The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-04-21

Whipping in the Public Schools.
The following communication from Prof.
Rote, was read at the last meeting Of the city
council.
SAN ANTONIO, April IS, 1882.
Hon. Mayor and Board of Education.
hereby ask that the committee on schools
be instructed to inquire into the feasibility Of
abolishing coporeal punishment and also to
suggest or recommend what other corrections
might be substituted that an effective discip-
line in our public schools may be preserved.
Respectfully submitted w. c. RoTE,
Superintendent of Schools.
Now, Prof. Rote, is an advocate of whip
ping in the public, schools, he believes that
proper discipline cannot be maintained with
out whipping if he has changed his opinion
upon the question he should come out bravey
and say so, and ask the school board to pro-
hibit whipping and to authorize the institution
of milder and more rational method of dis
cipline. As to the details of a system of dis
cipline Prof. Rote should furnish and suggest
them and not throw the burden upon the
school board.
The truth is, the professors letter to the
council is dodge,-an attempt to shield him
self from responsibility, and to place it upon
the city council. Prof. Rote should say to the
council that he believes in whipping, il he does
believe in it, and then let the school board say
to Professor Rote. either step down and out,
or 60 ahead.
But if whipping is to be maintained in our
public schools, we insist upon its being
done according to Rote, and that the
brutal practice be not forced upon
the young and gentle lady teachers; let
the whippngs be regulated; let whipping
post be planted in each school yard, and let
the professor be required to bare his brawny
arm while he applies the corrective lash.
Every parent would then know what to expect
and who to call on for redress.
Schools are conducted without the use of the
whip, and have been SO conducted in our city.
To say that there are pupils who can only be
controlled by the use Of the lash, is only say
ing that brute force being resorted to has to
oS A@P' up ~ IVY VI khi 10 ~ SASSsSlSciy
vicious as to provoke an assault and battery
on the part of the teacher, he or she, is not
fit to be allowed in the schools. A sys-
TEN Of behavior checks can be insti-
tuted, and when = pupil reaches a
certain number of backwards, suspension, and
certain number Of suspensions, expul
sion. If there are parents who want to have
their children whipped at school, let them be
made to understand that the profession of the
teacher has been raised above that of the con-
stable and sheriff in old slavery days, when
people turned their niggers over to be whipped
by the officer who was required to do it by the
law.
Whipping a child is brutal and dis
gushing. The large boy or girl feels dis
graced for life, and the little trembling
child has its heart hardened and its most
joyous hours of existence embittered with
pain and fear.
Towards Prof. Rote we haye no personal
spite to crafty; we have stood by him from
the date of his coming here, and before he
came; we believe him to be an excellent school
man, but his advocacy of whipping as
a means of discipline in our mind units him
to preside over our schools.
We are ready to defend and stand by our
excellent corps of teachers; we believe no city
in the union can show higher grade of
teachers, both as to social standing and abil-
ity to perform their duties, but we are firmly
and unalterably opposed to whipping in
the public schools, and we believe
the people are with US. Prof. Rote, and the
teachers under him, must be made to under
stand that the children who attend the public
schools are not there as paupers or mendi-
cants, to be kicked and cuffed about, but are
there as the children of the sovereigns at whose
hands the professor and teachers receive their
bread.
Plucky Invalid,
Some time since q minister suffering from
hemorrhage Of the lungs came here for the
benefit Of his health. His means were small
and he chose to be independent of extraneous
aid. Like Paul, he with his. own hands,