A. A. Dixon's seventh lithograph for Dickens's "American Notes" — “I expressed myself satisfied.” (1906)

“I expressed myself satisfied.”

Arthur A. Dixon

1906

lithograph

4 ⅞ inches high by 3 ⅛ inches wide (12.3 cm by 8.1 cm)

Sixth regular illustration for the Collins Pocket edition, facing p. 256.

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite it in a print one.]

Passage Realised: Texts Far Beyond the Child-readers’ Comprehensions

Cincinnati is honourably famous for its free schools, of which it has so many that no person’s child among its population can, by possibility, want the means of education, which are extended, upon an average, to four thousand pupils, annually. I was only present in one of these establishments during the hours of instruction. In the boys’ department, which was full of little urchins (varying in their ages, I should say, from six years old to ten or twelve), the master offered to institute an extemporary examination of the pupils in algebra; a proposal, which, as I was by no means confident of my ability to detect mistakes in that science, I declined with some alarm. In the girls’ school, reading was proposed; and as I felt tolerably equal to that art, I expressed my willingness to hear a class. Books were distributed accordingly, and some half-dozen girls relieved each other in reading paragraphs from English History. But it seemed to be a dry compilation, infinitely above their powers; and when they had blundered through three or four dreary passages concerning the Treaty of Amiens, and other thrilling topics of the same nature (obviously without comprehending ten words), I expressed myself quite satisfied. It is very possible that they only mounted to this exalted stave in the Ladder of Learning for the astonishment of a visitor; and that at other times they keep upon its lower rounds; but I should have been much better pleased and satisfied if I had heard them exercised in simpler lessons, which they understood. [Chapter XI, "From Pittsburg to Cincinnati in a Western Steamboat — Cincinnati," pp. 249-250]

Commentary: Dickens's Personal Engagement with Education

Although Charles Dickens and his wife became experts on America's pre-Civil War transportation networks and visited a number of charitable institutions, they had few opportunities to visit public elementary and secondary schools. Here, Dickens voices his suspicion that the oral reading staged for his benefit in the girls' class on English history was contrived on the spur of the moment, and staged without the benefit of age-appropriare texts. To be polite, he expressed his satisfaction, but in fact was relieved when the reading aloud exercise ended.

In The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens (1999), Paul Schlicke indicates that throughout his life Dickens was interested in the subject of equal access to education, a concern reflected in his "fiction, journalism, and public speeches" (210), as well, of course, as in such novels as David Copperfield. He criticized the misconduct of inadequate masters such as Wackford Squeers in Nicholas Nickleby and Creakle at Salem House in Copperfield, but rarely did he offer practical solutions, or, as here, directly comment upon such classroom and curricular matters as the suitability of curriculum materials. As a strong believer in free, public, and "non-sectarian" (210) education in his own country, he was naturally enthusiastic about Cincinnati's "free schools," as opposed to those schools in Great Britain which, charging hefty fees, were inaccessible to the child of the Common Man. "In the year of his death [1870] Parliament passed the Elementary Education Act, which further raised the standard of teacher training and effectively inaugurated compulsory schooling" (213).

Related Materials

Bibliography

Davis, Paul. Charles Dickens A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark and Facts On File, 1998.

Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy and American Notes for General Circulation. Diamond Edition. 14 vols. Illustrated by Sol Eytinge, Junior. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1867. Vol. XI.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes for General Circulation and Pictures from Italy. The Illustrated Library Edition. Illustrated by Marcus Stone. London: Chapman & Hall, 1874.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy, Volume XX, in the New York: P. F. Collier & Son edition, n. d.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes. Illustrated by Arthur A. Dixon. London and Glasgow: Collins Clear-Type Press, 1906.

Dickens, Charles. American Notes and Pictures from Italy, Volume 20, in the New York: P. F. Collier & Son edition, n. d.

Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield, with 61 illustrations by Fred Barnard. Household Edition. 22 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1872. Vol. III.

Dickens, Charles. Pictures from Italy and American Notes for General Circulation. Illustrated by Thomas Nast. Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1877. Vol. VII.

Schlicke, Paul. "Education." The Oxford Reader's Companion to Dickens. Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1999. Pp.209-213.

Slater, Michael. Chapter 8: "America brought to book, 1842." Charles Dickens.New Haven and London: Yale U. P., 2009. Pp. 175-206.

Created 4 September 2026