Head went from classroom to classroom and caned every boy in the school
When no boy admitted drawing a rude picture on a wall, a headmaster spent the afternoon going from classroom to classroom administering one stroke of the cane to each of the boys, who had been lined up to take their punishment. His case ended up in the House of Commons and gave the newspapers the opportunity to deliberate over the value of school beatings.
The first report is from the Daily
Herald, 13 July 1954. It is followed by a statement from the British
Education Minister and finally a journalist reminds us, “In famous public
schools the cane is still the master. Even house captains and prefects in some
of these schools are allowed to cane smaller boys without reference to an
adult.”
EVERY
ONE
OF
THE 200
WAS
CANED
MR. OLIVER Whitfield, headmaster of Usworth Secondary
Modern School, Washington, Co. Durham, warned the 200 boys that he would cane
every one of them if there were any further disfigurement of the school porch
and no one owned up to it.
His warning followed the appearance of rude drawings
on the walls of the newly-decorated porch.
Four days later new work by the anonymous artist was
found.
ONE
BY ONE
And when no one admitted doing it, Mr. Whitfield spent
an afternoon going from classroom to classroom administering one stroke of the
cane to each of the boys, who had been lined up to take their punishment.
Said Mr. Whitfield yesterday: “I rarely use the cane,
but this time I think it was justified.
“None of the pupils’ parents has complained. Many
think it was a good thing.”
And the boys? Said one boy: “He always means what he
says.”
‘SACK
CANING
HEAD’
DEMAND
(Daily
Mirror, 30 July 1954)
THE sacking of a headmaster who “punished 199 innocent boys” was demanded in the Commons yesterday.
The demand was made by MR. PETER FREEMAN (Lab.,
Newport) who asked MISS FLORENCE HORSBRUGH, Education Minister, if she
knew that Mr. Oliver Whitfield, of Usworth (Co. Durham) Secondary Modern
School, had caned 200 boys because he was unable to discover the culprit of a
misdemeanour alleged to have been made by one of them.
[Because no one owned up to a rude drawing on the
newly-painted porch of the school 200 boys were caned.]
Miss Horsbrugh replied that she had seen reports of
the incident.
“Disciplinary matters of this kind are within the
discretion of the headmaster and the local education authority, and I would not
wish to intervene,” she said. “In any case, I have no power to require the
dismissal of a headmaster.”
Mr. Freeman asked if this were not a gross abuse of
the ordinary customs of justice? Were not the children being denied justice?
Had she not a responsibility to safeguard their interests?
Miss Horsbrugh: “I am not expressing an opinion
whether there was justice or not.”
The
schools and the cane
A
HEADMASTER STARTS A NEW CONTROVERSY
By
Alan Dick, Daily Herald, 15 July 1954
THE schoolteacher’s cane is in the dock again, put
there by the headmaster who caned his whole school because nobody would own up
to drawing a rude picture on the school porch.
Teachers everywhere were talking about it yesterday –
about the principle of mass punishments and the argument for and against the
cane.
Another headmaster of a co-educational school in the
Midlands was against not only mass punishment – but the use of the cane
altogether.
“It degrades the hand which wields it and the hand
which receives it,” he said.
Some teachers backed up the headmaster on the grounds
that the average boys would prefer a stroke of the cane to detention or lines.
Nearly all of them want to keep the cane. They feel it
is a last resort to uphold their authority.
In State schools, only the head can cane. Local
education authorities ask their teachers to use the cane only when everything
else has field, and then only one pupils whose actions threaten the well-being
of the school or their classmates.
GIRLS?
– NO!
ALTHOUGH some headmistresses of girls’ schools use the
cane, education committees frown on the caning of girls and on caning any child
in the presence of others.
In famous public schools the cane is still the master.
Even house captains and prefects in some of these schools are allowed to cane
smaller boys without reference to an adult. The yelp of the Bunter
is still heard in the quad.
But less historic and more progressive schools believe
that there are punishments more effective than the cane, and less dangerous.
School teachers to whom I spoke said the children’s
most hated punishments are in this order: sarcasm, being reported at home,
having games or treats stopped, being given extra work.
Most schoolboys would rather have six of the best than
any of these, they believed.
In fact, sarcasm is so feared by children that many
teachers try not to employ it. Boys and girls feel utterly defenceless against
this exclusively adult weapon, I was told.
Northern Ireland recently made national rules for
caning, laying down as law that “the cane must be light and inflicted only on
the hands and the posterior.”
There the law says that no child under eight can be
caned. Under-tens can have no more than two strokes, over tens no more than
six.
Without having a law about it, most English State
schools obey the same rules.
In Scotland they still use the tawse – a leather strap
always used on the hand.
NOTHING
NEW
DON’T think the mass caning by Mr. Oliver Whitfield,
the headmaster who caned his 200 boys, is anything new.
When Hugh Dalton
was head of his house at Eton, he once beat nearly every boy in the house
because nobody would own up to writing rude words on a wall.
And only a few years ago a music teacher at a Manchester
secondary school caned his whole class because none would admit to a
misdemeanour.
BUT MOST TEACHERS ARE AGAINST COLLECTIVE
PUNISHMENT. AND MANY OF THEM THINK THAT THE TIME HAS COME TO SCRAP THE CANE.
Picture credit: Darrien.
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