In the Summer 2007 Memoria Press catalog, called The Classical
Teacher, appears an article, “Is Fiction False?” by Martin
Cothran. This author likens “modern people” to Thomas Gradgrind,
“the schoolmaster in Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, who, when he
is introduced in chapter two of that book, asks his class to
define a horse. He first asks Sissy Jupe, whom he calls ‘Girl
number twenty,’ to define a horse. Her father is a horsebreaker,
and she has lived around them her whole life; but when Gradgrind
asks her to define what a horse is, she is perplexed and
speechless.” Gradgrind then asks a boy named Bitzer, who pleases
Gradgrind with his definition: “Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty
teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve
incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds
hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age
known by marks in mouth.” Cothran then observes, “Of course,
Sissy Jupe knew what a horse was better than anyone else in the
class, including the