CP in Schoolboy Fiction

 

Corporal punishment scenes were staples in schoolboy fiction for decades around the turn of the 20^th century.

For those interested, one Arthur James Blimp wrote a detailed essay about this published in Wellred Weekly in March 2013.

Blimp tells us, “Often, corporal punishment was not described in any detail. It happened off-stage. Sometimes one almost feels the author is slightly embarrassed to have even mentioned it at all. In this day and age it all seems a million miles away but then it was just another part of school life.

“Maybe even then writers of school fiction scented something vaguely disturbing in boys being beaten. It wasn’t as if it was a quick clip round the ear. It was a ritualised and very formal event. A boy would usually bend over a desk or a chair and a set number of strokes would be given with a cane or slipper, often long after the original offence.

“In much school fiction corporal punishment seems to be considered as something to toughen boys with, as if to mould character. The school spirit was very much in evidence in a turn of the century work, Rudyard Kiplings’ Stalky and Co, where the headmaster thrashes the boys for no offence at all. The boys admire him all the more because of it and when later he canes the entire school he receives a great ovation, “the boys awaiting their turn cheered and flung themselves upon him to shake hands.”

The full 2,800-word essay is available free-of-charge online here.

Traditional School Discipline

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