The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-10-21
SCHOuL DISCIPLINE.

It is an unexpected sign of the restlessness of the world that de- mand should be made for the reviv- al of the birch rod in maintaining school discipline. It almost looks as if the grown-ups had suddenly con- ceived the idea that the best way to have posterity escape the weaknesses of character which they have been revealing with such astounding reck- lessness of late would be to begin to lick the school children at the will and disposition of the teacher In charge. A majority of the principals in charge of New York city schools have actually voted for the revival of the rod as apparently the only means at their disposal to make Young America shoot straight
 We do not undertake to account for this surprising confession of failure on the part of school teachers in New York to maintain school room disei- pline any more than we can account for the state of mind of those who can offer no other means of discour- aging the enterprise of wife beaters than to have society become itself a beater of men School whippings were not given up because schoolmas- ters had become sentimentalists, nor are their suspension to be attributed to soft-hearted conduct on the part of school commissioners. They were given up, on the one hand, because they produced evils of their own which made school discipline more difficult, and because, on the other hand, the philosophy had all been squeezed out of the injunction that sparing the rod meant the destruc- ton of the child. It was we'll, too, for the schools that the conviction finally overlook the teachers that the process of clubbing youngsters into submis- sion and thus driving them into the straight and narrow path was fraught with pedagogical stupidity, just as it is well now that prison reformers are turning their attention, not to the fill- | S,,~ aF %ha nnnstantioriau I>,tk to kbn emptying of them. The modern pen ologist who would recommend the old style prison and the old-fashioned method of prison discipline would be laughed at. It may be seriously aues- toned if the school teacher who would use the rod freely is made of the material which makes him a safe person to be in charge of children.
 There can be no hard and fast rule promulgated for the bringing up ct children. either in the home or in the school. as consequence of which one who has mastered it's philosophy may be trusted in the charge of them. II is like the promuigation of the honor system in colleges during examina- tions. The moment a rule is formu- lated to conserve it the fat is all in the fire. It Is rarely that human con- duet can be bridfed and driven in that manner. In other words, the difficult ty of maintaining order in class room, whether that class room is Hooked for in college or in school will be found to lie quite as muck if not more, with the school teacher as with the school pupil. In the family the punishment to which the child is sub jected is very frequently dictated, not at all by the naughtiness of the young" ster, but by the disturbed liver of one of the parents It is not always re- Emembered that real teacher is as rare as a hens tooth and that in con sequence school room disturbances are the rule rather than the exception Producing & club will do no good un-
 less 1t is used on the party actually
 committing the offense, which 1t is clear to be seen may be the teacher In other words, the sudden revival oi an interest in the birch rod as a sure