Hard times is set out in three different books: The Sowing; The Reaping; The Garnering. They are named so as it has a special reference to the education and upbringing of children. The titles collectively underlines the basic plot. It suggests that the grounding children received in their formative years would directly affect their adult lives. This comes evident as pupils of the Gradgrind system of education is not ready to tackle situations which require …showed first 75 words of 2096 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2096 total…obably intended to produce people with no ability to think for themselves, with suppressed imaginations. The Gradgrind system of education has no interest in making pupils into well rounded people and is only an evil way of denying children their childhood for their own personal benefit. In Hard Times Dickens uses the book as the medium to express his bitter feelings against systems of education that were like Gradgrind's, that were plentiful in Victorian Times.