THE STRAP.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 15, 15 May 1912, Page 7

THE STRAP.

PLEA FOR ITS BANISHMENT. Mr James Hendry, inspector to the Southland Education Hoard, made some interesting comments upon the management of -schools in his latest monthly report to the Education Board. “Every teacher,” he said, “may he presumed to have in his possession ■several of the very large number of excellent treatises now available dealing with the management and government of schools, and may further bo presumed to have made himself more nr loss familiar with the principles enumerated therein. It cannot have escaped the most nnrefleetive student that however much the writers of these books may seem to he at variance on certain points of school policy, there is at least one matter with respect to which there is practical unanimity, to wit, that corporal punishment should never he inflicted for intellectual faults, for stupidy or ignorance. ft should he resorted to only for the worst offences, flat disobedience, obstinacy, vice, gross impertinence, and even for these when there appears to ho no alternative, when every other means of dealing with the offences has been tried and failed. Surely then the corollary is obvious, that the instrument of corporal punishment should not he constantly in view of the children. Acceptance of the above quoted principles would result in its banishment to the teacher’s cupboard or drawer, to ho produced only On the few occasions when its use is imperatively necessary. All teachers will cheerfully subscribe to the dictum of the text-hooks, ye-t many of them-sig-nally fail to square their practice! with their professed belief. In numerous cases the strap is a permanent exhibit on the school wall or on the teacher’s table, a perpetual ‘memento ohedire. The folded leather may he used as a pointer by the teacher cnrreetipg deskwork, it may he-observed 1 ikp the pistol butt of the had'Than from tjie west protruding from the teacher’s pocket, it may oven on occasions servo the purpose of a necklet to an infant mistress. Now all this is as wrong as it can ho, and it is quite unnecessary that I should point out wherein it is wrong. For, an exposition of the Board’s attitude on this matter teachers are referred to a pamphlet forwarded to the schools some years ago. Therein they are reminded that the efficacy of the strap is in inverse proportion to the frequence of application, that the injudicious employment of this artificial stimulus to exertion and good conduct tends to frustrate the very object the teacher has in view, and that the indiscriminate and frequent administration of corporal punishment is an indication of lax discipline, the cause of which is to he sought in the teacher himself.