For or against the cane: 1950s newspaper readers have their say
Corporal punishment was banned in schools in England
in the mid-1980s and by then its use had been gradually declining. In the
decades leading to this there was an ongoing discussion about the pros and the
cons of the cane (and other spanking methods). It wasn’t ever a main topic of
public debate but it bubbled under the surface.
Letters to newspapers sometimes revealed the state of
mind of readers. Without getting all sociological, it is impossible to know
whether the letters published truly reflected attitudes of the time. Here’s a
random selection from the 1950s that (I think) show how some people believed
that the country was going to hell in a handcart. Others (anti-caning) revealed
some insights that were probably mostly ignored at the time but today have the
ring of truth: that some people enjoy caning or being caned.
The first letter suggests that all the
ills of society can be placed on the decline in the use of corporal punishment.
“It is unfortunate that the cane is not used in schools today. In my day there
was no such thing as juvenile delinquency as we know it today,” this (female)
writer believed in 1957.
Runcorn
Weekly News, 12 September 1957
A woman doctor makes the case against the
cane in 1950. “One opponent of corporal punishment told me it was seeing caning
in school that first roused machoistic feelings in him.”
Daily
Herald, 10 July 1950
A correspondent cited George Bernard Shaw
in the case against the cane: “flogging is a form of debauchery.”
Yorkshire
Post, 14 December 1953
The case for and against is advanced in
these two letters. Corporal punishment, “makes children into masochists”, says
one; while a mother reveals, “When my 15-year-old is naughty I remove his short
grey trousers and he gets six strokes of the cane.”
Western
Mail (Cardiff), 21 June 1958
Picture credit: The Magnet.
Traditionalschooldiscipline@gmail.com
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