The second chapter of Hard Times, Murdering the Innocents, is aimed at explain the school’s condition during the Industrialization in Victorian age.

The most important character, Mr. Gradgrind, is portrayed as   “a man of realities”: right from the start the novelist remarks name and surname of the teacher to underline his important.

In the second section Dickens introduces a dialogue between Mr. Gradgrind and number twenty (a girl): thank to this technique the reader can hear and understands the real world of people used in fiction. During his lesson Mr. Gradgrind identifies a student who calls “Girl number twenty”. Mr. Gradgrind doesn't accept the way of conceive the world of Sissy and for this reason he orders to her to answer what he wanted. The lesson continues with Gradgrind's questions, but Sissy didn’t know the definition of horse. So another child in the class, a boy called Bitzer easily defines the animal by means of biological classifications. He gives the exact definition that his teacher has required and for this reason Bitzer seems Mr. Gradgrind's pupil.

Mr. Gradgrind behavior is an example of Utilitarism: in fact he only gives rules and bases his school on a mathematical point of view, so behind an idea of progress.