CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2131, 4 March 1908, Page 2

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS.

The parent who writes in this issue on the subject of the use of the cane in school, voices a trouble which concerns parents in many homes. The course suggested by the hoadmaster, Air Rowley, namely that those having complaints to make should make them through the headmaster, is obviously the correct one, but the great usefulness of the press as a means of ventilating matters of public concern has become so generally appreciated that many people have been led to look upon it- as providing tlie only opportunity for remedying a fancied grievance, i’lio letter raises tile whole question of corporal punishment in -schools, and, without in any way commenting on the particular case mentioned by our correspondent, we have no hesitation in saying that in the majority of tlio schools in tlie Dominion, there is far too much reliance upon the cano and strap as a means to imparting information. A few months ago the Hawkes Bay Board of Education issued a number of regulations dealing with various phases of school life, including that to which reference -s now made. This regulation states that corporal punishment must be administered only in extreme cases and not for small breaches of school discipline, and must never he inflicted by pupil teachers. The regulation further sots out that extreme infliction of corporal punishment will he taken as an indication of lack of personal influence on the part of tho teacher. In the last sentence the Board touches the keynote of tho position. The use of corporal punishment except in the most extreme cases, is undoubtedly an evidence of weakness on the part of the teacher. There may, we wifi grant, be cases of very. rare occurrence, where the teacher’s personality having failed to maintain discipline, an appeal to the rod becomes necessary, but even these special instances do not a fleet the general principle. It is pure nonsense to assert that a child should receive physical punishment because lie or she has failed to grasp the significance of an arithmetical problem in which the essentials hare been cunningly hidden under confusing details or tho memory has failed to absorb tho numberless exceptions

Iu the rules governing Llro English language. The use <>!’ the eane may inspire a child with a wholesome tear of the teacher, but is scarcely likely to promote the sympathy between teacher and taught which is, alter all, the chief factor in the degree of success attained. There may be something to be said for the master who culls out a big hulking boy who has openly defied authority and gives him a sound drubbing, but the spectacle of little tots of lender years being placed on the lloor in front of the whole class there to await a caning for some failure in lessons is to our mind far from edifying. A few weeks ago a New York eiblegram notified the fact that a large number of le-idiers in American schools from which the eane and strap and been abolished, had in conference decided against the re-introduction of corporal punishment, and we firmly believe similar results would obtain were the experiment tried here. Old customs die hard, and the use of the eane lias come down to us from our ancestors as an integral part of our educational system; but despite the firm hold it still has on the minds of many capable educationalists we believe it is only a matter of time when the cane and strap will be abolished from every school in the Dominion, and that subsequent generations will look back upon them as relics of semi-barbarous times.