USE OF CANE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 173, 15 March 1932, Page 6

USE OF CANE

SYDNEY HEADMASTER FINED FOR THRASHING BOY. TEACHERS' CONTROVERSY. SYDNEY, Saturcay. It is on record that a Yorkshire schoolmaster caned a whole class of fifty boys because they spelled "pigeon" without a "d"! Imagine that resolute teacher's feebngs if he could learn that, in Sydney in the year 1932, a headmaster who caned only one boy, was ordered by a jury to pay £91 damages! That finding has caused a great deal of interest. The penalised master, Mr. N. W. Drummond, principal of the Newtown Technical College, is an experienced teacher and a member of the executive of the Teachers, Federation. Argument has arisen as to whether Mr. Drummond himself or the Education Department (of which he was the accredited agent) should pay the bill; but the chief point that concerns teachers is one affecting the course of school conduct in New South Wales — how far this verdict is going to influence the use of the cane. The department regulation on the subject lays it down that every headmaster may administer corporal punishment in extreme cases, at the same time requiring hmi to keep a record of the time and place, the nature of the offence, and the amount of the punishment. Old Days. Whether or not the use of the cane is justified in schools to-day (r.nd the departmental regulation affirms that it is), there can be no doubt that the teacher has lost much of his fine old zest in the gentle art of flogging. Who cannot feel again the mertal stress of attempting to decide qm'ckly whether to have three "cuts" on one hand and one on the other or two on each hand, or all four on the one hand? Dr. Johnson was thrashed at school pretty well every day. Thackeray, Tennyson, Gladstone, and other men of eminence have left records of floggings endured by them with a certain measure of Christian fortitude. Dr. John .Keate, who, starting in 1809, swayed the destinies of Eton for many years, had one remedy for everything — flogging. He once flogged 72 boys in succession for cheatmg in Latin verse. And in the school rebellion of 1832 he flogged at least 80 boys in the small hours of a Sunday morning. The Teachers' Federation yesterday decided to obtain legal opinion with a view to an appeal in the case in which a headmaster had been ordered to pay £91 damages to a student whom he had caned.