The Sun.
London, England, 1822-06-21 00:00:00

ON FLOGGING IN SCHOOLS.

( From the Newcastle Magazine for June, 1822.
We have just read an excellent little 'book,by
Mr. BAMFORD, on school-flogging;"` and we hope that the
work will meet with the circulation it deserves ; for a more ela.
borate, more learned, or more humane treatise, has seldom
come into our hands. Indeed, the reader who is inclined to be

fastidious may say with some truth that there is more research

in the book than was actually called for by the subject. But

hough the general reader may be wearied by the perpetual oc.

currence of some authority, some passage from an ancient or
a modern author less known than it ought to be, to the public
and to curious individuals these authorities and passages will
be valuable; they will be a manual of reference against scho-
lastic cruelty, and against all who argue in favour of that relic
of a barbarous age.

Mr. B. is the more worthy of attention when it is considered
that he speaks from experience. He appears to have tried both
modes of discipline—the severe and the mild—and his deci-

sion has been made impartially for the latter.

In speaking of the Jewish discipline, he has shown most
completely, that Solomon, by his exhortation not to spare, the
rod, never meant to advise unmerciful flagellation, but merely
salutary correction ; that the instrument. or punishment is
written metaphorically for the punishment itself ; and that it is
ridiculous to expect that there is any charm in the rod, inde-
pendent of the cause for which it is used. In these conclusions,
and more especially in the last, we agree with Mr. B. most en-
tirely. We have long endeavoured in vain to discover some
inseparable connexion or relation between sense and a school-
master's cane—we have long vainly tried to guess how a peda-
gogue could, as is often said, lino& education into the heads of
his scholars—and we have lately come to the ccnclusion, that
the cane generally renders many boys incapable, and that
even those who have the power of learning, under the despotism
of its sway, rather retain their presence of mind and application
in spite of blows, than in consequence of their being employed.
—We find that flogging has not always a beneficial effect, even
when applied to horses ; many of them become worse tin-
der the lash, as if they were conscious of the indignity. But
if by flogging the body of a horse we cannot cause the animal
to exert that body, how can we expect to produce exertion in
the minds of youth by bodily infliction ? To cause the mind to
exert itself, we should, metaphorically speaking, flog the mind ;
not that we should so treat it that it would feel conscious of
any thing like disgrace; but we should exciteit, spur it up,
render it a pain to be dormant, and a happiness to be in exer-
tion. Emulation is the only lash which the intellect of youth
will ever bear to its own advantage.
In his Essays on the Grecian and Roman discipline; Mr.
B. proves, even from the,.great excess to which those nations
sometimes carried flagellation, that the practice ought not to be
resorted to at all. That the Spartans had recourse to it for the
purpose .of hardening theiP-youth, is a very strong argument
against its being used with a contrary intention;; and when it
is recollected that many of the best writers both of Greece and
Rome opposed flogging, except in extreme cases, and sometimes
altogether, we have reason to wonder that we, who are so much
more universally civilized than any ancient nation, have not
long ago banished corporal punishment from our seminaries.
From the Essay or Chapter on the English writers on the
subject of flogging, we shall extract an example of the evil
effects of the practice, which is worth a thousand arguments. It is
from the life of Archbishop Anselm, prefixed to his works:—
" As a certain Abbot, who was accounted very religious,
was, once talking with Anselm, about the affairs of monastic
religion; and amongst other things, was consulting him about
the boys who were brought up in the cloisters, he added,
What, I pray you, can 'be done with them ? They are per-
verse and incorrigible :. day and night we cease not to beat
them, and yet they' always become Worse and worse.' At
which Anselm, surprised, Cease ye not,' says he, to beat
them ? And how are they when they are grown up ?" They
are dull,' he says, and-brutish.' But Anselm says, For
what good purpose then do ye, who for men have brought up
brutes, lay out all your money and care ?' But he answers,
What can we do to prevent it ? We constrain them by every
means to improve, but all to no purpose.' ' Constrain them,
do you ? Tell me, father Abbot, I pray, if you were to set,a
plant in your garden, and just after, were to shut it up on every
side, so that it could in no way extend its branches ; and when,
after a year, you should set it free, what sort of a tree would
issue thence? Useless, certainly, with crooked and entangled
branches. And who would be to blame for thin but you, who
so unreasonably confined it? This is just what you do with
your boys : they are planted, by oblation, iri the garden of the
church, that they may increase and bring forth fruit to God.—
