The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1886-06-16
One Puritan Brute.

In Massachusetts town, less than six
ty years ago, in a public school the pun
ishment sometimes surpassed in severity
any Illustrations vet given in Notes and
Queries, with one or two exceptions. We
state as facts only what We saw with our
own eyes. As in the Mayhew School.
boys were sometimes required to toe
crack, bend over and place the forefinger
upon another crack, and then, with tie
body tense in every nerve, the master
would come slowly along, give a tremen-
dous blow with his cowhide, and with
the short jackets worn then, it hurt He
broke ruler across the back of 4 bows
hand. More than once he drew back his
clenehed fist and, striking from his shout
der, knocked boys nearly as large as him
self fiat to the floor; and one Of these
boys, now an old man, is still living. He
took one boy by the heels, and singing
him round in a circle, brought his head
this was by accident) against box stove
III tiit VI anu Il time
the boy was deprived of all sense or mo-
ton, until a physician came and relieved
him. With what was called crow or
crowstick of wood, he went at some boy
who had misread some word in the New
Testament. The boy darted down under
one of the desks and crawled from one
to another, now and then catching a
blow, until he got near the door. when
the master caught him by the collar and
threw him out into the street, and forbid
any boy TO give the sufferer his overcoat
or cap, though il was a cold winters dav.
On one occasion he whipped boy with
a cowhide, at intervals through most of a
forenoon, in order to make him hold out
at arms length a heavy book. The girls
in the school, many of them women
grown, used to weep and shrek, and COW
er their heads with their aprons to shut
out the horrid sights. This day, the boys
sister, early in the whipping, stood and
cried out, Hold it out, John; hold it
out" but later exclaimed, with her
strong English accent, Don't YOU hold
it out, John, if he kills youp'
The masters desk was high one, and
stood on platform. One day he called
out boy, made him take off his Jacket.
fastened his arms round the legs of the
desk, and stood and whipped him until
the blood ran down and one could place
ones fingers in the places in the feshy
part of the arm made by the instrument
of torture We saw the punishment. the
blood, the shirt cut in ribbons and the
gashes These facts-and We might add
to them-were not part of the history
of slavery nor are they extracted from
" Uncle Toms Cabin" but they occurred
in Massachusetts free schools, and were
substantially without rebuke. The mas
ter was sometimes prosecuted at the law.
The father of the writer, a leading lawyer
at the bar. defended him, and he was al
ways acquitted. He paid the doctors
bills in the last case, and gave the boys
mother a load of wood, for he Was her
only son and she was poor widow. He
was in many respects an excellent teach
er; he kept the school for many years,
and gave it up at the last from i'll health,
much to the regret of the community.
He was Christian by profession, kept /
up family prayers, but there were some
who thought-chiefy the boys-that he
was at times unduly severe in the infiic /
ton Of punishment.-BoaoaT Transcript. I