Newspaper attacks public school prefects for beating junior boys. Headmasters fight back
“I was late for chapel by a few seconds, and was reported to the head of house,” he said.
“That evening, after I had gone to bed, I
was summoned to his study in my pyjamas. This was part of the traditional
ritual – you were always called for a beating after lights out.
“The house captain was holding a cane –
about three feet long. He told me to take off my dressing-gown.
“Then with another prefect watching, I had
to bend over and touch my toes, while he gave me four strokes, very hard. It
was agonising, but tradition demanded that I didn’t make a sound.”
– An account given of a
prefect’s beating at a public [elite] school in England as part of a newspaper
article from 1966 attacking the tradition of allowing prefects to cane junior
boys.
A
PLEA FOR THE POOR LITTLE RICH BOY
It’s
downright dangerous to let them beat each other
By
John Justice
YOUR LITTLE BOY comes home crying from school. “Mum,”
he says, “a big boy gave me a thrashing with a cane. And the headmaster said it
was all right.”
You would be furious, would you not? Personally, I
would make ready to storm the bastions of Whitehall, demanding that damned
headmaster’s head on a platter.
Yet there are pond parents in Britain today who calmly
expose their sons to such brutality by fellow pupils. In fact, they pay
handsomely for the privilege.
I mean, of course, the parents of our
public school boys.
Once again we are hearing the public school system
defended on the grounds of its “tradition.” Yet one of the most powerful
indictments against many of these schools is the tradition of flogging.
It is an extraordinary fact that in these days, when
the cane is fast disappearing from State schools, the prefects of such stately
establishments as Eton, Winchester, Harrow and Marlborough are permitted to
give six of the best to smaller boys.
It’s good for ’em, say the traditionalists. Teaches
’em discipline. Any little weed who blubbers is held up to ridicule. Builds
character.
But that is just what it does NOT do, according to
doctors and psychiatrists I spoke to this week.
They fear it can lead to serious abnormalities in
later life.
A leading psychiatrist told me: “It can produce
definite tendencies to sadism and masochism – the abnormalities which involve
pleasure from inflicting or receiving pin.”
Discipline
Yet at Millfeld, Britain’s most expensive school (up
to £1,000 a year), prefects can beat boys, with their housemaster’s permission.
Mr. Jack Meyer, the headmaster, is one of those who
believe that sparing the rod spoils the child.
“Psychiatrists are out of touch,” he said. “Most
juvenile delinquents are suffering from too few beatings when young. It’s not
love they lack, but discipline.”
Mr. Anthony Chenevix-Trench, headmaster of Eton, is
another who thinks there is a place for the cane in Britain’s education.
“It is still the best deterrent and it is favoured as
a punishment by the boys themselves,” he said.
“A beating is understood and accepted by most pupils.
It is over and done with quickly. We don’t just hand out the cane as a stupid
tradition.
“In fact the pain of the beating is secondary to the
indignity caused. This is the effective part of the punishment
“Very little abuse of the cane has occurred at Eton. I
would like to say, however, that in line with most schools, corporal punishment
is dying out.”
Beatings are becoming less frequent too at Winchester
(£600 a year) where the headmaster, Sir Desmond Lee, told me: “I wouldn’t say
that corporal punishment leads to sexual abnormality.
“The trouble is finding an alternative that is
effective. The cane symbolises authority and it is short and sharp.”
The cane at Winchester is used “for serious breaches
of discipline, and where a prefect is doing the beating it is carefully
supervised.”
Supervision includes one or more prefects watching as
the offender is thrashed. This is to ensure “fair play.”
But, according to some psychiatrists, this
is even more dangerous. It can lead to unnatural pleasure which may remain and
increase in later life.
The eminent psychiatrist Dr. Desmond O’Neil told me:
“The practice of prefects beating junior pupils while others watch is quite
wrong, and can endanger their future normality.
“And by introducing the unpleasant spectator element,
the indignity suffered by the punished boy is much greater.”
Of course, the majority of boys who have been beaten
at school emerge none the worse.
But the fact the experts believe it can result in
sexual abnormality is sufficient reason for abolishing the cane – certainly as
a punishment inflicted by prefects.
Agonising
A former pupil at Marlborough College (£561 a year)
described to me the ordeal of being thrashed by another boy two years older
than himself.
“I was late for chapel by a few seconds, and was
reported to the head of house,” he said.
“That evening, after I had gone to bed, I was summoned
to his study in my pyjamas. This was part of the traditional ritual – you were
always called for a beating after lights out.
“The house captain was holding a cane – about three
feet long. He told me to take off my dressing-gown.
“Then with another prefect watching, I had to bend
over and touch my toes, while he gave me four strokes, very hard. It was
agonising, but tradition demanded that I didn’t make a sound.”
Fortunately not all public schools approve of beating.
At Leighton Park – the Quaker School near Reading – the cane has not been used
since before the war.
Mr. John Ounsted, the headmaster, told me: “I believe
there is less misbehaviour in a school which has no corporal punishment.
Maintaining discipline is, if anything, easier.”
Mr. Ounsted also condemns the practice of prefects
beating junior boys.
“I think it can lead to sexual abnormalities,” he
said.
The example of this excellent and enlightened school
should be followed.
As published in The
People, 26 June 1966.
Picture credit: Sting
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