Canings don’t work because boys treat it as an honour, schoolmaster reveals

The desire to pose as a hero is a very strong instinct among boys, and there is something heroic and manly to their mind in braving the terrors of birch or cane. – This from July 1909.

HEROIC VICTIMS OF BIRCH AND CANE

Why Impositions Do Boys More Good Than Floggings

“LINES, NOT STROKES”

 “The main incentive to offend among schoolboys is the impulse to take a sporting chance of a flogging, and thereby gain the admiration of less venturesome souls.”

This dictum, expressed by Dr. Spencer, headmaster of University College School on Thursday, has aroused great interest in the schoolboy world.

“Flogging and caning are becoming ineffectual punishments nowadays in our schools, as the average boy is inclined to treat it as an honour rather than a disgrace,” an assistant master of a public [elite] school told The Daily Mirror yesterday.

“The desire to pose as a hero is a very strong instinct among boys, and there is something heroic and manly to their mind in braving the terrors of birch or cane.

“Corporal punishment, therefore, does very little good in a school unless it is employed very rarely and only for serious offences.

“The boy who takes a sporting chance of a flogging, as Dr. Spencer suggests, is apt to aim at playing the hero to his fellows.

INGLORIOUS LINES

“On the other hand, there is nothing heroic or courageous in risking two hours’ detention or the writing out of 1,000 lines of Milton or Virgil.

“They are hard lines indeed. Such a punishment is punishment indeed, and there is no glory to be got out of it. It is ‘stodgy,’ laborious work to the victim and unexciting to his fellows.

“Therefore a schoolmaster finds it far more effective to keep order by impositions than by corporal punishment. ‘Lines, not strokes,’ is the order of to-day.”

At the prize distribution at the City of London School yesterday the opinions of several schoolboys on this subject was obtained by The Daily Mirror.

“The ‘head’ of this school doesn’t believe in whacking us,” said one boy. “I wish he did. It is ten times better than being kept in.”

“When I was at a private school I had a ripping time,” said another boy. “Of course, I like it here; but there I used to be caned on the hand every day.

“They used to give us a different number of strokes for different offences – three for being late, three for neglecting work, six for throwing inkpots at the blackboard, and so on.

“Yes, we took a sporting risk of being found out. We knew exactly what punishment we should get.

“Here there is not much fun in doing things we ought not to do. We get punished by detention.”

As published in The Daily Mirror, 31 July 1909.

Picture credit: Raymond Glendenning’s Book of Sport for Boys Publisher Andrew Dakers.

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