"There is no fault he doth but he is punished. Sometimes he wringeth him by the ear, sometimes he giveth him a strype on the hand with the ferrul, sometimes beateth him sharply with the rod."
Great Cromwell was sent off to school with injunctions to the master, Dr. Beard, to flog the boy soundly "for persisting in the wickedness of the assertion" that he had had a vision and prophecy of his future greatness. Dr. Johnson told of the unmerciful beating he had by one Master Hunter, who was "very wrong-headedly severe." He said the man never distinguished between ignorance and negligence, and beat as hard for not knowing a thing as for neglecting to know it, and as he whipped would shout, "This I do to save you from the gallows." Still the Doctor was grateful for the beatings, as he felt to them he owed his knowledge of Latin; and he approved of the rod, saying of some well-behaved young ladies whose mother had whipped them oft and heavily, in variation of one of Shakespeare's lines, "Rod, I will honor thee for this thy duty." His creed of correction was this:—
"I would rather have the rod to be the general terror to all, to make them learn, than to tell a child, if you do this, or thus, you will be more esteemed than your brothers and sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't. Whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters hate each other."
The illustrations of old Dutch books that show school furniture, have the odd ferules of monkish days, the flat ladle-shaped pieces of wood which were distinctly for striking the palm of the scholar's hand. The derivation of the word "ferule" is interesting. It is from ferula, fennel. The tough stalks of the giant fennel of Southern Europe were used by the Roman schoolmasters as an instrument of castigation.
21. THE DUNCE.
This is a sight to give us pain,
Once seen ne'er wished to see again.
Illustration from Plain Things for Little Folks
Old English lesson books of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many, even, of the early years of this century, that have any illustrations of classes, schoolmasters, or school interiors, invariably picture the master with a rod or bunch of birch twigs. An old herbalist says:—