Culture clash as American boy refuses to be caned
Earlier, we met an American schoolboy at an English school who valiantly took six-of-the-best with his fellows even though the rules exempted him from corporal punishment. Here, his fellow countryman is not so heroic – he runs to Daddy ...
‘You can’t cane me’ says
US
officer’s son
PUBLIC-SCHOOL headmaster Peter Benians got a shock
when he tried to give 14-year-old Mark St. John “three of the best.”
Mark, son of an American naval commander, told the
headmaster: “You're not going to cane me.
“My father doesn't believe in corporal punishment.”
Mr Berrians, head of the 145-pupil St. George’s school
at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, sent the boy home to his father.
Mark was told not to return till his father, based at
West Malling, Kent, had contacted the headmaster.
Yesterday Mark’s father, Lieutenant-Commander Alvin
St. John, stationed with a United States Naval Air Unit, said: “I had no idea
that caning was allowed at St. George’s.
“I think my son was quite right to refuse. If the
headmaster insists that the boy must be caned. I will have to find another
school for him.
“My son, I understand, was recommended by a prefect
for caning. If so, it is shocking that an immature boy should decide whether my
son deserves corporal punishment.
“All this apparently began a few days ago, when one of
the prefects turned to Mark and said he had to do a ‘drill.’
Refused
“Mark protested. He said he’d done nothing to deserve
it.
“He was given a second drill – for arguing.
“That really riled my son. He said he would see the
prefect outside, after school.
“For that. Mark got a third drill.
“It seems that a boy who gets three drills in a week
qualifies for corporal punishment.”
“Mark was furious. He says he had done nothing to
deserve that first drill.”
The Commander, who has another son at St. George’s,
added: “I shall see the headmaster after Easter and discuss whether Mark should
go back or not.
“If Mark has been at fault, of course, he must
apologise to the headmaster.”
At St. George’s, where the fee for a non-boarding boy
is £125 a year. headmaster Benians said yesterday. “Dealing with boys is always
a difficult matter.
“One has to consider the boys’ point of view. And in a
fee-paying school, one has to consider the parents’ point of view, too.”
As published in The
People, 14 April 1963.
Picture credit: Charles Chapman, The Magnet.
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