Discipline in School and Cloister - Experiences of Flagellation PDF
Preview Discipline in School and Cloister - Experiences of Flagellation
DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOL & CLOISTER Subscriber’s copy. DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOL AND CLOISTER Dr. JACOBUS X... PARIS ISIDORE LISEUX MCMII Five hundred copies Printed in France C, Unsinger, Paris· FOREWORD THE SUBJECT DEALT WITH’IN THE PRESENT WORK TOUCHES ONE OF the dark patches of our social life. Flog- ging as an aid to education, a mode of dis- eipline, or a means of repression is universal in time and space. The subject has always had a stränge fascination for curious minds. The facts presented here are all drawn from authentic sources. They are stated plain- ly, without any attempt at colouring them. Xxx XX A XX XV V Ψ V ν κ* DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOL AND CLOISTER R up to the beginning of the present ight Century the birch rod was an ordinary part of a school’s equipment, and only a few years have elapsed since it was looked on by the schoolmaster as the ultima ratio, Indeed, we would not swear that, in certain out-of-the-way places where, in spite of the railway, civilization has not yet penetrated, the teacher is not still known by the insult- ing but picturesque name of bum-brusher. Today, at any rate in our French schools, this method of correction has been aban- doned; and yet, is the time so far gone when it would have been regarded as revol- utionary not to use the whip or rod ? But was corporal punishment really effi- 2 DISCIPLTNE IN SCHOOL cacious with vicious and undisciplined chil- drcn ? Was there no ri.sk of defeating one’s own object—might not a slumbering vice be aroused in the attempt to train an ill- formed character ? This consideration had not escaped the wisdom of a theologian, who was also a medical man, Fath er Debreyne : 6 Flagella- tion may have a resuit quite different from what one expected. It is therefore very important to abolish this form of punish- ment from our homes and schools as being indecent, disgraceful, and dangerous to morals.’ Should we have a more perverse imagin- ation than our ancestors if we credited them with malign thoughts ; or must we believe that a wind of sadism has blown over our poor humanity during long centuries ? As- suredly, the intentions of most of them were pure, but how many black sheep there may have been in the flock ! In primitive times the whip was the at tribute of brute force. The father, having complete authority over his child, delegates this authority to the teacher, who exercises it with more or less rigour according to his AND CLOISTER 3 temperament or temper. The best policed people have not feit call- ed upon to abandon this Instrument of gov- ernment. If education was severe in Spar ta, where children were submitted early to the most difficult exercises, it was hardly any milder at Athens, if we are to judge by this description of Greek customs. ‘ Hard ly had a child escaped from the tyranny of his nurse, when he feil into the hands of the teacher, the grammarian, and the mus- ician, and these took turns at flogging him to teach him their art. As he grows up, there arrive the arithmetician, the geomet er, and the riding-master. Under these masters he gets no rest, he rises early, and is often flogged. A little older, and it is the tactician and gymnastic instructor who now flog and torture him.’ And there have been philosophers to praise and poets to sing the happy results of this brutal method. However, one voice is raised against this System—the voice of Plutarch, who con- siders that we should lead children to do their duty by kind words and gentle remon- strances and not by blows, for flogging is more suita ble for slaves than the free. It hardens and deadens them, and the pain 4 DISCIPLINE IN SCHOOL and shamc makes them hate work. Praise and blame are more suitable for freeborn children than whips and rods. Rome had borrowed this method of treat- ing slaves from Greece. According to Pet ronius, the following notice could be seen on the fronts of certain houses : 4 Slaves who leave this house without permission will receive one hundred lasbes.’ < The least impatience of the mistress, or the least fault of tbe female-slave suffi ced to get the lat ter hung up by the hair and lashed till the blood came. The picture which Juvenal, S . vi, has left of these at scenes is simply revolting. This practice was so common that, in his Art of Love, Ovid recommends women not to give way to anger in the presence of the lover who is watching them at their toilet. Many of them, indeed, had the rather unhappy liab it of choosing this morn ent for beating and biting their slaves, or sticking hairpins in their breasts. And let us not forget that these pins were seven or eight inches long. Flogging must have seemed very mild alongside such a martyrdom, and we are no longer astonished that the satirical Horace thanks his teacher Orbilius for having
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