Aquinas believed the same. He was the loving gentleman who believed in the undying worm.
IS CORPORAL PUNISHMENT DEGRADING?
* This unfinished and unrevised article was found among Col.
Ingersoll's papers, and is here reproduced without change.—
It is a reply to the Dean of St Paul's Contribution to the
North American Review for Dec., 1891, entitled: "Is Corporal
Punishment Degrading?"
THE Dean of St. Paul protests against the kindness of parents, guardians and teachers toward children, wards and pupils. He believes in the gospel of ferule and whips, and has perfect faith in the efficacy of flogging in homes and schools. He longs for the return of the good old days when fathers were severe, and children affectionate and obedient.
In America, for many years, even wife-beating has been somewhat unpopular, and the flogging of children has been considered cruel and unmanly. Wives with bruised and swollen faces, and children with lacerated backs, have excited pity for themselves rather than admiration for savage husbands and brutal fathers. It is also true that the church has far less power here than in England, and it may be that those who wander from the orthodox fold grow merciful and respect the rights even of the weakest.
But whatever the cause may be, the fact is that we, citizens of the Republic, feel that certain domestic brutalities are the children of monarchies and despotisms; that they were produced by superstition, ignorance, and savagery; and that they are not in accord with the free and superb spirit that founded and preserves the Great Republic.
Of late years, confidence in the power of kindness has greatly increased, and there is a wide-spread suspicion that cruelty and violence are not the instrumentalities of civilization.
Physicians no longer regard corporal punishment as a sure cure even for insanity—and it is generally admitted that the lash irritates rather than soothes the victim of melancholia.