On reaching home his mother's consternation and sympathy and displeasure at the injury he had received, causing her haste to apply a soft sponge and remedial lotions, would displace all effort to ascertain if her boy was in any degree at fault in bringing on the fray. It is no wonder that there is an enormous increase in the number of physicians in these days if boys thus settle who is the best man. The doctors, we are told, got rich upon small pay, yet now they flourish in treble numbers, as they are required, upon all foot-ball grounds, in particular, and upon all athletic fields in general. Life in miniature is exhibited by the petty incidents of a school boy's history. A single bold adventure is decisive sometimes of a campaign. A challenge to fight two boys at once has been known to give a courageous youngster reputation. The opposition did not want to fight but was intent to discover if the new lad in school would keep his ground saying, like the Scotch thistle, Don't touch me.
There has been during a generation such a fine growth of sentiment that many of the former things, like corporal punishment, have passed away. In school Luther was flogged every day. We have no other right to associate ourselves with a great reformer except in the matter we are now considering. The school thrashing was shown to be a method of separating the chaff from the wheat.
Birch, Beech, and Willow Were the Branches Taken
It certainly was not the custom in our day for the teacher to get down on his knees to the pupils and offer them peppermints if they would only consent to behave. In the government exhibit at Omaha, in a World's Fair, was a series of framed pictures, filled with painful suggestions, illustrating what may be termed, the evolution of the disuse of the switch. The world has moved on to some new conception of moral suasion. These pictures, however, were from real life, as many of us can testify. If any one wanted glimpses of the good old time, there they were. First was a small boy being flogged by a pretty lady teacher. I know that picture to be correct. In the next instance the boy was curled up in bitter anticipation of what was going to happen to him. Next a boy was holding out a ruler at arm's length. Then followed very properly the dunce cap and the fool stool. Then we witnessed the process of shaking or churning where the churner grasps the lapels of the churnee's coat and proceeds to violently agitate the latter with many oscillations. The most suggestive picture of an old-fashioned school was where the discipline appeared to be founded on Solomon's warning. The master stands near the stove with his book in one hand and switch in the other with only one eye on the book. New Jersey now prohibits by law corporal punishment in schools. Eight states prescribe a penalty for excess amounting to cruelty. In Arizona alone the law gives authority to whip. In ten states the courts have decided that, as flogging has been the commonest mode of discipline from time immemorial, the teacher requires no permission to use the birch. In Providence a teacher in the primary grade has to get the written consent of the parents to whip a boy and have it filed with the city superintendent. All these formalities have been developed since the period that we are canvassing.
America's Unhappy Hour
The incident of flogging a pupil did not seem to disturb the school nor seem to interrupt the studies appreciably except when it was one of the big boys that had incurred the master's displeasure. When it was obvious that there was to be a battle royal it became the custom for the tender-hearted, larger girls to rise, without a word or sign from them or the teacher, and pass quietly out of the room at the instant it became plain that hostilities were to begin. The ruler, introduced into the school as an aid in drawing, was often used as a punitive instrument. When the old attendants upon the school get together as jolly good fellows, their word being now unquestioned on any matter of fact, it is noticeable that in reciting their sufferings, it was never the master's fortune to get hold of the guilty party. According to their testimony, the boy that introduced the disorder was not the one that stood for the infliction of punishment. There is usually one boy in school that can on occasion, look cross-eyed and another boy that can move his ears. This comes to the attention of the apple-cheeked girl, who laughing, showed all her teeth like a row of white piano keys. Her fear of discipline made her press the palm of her hand over her pretty mouth, in a sudden, forced attempt to suppress a giggle. The boy, who came next into the comedy, was likeliest to meet the frown of him who must, at once, rule his little empire into a terrified silence.
Putting on the Character with the Coats of Gentlemen
The gymnasium, organized athletics, the ambition of boys to gain a place on the various teams has brought in a milder reign. Another influence is the reflex effect of wearing better clothes. Dress strangely changes the person and curiously affects the character. One of the best preventives of rude Sabbath breaking is a nicely folded, well-fitting Sunday suit. With a rough, coarse, untearable suit goes rough usage all around, and with fine clothes goes politeness of manner. The clothing worn used to be much thicker and heavier. About the neck was a comforter, tippet, scarf, or even a small sized shawl. Men wore fur standing collars, cow-hide boots, and tucked the lower ends of their trousers' legs into them, in rough weather and when engaged in rough work. A bootjack was the commonest kind of household furniture. Boys wore heavy calf-skin boots with attractive red tops, which they desired to have seen, and this foot-wear was copper-toed so that a boy could lie on his face on his sled and steer it in its swift descent of the hill, by ploughing first one toe and then the other into the icy roadway. Any one's feelings will indicate to him, that he must treat himself, and that he must be treated differently by others, when he is clad in light woolens and in thin foot-wear. He must have more civilized walks, a more even warmth in the house, and a more genteel order of life. It shows the reflex influence of refined dress.