Ban beating: what punishments are left?

The schoolmaster who had abolished caning did not find it the easiest thing in the world to provide a satisfactory substitute, wrote “The Odd Fellow” in the Boy’s Own Paper, 7 March 1885.

There can be no doubt that flogging and caning are on the decrease. The next generation will probably know of bodily torture by tradition only. It is true that in a recent Blue Book on Education one Commissioner (a Scotchman) would have boys whipped “for all the bad, if not all offences,” but against that must be put the recommendation of another Commissioner (also a Scotchman; let us be just), who thought that “only in exceptional cases it should be resorted to.”

However, fifty years ago, even twenty, it was the commonest punishment in both public and private schools; in some it was the only one. Perhaps it answered in certain cases; undoubtedly it did not in others. At some private schools a point was made in the prospectus of the fact that no corporal punishment was inflicted. This caught the eye of tender-hearted parents who could not bear the idea of their darling boy being hurt.

But the schoolmaster who had abolished caning did not find it the easiest thing in the world to provide a satisfactory substitute. There was the everlasting copying of odes or lines, but both master and pupil wished for variety. How could it be obtained?

In the course of my researches I have come across some curious experiments. All that I shall mention I will vouch for as having been used at some school within my knowledge. I mention this, as one or two would not claim credence on their own merits.

Which of you, for instance, ever heard of a boy being given a twisted ball of twine to unravel as a reward for misconduct? Yet at one school this was a regular punishment and by no means a pleasant one, the use of the knife to cut the Gordian knot being out of the question.

At the academy at which I spent a portion of my boyhood there was a peculiar punishment for continually falling asleep in church. The somniferous boy had to undress and go to bed at every play-hour during the next day. In warm weather it was endurable, but in winter ­ !

Almost every misconduct at this school met with its reward in the shape of lines. Lines for not knowing lessons, lines for being late, lines for bolstering, lines for everything. “Disorderly conduct meets with its due reward,” was a favourite – with the masters. The boys got a facility for writing them; and could knock off a hundred in no time, or even in less if they used Jenkins’s patent pen, which consisted of two tied together. But it was found that these lines ruined the handwriting, so variation was made. Large words had to be written reaching right across the slate, and had to be filled in laboriously. There was no shirking these, and they were detested accordingly.

Another variation, not, however, adopted at our school was the writing out and bringing up fifteen lines each quarter of an hour throughout the day’s play-hours. This was an aggravating business; the victim couldn’t settle down to anything. Directly he went out he had to come in and start another miserable fifteen; then he was free for the rest of the quarter of an hour, when he had to begin again.

Some years ago Bedford County School had a Mr. Groom as headmaster, and a very good one too if we may judge from the fact that he raised the numbers from twenty-five to a hundred and fifty in eighteen months.

He invented sitting perfectly still as a punishment. It was an odd sight to watch thirty or forty boys in a row doing nothing for twenty minutes. The incorrigible boys were sometimes put to roll the garden-path in view of all the boys and any visitors who might be present. The victims used to ask for a caning instead.

Drawing triangles was an established punishment at another school, perhaps not so useless a proceeding as some, for it produced accuracy of hand. Making a boy stand on a form in the dark was another. Sometimes the boy fell asleep standing, and came down with a run.

Ah! you boys why can’t you cease to torment your instructors? Why make your masters puzzle their brains to invent a new method of making you uncomfortable?

Picture credit: The Hotspur

Traditional School Discipline

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