Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1885-09-02
CRUELTY I'M SCHOOLS.

The Recompense That Follows Inhuman
Treatment in the Public Schools.
Three instances of cruelty in the
schools have at separate times come to
US, with the recompense which fol-
lowed. One was of boy who was
brutally whipped by his teacher, and
who withdrew from school, and in
time went into the war, where after
long and brave service he returned
home to die, of a wound. His greatest
struggle in preparing for death was to
forgive the tyrant of the school. Years
had gone by but the memory of that
wrong, when it flashed into his mind,
sent the blood again to his brow, and
he prayed and struggled against it.
The teacher and all around knew about
the dying youths sorest temptation,
and what regret and remorse that
teacher felt, Knowing that the sting
of his cruel whip had tortured a poor
soul even to his grave. Another case
was Of little girl, through whose
tender shoulders the whip cut and
stained her dress with blood. She
grew up with the same bitter recollec-
ton; and finding no other way to over
come and efface it, she became that
mans benefactor through many sore
trait, though he seemed destitute of
repentance or remorse. Another case
was of boy both of whose hands
were bruised and lacerated, by
burly teacher, so severely that
the discreet mother deemed it
prudent to conceal the wrong from the
fatheF, lest worse violence should come
of it. More than decade and half
of years passed away and the teacher
and the scholar met-happily sur
rounded by immediate social restraints.
The situation in the school-room was
now reversed. The fear and trembling,
the bowed head and quailing heart
were transferred to the tyrant of long
ago, as he heard his cruelties and char
acter in the years past minutely set
forth to him-how he had brutally
beaten and oppressed the children of
the toiling poor who had no redress,
and who would submit to almost any
wrong for the purpose of securing a
little education, and who were thus
wholly at his mercy, or rather the re-
verse of mercy. In these and in other
instances there is one consideration
that should be remarked and deeply
pondered. In the cases of the two
boys referred to, they each said that
the whole scene was more Vlvldly I'M
pressed on their memories than any,
thing in the experience of their lives.
The cruel eye and brow, and the fero-
cious lips, as the blows fell, were
branded in the memory, and were
utterly ineffaceable. That counte-
nance as it then was would be
called up, vivid as life, by any
associated memory, and it's glare
would set the blood on fire. Itwas not
in either case cherished revenge, but
dreadful reminder, recurrence of
the old scene of cruelty, with every
minute detail, to the mind. Doubtless
many, possibly all, of our readers have
some such pictures of terror or pain,
from one or another cause, in their
memories. There is a profound warn
ing in this fact, especially to parents,
to beware of Furnishing their children
in anger. If done in grief and love,
the grief and love of the parent will
never be forgotten, but be perpetual
influence for good to the corrected
child. Much less if done in anger will
the anger ever be forgotten. 1t IS
probable that the larger-perhaps
nearly all-the element of revenge is
preserved by those mental photo
graphs. They are liable to obliterate
all others from the memory, because
the impression on the excited mind is
so much stronger than any other and
the wrong-doer stands forever, as he
stood in that dire instant, an object of
utter repugnance Doubtless, also,
this explains why the passion of re-
venge so dominates the savage mind,
which has 10 restraints of principle, Or
culture, or Christian grace. Other
wrongs make no such lasting impress
sion. They are much more easily for
gotten and forgiven. They have not
the Photographic energy of terror and
pain.-CB Chicago Interior.
An attache of the Austrian Mission
al Nz~AA -