The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-10-30
On Beating Children
By DIR. FRANK CRANE

Y USED to stop at the pension kept by Mile. Guillier. at 21 rue Valette in Paris. The house is four or five hundred years old. John Calvin had a room there. Mile. Gullher has not been in charge for four hundred years but she has been atsthec helm U good whiIes 1t is a comfortable lodging and has all the marks of the Latin Quarter, besides being respectable enough to be sought out by Vaca- tioning schoolma' ams, .,s ..ass.
 We enjoyed our minds there, except on Sun days, when some workman, who lived across the wall, would regularly get drunk and beat his children. I can hear the shrieks Of those innocents yet in my sleep, and it has been some time since left.
 And now comes professor who presents report saying, Tn our judgment the regula- I tion totally forbidding corporal punishment IS unwise. So long as it exists many an unrniy child will attempt to take advantage or It and thus cause trouble that would not other wise be-"
 There is another and better way, Mister Professor. It is to give the sack at once 10 all school teachers who still believe m the unpsychological, unpedagogical, and wholly immoral theory that punishment ever does any good and to hire teachers competent, by natural gifts and training, to lead children and not to beat them. t....
 Which leads me to a few animadversions re child-beating:
 My general position may thus be stated: have no objection to the act of spanking human being, that is, to the performance It. self Only think it is the parent or teacher that should be spanked.
 | First he is better able to stand 1t. Ills
 tissues are mature His growth is not liable to be stunted, his eyes put out, and his near ing destroyed by cuffs administered with the promiscuity of passion. es..- !g
 Second, he needs it. The child does not No child needs to be struck by the hand of an
 adult. It is a dirty, cowardly crime.
 When the parent or teacher thinks the
 child needs a beating, it is a sign that the adult is deficient in self-control, in disclpllne'
 and in moral sense.
 Children need discipline. Spanking is not 4discipline. It is a proof that there has been mo discipline.
 They need control Beating is not control. lit means that there has been no control. A child should be obedient, respectful, and
 "good." There is but one way to bring this
 about, and that is for the grown person who lis in charge of the child to be loving, firm,
 patient, and wise. To beat a child signifies but one thing lthat you are a more powerful brute than he. To control child without beating, to gov- ern him by skillful management, to guide lhim into being good" by the nice arts of in- ldirection, requires that you be stronger Tn lcharacter than he know more, and have more control of yourself.
 Collaborating is a companion to child , coddling. Those who fOolishly spoil children are they that whip children.
 To strike a child means, dear mothers, that you admit your weakness of character, admit that you neglect all intelligent guidance of your child, admit that you have no business ever to have had a child. I should like to vote for children's judge whose business it would be to find the grown up that strikes a child and give him wallop that would make him dizzy till sundown.