The rule of the cane
He brought the stick round from behind his back for the boys to have a look at.
“It’s fantastic isn’t it, that in this day and age, in
this super-scientific, all-things-bright-and-splendiferous age, that the only
way of running this school efficiently is by the rule of the cane. But why?
There should be no need for it now. You lot have got it on a plate.
“I can understand why we had to use it back in the
’twenties and ’thirties. Those were hard times, they bred hard people, and it
needed hard measures to deal with them. But those times bred people with
qualities totally lacking in you people today. They bred people with respect
for a start. We knew where we stood in those days, and even today a man will
often stop me in the street and say ‘Hello Mr Gryce, remember me?’ And we’ll
pass the time of day and chat, and he’ll laugh about the thrashings I gave him.
“But what do I get from you lot? A honk from a greasy
youth behind the wheel of some big second-hand car. Or an obscene remark from a
gang – after they’ve passed me.
“They took it then, but not now, not in the day of the
common man, when every boy quotes his rights, and shoots off home for his
father as soon as I look at him ... No guts ... No backbone .... you’ve nothing
to commend you whatsoever. You’re just fodder for the mass media!”
Picture credit: Kes movie
Extracted from A
Kestrel for a Knave, By Barry Hines (Penguin, 1968).
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