How often is corporal punishment resorted to at school because the master is in a passion, and he vents his rage upon the poor school-boy’s unfortunate back!
Oh! the mistaken notion that flogging will make a bad-behaved boy a good boy; it has the contrary effect. “‘I dunno how ’tis, sir,’ said an old farm-laborer, in reply to a question from his clergyman respecting the bad behavior of his children, ‘I dunno how ’tis; I beats ’em till they’re black and blue, and when they won’t kneel down to pray I knocks ’em down, and yet they ain’t good.’”[[286]]
In an excellent article in Temple Bar (November, 1864) on flogging in the army, the following sensible remarks occur: “In nearly a quarter of a century’s experience with soldiers, the writer has always, and without a single exception, found flogging makes a good man bad, and a bad man worse.” With equal truth it may be said that, without a single exception, flogging makes a good boy bad, and a bad boy worse. How many men owe their ferocity to the canings they received when school-boys! The early floggings hardened and soured them, and blunted their sensibility.
Dr. Arnold of Rugby, one of the best school-masters that England ever produced, seldom caned a boy—not more than once or twice during the half year; but when he did cane him, he charged for the use of the cane each time in the bill, in order that the parents might know how many times their son had been punished. At some of our public schools nowadays a boy is caned as many times in a morning as the worthy doctor would have caned him during the whole half year; but then the doctor treated the boys as gentlemen, and trusted much to their honor; but now many school-masters trust much to fear, little to honor, and treat them as brute beasts.
It might be said that the discipline of a school cannot be maintained unless the boys be frequently caned—that it must be either caning or expulsion. I deny these assertions. Dr. Arnold was able to conduct his school with honor to himself, and with immense benefit to the rising generation, without either frequent canings or expulsions. The humane plan, however, requires at first both trouble and patience; and trouble some school-masters do not like, and patience they do not possess; the use of the cane is quick, sharp, and at the time effective.
If caning be ever necessary, which it might occasionally be, for the telling of lies for instance, or for gross immorality, let the head master himself be the only one to perform the operation, but let him not be allowed to delegate it to others. A law ought in all public schools to be in force to that effect. High time that something was done to abate such disgraceful practices.
Never should a school-master, or any one else, be allowed, on any pretense whatever, to strike a boy upon his head. Boxing of the ears has sometimes caused laceration of the drum of the ear, and consequent partial deafness for life. Boxing of the ears injures the brain, and therefore the intellect.
It might be said that I am traveling out of my province in making remarks on corporal chastisement in schools. But, with deference, I reply that I am strictly in the path of duty. My office is to inform you of everything that is detrimental to your children’s health and happiness; and corporal punishment is assuredly most injurious both to their health and happiness. It is the bounden duty of every man, and especially of every medical man, to lift up his voice against the abominable, disgusting, and degrading system of flogging, and to warn parents of the danger and the mischief of sending boys to those schools where flogging is permitted.
343. Have you any observations to make on the selection of a female boarding-school?
Home education, where it be practicable, is far preferable to sending a girl to school; as at home, her health, her morals, and her household duties can be attended to much more effectually than from home. Moreover, it is a serious injury to a girl, in more ways than one, to separate her from her own brothers; they very much lose their affection for each other, and mutual companionship (so delightful and beneficial between brothers and sisters) is severed.