But ye, on all sides; so restrain them'with all kinds of terrors,
menaces, and blows, that they are not allowed to enjoy the
smallest liberty. Therefore, indiscreetly oppressed, they breed,
foment, and nourish within themselves, depraved and (like
thorns) perplexed thotights: And they so continue to cherish
them, that they obstinately evade all the means which can be
administered to correct'them. Whence it comes to pass, that
because they perceive in you no love, no affection, no kindness,
no sweetness towards them, they have no confidence afterwards
of any good in you, but believe that all you do proceeds from
hatred and malice against them. By this wretched means it
happens, that as-they afterwards increase in age, so hatred, and
the suspicion of every evil, increase in them, always prone and
bent to vice. And since they have not been lazed in true cha-
rity to any one, they are able to look upon no one but with de-
pressed brows and oblique eyes. But, for God's sake, I wish
you would tell me, what is the reason that you thus torture
them ? Are they not men ? Are they not of the same nature
as yourselires ? Would you wish that to be done to you which
you do to them, if, indeed, you had been what they are ? But
enough. Do you wish to form them to good manners solely by
blows and whips ? * ' * * So if you wish yiaur boys to pos-
sess ornate manners, it is necessary that, instead of the depres-
sion of bloivs, you bestow upon them the soothing and comfort
of paternal affection and gentleness.' To these things the Abbot
said, What soothing ? 'What comfort ? We labour to con-
strain them to a grave and steady behaviour.' * * * But
while the mind is yet fragile in the service of God, it stands in
need of tender milk, to wit, the' gentleness of others, benignity,
pity, cheerful encouragement, charitable support, and much of
this kind.' * * * The abbot, having -heard these words,
groaning said, Truly we have erred from the truth, anti the
light of discretion has not shone upon us.' And then falling
upon the earth before his feet, he confessed lie had done wrong,
that he was guilty, and requested pardon for the past, and again
and again promised amendment for the future.'
The whole tendency of Mr. Bramford's book' is, if possible,
to bring back schools to what, from their original name,
(rXokri, leisure, or ,amusement, one would imagine was their
first intention. Indeed, there is nothing, so pernicious as the
too common feelir4 amongst youth, that, in going to school,
they are -proceeding to a place they ought naturally to dis-
like. And yet such a feeling must evidently 'be inseparable
from a system of terror on the part of teachers. Boys can
never go to that place as a place of pleasure, of which flog-
ging is an attribute. There can never be a feeling of de-
light under any government of which -the chief is a tyrant.
But ,why is a schoolmaster such a tyrant? It must be
rathar an improper disposition, than any apparent interest,
that causes him to become so ; for the best and the happiest
governor is one that can rule without domineering, and the ef-
fect of such a ruler will be more' effectually seen in a school
than even in a kingdoni.
The feeling with boys that a school is a disagreeable place
where they are forced to learn, is of greater influence than is
generally imagined. We have traced it from the boy to the
man, and we believe, when once rooted; it will often accom-
pany hini to the grave. That which at school caused the les-
son to be a task' in after life causes pleasure to become a busi-
ness, and business a pain—makes dissipation a duty, and duty
itself a torment—and has too frequently placed religion in the
light of an unpleasant discipline, and made God himself seem
more a tyrant to be feared than a father to be loved.
• Essays on the Discipline of Children, particularly as re-
Lards their education. By the Rev. R. W. Bamford, Chaplain
of Sherburn Hospital, in the county of Durham.
,e,

TIIE MAIDEN'S LEAP.—A daughter of the first
Earl of GowitiE was courted by a young gentleman, much
her inferior in rank and fortune. Her family, though they
gave no encouragement to the match, permitted him to visit
them at their castle of Ruthven, in Perthshire ; and on such
occasions, the chamber assigned him was in a tower, near ano-
ther, in which the young lady slept. On one of his visits, the
young lady, before the door was shut, got into her lover's
apartment ; but some one of the family having discovered it,
told her mother, who, cutting off, I s she thought, all possibility of
retreat, hastened to surprise them ; the young lady, however, hear-
ink; thewell=knownsteps of her motherhobbling up stairs,ran to the
leads, and took a desperate leap of nine feet four inches over
a chasm of sixty feet from the ground, alighted on the bat-
tlenients of the other tower, whence descending
.into her own
chamber, she crept into bed. Her mother having in vain sought
her in -her lover's chamber; came into her room, where find-
ing her seemingly asleep, she apologised for her unjust suspi-
cion. The young lady eloped the following, night, and was
married. The chasm between the towers is still shown under
the appellation of the Maiden's Leap... 4 Edinburgh courant,
June 17.)