CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE STATE SCHOOL.

Kumara Times, Issue 1702, 14 March 1882, Page 2

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT IN THE STATE SCHOOL.

[to the editor.} Sni—l am glad to see tlmt the visiting School Committee are disposed t 0: pay some attention to the physical condition of the children attending the State' School. 1 heir suggestion about backs to the seats seems to be a good onebut, whilst attending to tlie wooden backs and Seats,- it would be well if they would also examine another class of backs and seats ; if they did so, I fear they would find many of them in a bad condition. Judging from the veils g£ud stream's which proceed from the school every day, about breaking up time, I have been led to suspect that some horrible system of torture is being practised in the school, and careful inquiries have proved that my suspicions were not groundless. If the committee make equally careful inquiries, they will find that from fifteen to twenty children are flogged every week, and this for- the most trivial offences. This I consider to be most barbarous and degrading, both to the children and to the master. Fancy what a mind the man.must have who can deliberately; inflict torture seven or eight hundred times a year on helpless children. We all know that the lash, in the eyes of our humane legislators, is considered so degrading a punishment that they can hardly bring, themselves to legalise its use in the case of the most hardened criminals, and yet our children are to be subjected to it for such trifling offences as being late at school, accidentally spilling ink on their books, or failing to do a sum which their minds are incapable of understanding. It is all very well fin- a master to be anxious to reap the personal benefits which accrue to him when his scholais pass a good examination ; but I am sure that any system, of forcing which is carried out by torturing and degrading the scholars will be useless and injurious to them, both in the present and the future. One of our greatest writers, a deep observer of human nature, has said that “no advantage ever compensates for breaking a child’s spirit; never let him learn, more than you can help it, the crushing bitterness of fear. A bold child who looks you in the face, speaks the truth, and shames the devil: that is the stuff of which to make good and brave, aye and wise, men.”—l am, yours, A Lover of Children, March 13, 1882.