Education Theme Analysis

Education occupies an important role in North and South. The Hales would not have left their native Helstone if Mr. Hale’s studies had not raised religious doubts; if Thornton, the manufacturer, had not desired tutelage to address his educational gaps, then the Hales wouldn’t likely have moved to Milton. Yet, throughout the story, tension exists as to the proper role of learning. While some dismiss learning as a self-indulgent distraction, others see its value as determined by its ends. Through this tension, Gaskell argues that learning and education should not be ends in themselves, but should be targeted to the needs of the present day, benefiting learned and unlearned alike.

Some characters disparage learning itself as useless and even harmful. When Margaret and her father call on Mrs. Thornton, the latter expresses skepticism about her son’s renewed study of the classics. “Classics may do very well for men who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges,” she pointedly huffs, “but Milton men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of today.” With these remarks, she implies that Mr. Hale’s background has been self-indulgent, and she elevates “work,” not ideas, as relevant for society. Ever loyal to Mrs. Hale, Dixon, the Hales’ servant, complains that Mr. Hale should have taken better care of his wife instead of “always reading, reading, thinking, thinking. See what it has brought him to! Many a one who never reads nor thinks either, gets to be Rector, and Dean...” Like Mrs. Thornton, Dixon views learning in instrumental terms; if all Mr. Hale’s reading did not advance his career, she thinks, then it served no purpose, and even caused harm to his dependents.

Most characters, however, see a valid place for learning, but argue that it’s misused when it is wrongly deployed, or insufficiently married to action. When Higgins recalls his former employer, Hamper, rudely recommending a book of economic theory to him as a way of silencing Higgins’ complaints, Mr. Hale suggests that, regardless of the attitude with which it was offered, the book would nevertheless have told Higgins the truth. Higgins responds that, regardless of its truthfulness, the book is gibberish to him if it’s in a form he’s unable to receive: “I’m not one who [thinks] truth can be shaped out in words, all neat and clean, as th’ men at th’ foundry cut out sheet-iron … Folk who sets up to doctor th’ world wi’ their truth, [must] suit different for different minds.” In Higgins’s view, theoretical learning may have its place. Unless it is expressed in a way that’s accessible to its intended recipients, however, it might as well be a foreign language.

When Mr. Hale’s Oxford friend, Mr. Bell, visits Milton, Thornton and Bell argue about the relevance of study. Unlike the ancient Greeks, Thornton argues, “we do not look upon life as a time for enjoyment, but as a time for action and exertion … It is fine when the study of the past leads to a prophecy of the future. But to men groping in new circumstances, it would be finer if the words of experience could direct us how to act in what concerns us most intimately and immediately…” Unlike his mother, Thornton sees value in classical study, or else he would not have hired Mr. Hale to help him fill the gaps in his education. However, he disagrees with the scholarly Bell that the past should be studied for its own sake. Study is not something to be enjoyed at leisure, in his view; it must rather be pressed into service in grappling with the concerns of the day.

After Mr. Hale’s death, Henry Lennox muses to Bell that there had been no need for Hale to give up his position as Helstone rector. “These country clergymen live such isolated lives,” he claims, “that they are very apt to disturb themselves with imaginary doubts as to the articles of faith, and throw up certain opportunities of doing good for very uncertain fancies of their own.” His remarks are haughtily dismissive of Hale’s crisis of conscience, as well as the good done by the Hales in Milton. However, his attitude is in keeping with Gaskell’s point that isolated study can become detached from daily realities, failing to serve those who might benefit from it.

When she visits Helstone at the end of the story, even Margaret concludes that Mr. Hale’s old study in the rectory “had conduced … to the formation of a character more fitted for thought than action.” But Hepworth, Hale’s less bookish successor, is portrayed ambivalently as well. “Even during the composition of his most orthodox sermons,” the rector watched out his newly-built window so that he might “[sally] out after his parishioners, who had need of quick legs if they could take refuge in the ‘Jolly Forester’ before the teetotal Vicar had arrested them.” If anything, Gaskell suggests, the proactive Hepworth could stand to cultivate more of his predecessor’s meditative frame. Gaskell upholds the value of thought and learning, but they must always be anchored to the needs of everyday life, answerable to human beings.