Your child enjoys a famous comic scene from Dickens and explains what is wrong with Squeers's "practical mode of teaching."
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- A notebook or lined paper and a pencil
What's in the book
From Dickens's novel "Nicholas Nickleby": Nicholas, the new assistant teacher, sees the bare, dirty schoolroom and the hungry boys, then watches Mr. Squeers "teach" by sending boys to clean windows and weed the garden. Definitions and notes about Squeers, Nicholas and Smike follow.
The lesson, step by step
About the author
The book says Charles Dickens (b. 1812, d. 1870) was born at Portsmouth, England, worked as a reporter, became famous with "The Pickwick Papers," visited America in 1842 and 1867, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. It says he excelled in humor and pathos.
The people
Read the notes at the end first. They tell you that Squeers is an ignorant, cruel schoolmaster of a kind once found in Yorkshire, that Nicholas is a well-educated young man who took the job without knowing what Squeers was like, and who Smike is.
Words and meanings
The words and meanings are printed at the end of the lesson. Read a few together before the reading, so they don't trip your child up:
Meagre, thin, lean.
Grotesque, fanciful, absurd.
Diluted, weakened by the addition of water.
Commodity, article, wares.
Your child reads each meaning aloud, then uses the word in a sentence of their own.
Read aloud
Your child reads the lesson aloud. Help with Squeers's odd way of speaking. Here is his method:
"We go upon the practical mode of teaching, Nickleby; the regular education system.
When the boy knows this out of book, he goes and does it.
Talk about it
SayHow does Dickens show us the schoolroom? Which details tell you the boys are badly treated?
SaySqueers spells "winder" and "bottinney." What does that tell us about him as a teacher?
SayWhy are the boys really cleaning windows and grooming the horse? Who gains from his "system"?
SayDickens makes us laugh at Squeers and feel sorry for the boys at the same time. How does he do both?
Tell it back
Close the book.
SayTell me about Squeers's schoolroom and his way of teaching, as if you were Nicholas writing home.
Older children can write their narration in a short paragraph instead. Don't correct while they talk; just listen.
Optional writing
Your child writes a short paragraph: "What a good teacher would have done instead."
Tip
The notes say this book helped bring needed reform to Yorkshire schools. Mention it: a story can change the real world.