New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1875.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4440, 12 June 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1875.

I In another column will be found a letter, with the opinions expressed in which we may say we altogether coincide. That letter deals with the case recently heard at the Resident Magistrate’s Court, Wellington, at the conclusion of which a schoolmaster was fined 20s. and costs, for having, as the Bench considered, caned a boy with unnecessary severity. In anything we may have, to say upon this matter, we would wish it to be distinctly understood that we quite exonerate from blame the magistates who decided the case. They gave the judgment that seemed to them proper, and did so, we have no doubt, in what they considered the interests of justice. But we fancy that, as our correspondent puts it, they scarcely anticipated the probable consequences of such a judgment. Nor, as it seems to us, did they permit themselves to depend quite as much on certain- matters brought out in the defence, and cross-examination of the witnesses for the plaintiff, as they did on a certain sympathy with the boy who had been caned. We have, read the reports of the case pretty attentively, and from them we cannot but arrive at the conclusion that the young gentleman who received the caning did not think that caning undeserved. His being ill the night after it, and thus arousing maternal fears, is easily accounted for. There are certain consequences attendant upon the occasional punishment of schoolboys, which involve no greater evil than a loss of appetite for a night, and a frequently repeated blubbering, as the offender is eveiy now and then reminded in some tender portion of his person of his moral misdoings. The application of a cold slate and a night in bed, as a rule, act as perfect specifics in these cases ; but, nevertheless, a parent too frequently considers that the symptoms betokening so very slight an illness are of a serious nature, and hence the notion that a boy “is very sick.” There can be no doubt that young Johns got a very severe thrashing ; but the question really is, was that thrashing justified by his conduct, and was its severity of a nature likely to involve consequences more serious than the normal type we have mentioned ? In answering these questions, wo must first say that the conduct of the boy in school unquestionably demanded punishment. Moral persuasion is a very lino thing to those who know nothing of the difficulties of a schoolmaster’s position, but there are certain boys with whom moral persuasion is thrown away, and whose consciences are best approached after the fashion of Dr. Birch. A youth who calls his teacher napes before the whole school, and who is evidently insubordinate, is scarcely a subject for moral persuasion, and is much more likely to apprehend the evil ho is doing if convinced of it by the application of a cane. Any one who reads the evidence in the case under notice, will bo satisfied that Master Johns’s was scarcely a case for moral persuasion. As to the severity of the substitute for moral persuasion it is plain, wo think, that his conduct under punishment was evidence that nothing but a pretty forcible application of the rod would suit his case. Of course,. the Doctor’s . evidence showed that this application must have been forcible, oven to an extent that made its effects unpleasant to look at. But in noticing this we are bound to consider also whether, so long as the punishment did not en-

danger his health, it was not very applicable to his case. Thrashing a boy so as to leave marks-can at no time be a pleasant office, and we are sure it was not so to Mr. Pilkington ; but there can be no doubt that some boys need such thrashings. Again, when -a boy goes beyond a certain point in insolence and insubordination, it is rather difficult to administer punishment with that nicety which the magistrates think should be observed. The point at which a schoolmaster may bring on himself a fine of 20s. and costs, is scarcely defineable, when it is considered that thrashing is after all a dernier ressort, and that when it becomes severe it is provoked by such offences as render it rather difficult of adjustment to a particular shade. We feel convinced ourselves, then, that the real object for sympathy in this case is Mr. Pilkington, who has had a certain stigma affixed to his professional character, and against whom it most assuredly has not been proved that' he injured the health of his pupil beyond those evanescent effects of chastisement which the best men in this world have before now experienced. To our minds, the Education Board ought to mark its consciousness of what we have stated by seeing that Mr. Pilkington suffers no pecuniary loss by the penalty incurred by him whilst in the undoubted exercise of his duty. We might further draw the attention of the Bench to the probable consequences of this judgment, which will undoubtedly be the notion amongst schoolboys, especially those of a disorderly character, that every punishment they receive is worthy of a fine and costs on its inflictor, and, therefore, such boys will be all the more ready to imagine themselves that they have received punishment of unexampled severity, and to arouse their parents’ wrath by horrible tales of the same.