no more talent for teaching than Dr. Blimber.

[Stephen]

Amy's teacher is put down with the phrase that he had no more talent for teaching than Dr. Blimber.

Unable to place any Doctors of Education at that time other than Dr. Arnold of Rugby. I had to do a web search for the nefarious Dr. Blimber. Turns out he's a Dickensian character. In Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens Paul Dombey Jr. attends Dr Blimber's school, he sickens there and dies.

[Deena]

I didn't know that - good hunting job!

[Marie]

it is also mentioned in Eight Cousins, so thank you for helping to define it.

[Kyle]

A character in Dickens: http://www.historyhome.co.uk/readings...

[Brenda]

Dickens (and Charlotte Bronte) crusaded against crappy boarding schools. There was zero regulation in Britain at that time and any creep or moron could set up a school.

[Alexandra]

Thanks. I love the way these books reference other literature of the time; it's a great chain to follow.

[Brenda]

Bronte modeled the disease-ridden girls school in JANE EYRE after the one that her sisters got typhus in. They eventually died, and she was out for blood. She was not only able to get the place shut down, and the proprietor pilloried in the papers, but regs were passed to keep the abuses down.

Dickens nailed the creepy boys schools in NICHOLAS NICKELBY, where the hero is sent to a school in Yorkshire that is clearly run by a maniac. That book created a big scandal as well.

[Miki]

Dr. Blimber is also referenced in Little Men, in a conversion between Jo and her husband.