INSPECTOR'S REPORT ON PUNISHMENTS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 5, 5 January 1877, Page 2

INSPECTOR'S REPORT ON PUNISHMENTS.

Nelson Jan. 2, 1877. , The Chairman of the Nelson Education Board. Sir,— l hare the honor to report that, in accordance with the Board's instructions, I have made inquiries of our teachers, during my last round of inspection, as to the kind and degree of punishment usually employed by them. With three or four exceptions, the answers, I though given without previous concert, were so much alike that the same formula might have sufficed for all. I was informed that discipline was maintained Jby means of impositions, loss of marks, detention in school during play time, and— rarely, and in extreme cases— the use of the cane. Masters and mistresses alike deprecated the abolition of the power of using corporal puuishment as a last resource. I have grounds for beliaving that instances of excessive severity are now very rare in our schools, and that public opinion, the current of which is now setting strongly in favor of a milder treatment of children, both in and out of school, will, as a rule, prove a sufficient check against anything like systematic ill treatment on the part of a teacher. The cases mil also be rare in which a reprimand from a Local Committee will fail to prevent the repetition of an isolated act of cruelty. I may state that I am. with the majority of our teachers in thinking that it wouid be unwise to deprive them of the power of inflicting corporal punishment in extreme cases. To do this would be to offer a premium to insubordination. While believing that the use of the cane may well be dispensed with in our upper classes, where habits of obedience have been formed, and where there exists a sense of shame that can be appealed to, I cannot see how the younger children, many of whom have the very rudiments of discipline to learn, can be brought into subjection, especially in our larger schools, without an occasional appeal to physical force. On the whole, I do not think any interference on the part of the Board would mend matters. The checks that I have already indicated — '. to say nothing of the dread of legal proceedings, with all their disagreable consequences —seem to me sufficient to protect the school children from really harsh treatment; while the practical difficulty of framing any general set of rules on the subject that would work weil, and that would not be constantly evaded is very great. I have, &c, W. C. Hodgson, Inspector.