The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1878-12-18
Fer the Cairo Bulletin,
THE ROD IN OUR SCHOOLS AND
ELSEWHERE.
by MENsCIIEN FRRUND

by MENsCIRN FRRUND
Shall the rod be used as IN instrument Of
governments No. for it might become the
means Of making the larger boys treat the
smaller and weaker ones with more for
bearance. make this assertion dcliber-
ately, for / know whereof | am speaking,
having been witness once of cirCuni-
stance that clearly illustrates my position.
The directors Of certain school district
had prohibited the use Of the rod in the
schools. One day as the children were out
on the playground, one Of the larger boys
kind Of bully among them, slapped Il
little boy over. The little fellow cried Bit
terly, and said he would tell the teacher on
him, the large boy said, II don't care
d--n if you do The teacher darcs not
whip me, for | heard the directors say So"
Would it not be wrong; in fact, may say
cruel, to deprive that large boy and others
like him, by the judicious use of the rod.
Of the inestimable liberty of venting their
spleen and heaping their abuse on smaller
and weaker boysl Would you sthc that
noble instinct of independence which would
trampe all law and order under foot. hy
consecrating its noble caskct to few keen
cuts Of the birchI If 50, where will you get
buliies to manage your future elections'
No. The idea is simply revolving; the rod
must be banishcd, and only remembered as
relic Of ancient harbarsm.
will here remark, strange as It may
seem, the above mentioned school directors
have fallen back into the old rut; the order
prohibiting the Use of the rod in the
school has been rcscindcd; and, now, on the
play ground of that school, the bully is az
meek and mild as lamb
In this age of progress physical force
along with the rod must not be rcsorted to
ia the maintainence Of peace and order and
in dealing ont justice and equity. Moral
suasion must do the work. This is the
great Pauacca of the afternoon half of this
Nineteenth Century for every known and
unknown evil on the face of the earth; yet
we may ransack the history of every nation
from remotest antiquity to the present age,
and not find solitary instance where gov
eminent was run on moral suasion alone, in
fact the best governments always backed up
moral suasion by ample force, just as ours
does.
We are progressive people, we must
simplify matters, and pray what is simpler
than moral suason alone and unmixcdl
read in the newspapers that in one of the
states they have returned to the barbarous
and monstrous practice of the whipping
post" Here in our state, things work
somewhat differently; We are up with the
times and proposes of the age in which we
live. When brother man gets too lazy
and trining to gain an honest living bv
work, especially in winter, he steals II few
dollars worth; he is then taken and con
fined, sheltered and fed till spring, the gen
erous taxpayers footing the bill; taxes be-
ing so extremely low that they are glad to
contribute from their great abundance to
the support of vagabond loafcrs.
repeat it. Moral suasion is the great
panacea. The builders Of this grand and
glorious government employed the best tai
cnt and genius Of the country for fifteen or
twenty years in the moral suasion business,
with Great Britain, for the purpose of oh.
tanning justice from that avaricious nation,
and did they obtain III Yes, after eight
more years of moral suason, backed up by
vigorous powder, lead, steel and unconouer-
able will. The most, If not all Of that band
of patriots and distinguished men, during
their journey from childhood to manhood,
passed upler the rod, but that was in the
eighteenth century; this is the NINETEENTH
CENTURY.
Thebcs, Ill.,, December II, 1878.