SCHOOL PUNISHMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 201, 25 August 1919, Page 7

SCHOOL PUNISHMENT.

LABELLING A BOY. ' DENOUNCED BY MAGISTRATE. A remarkable case arising out of the action of a school teacher in labelling a boy pupil came before Mr. J. R. Bartholomew at Dunedin on Saturday in which Emma Ellen Still was charged with assaulting Thirza Morris, a teacher at Waikari school, and with creating a . disturbance in the presence of pupils. , Thirza Morris, second assistant teach- i er, said that the defendant came to the , school at 1 p.m., and ordered witness to j. allow her son to go home. Mrs. Still then , struck her across the face, pushed thcij door of the classroom out of her hand. ~ and went into the room, saying that sh« would let the children hear what she had jj to say. She then abused witness. Under cross-examination by Mr. Hanlon, witness admitted that she had pinned a piece of paper to the boy's coat with a list of school requisites which he had failed to bring, and told him to bring . the paper back with him. This he had j failed to do. She then sewed another I label, bearing 1 lie words "I do not do as I am told" on tiie boy's coat, with orders that it was to remain there for two days, but the boy returned to school without it. She then punished him for disobedience. She wrote a note to the boy's mother, explaining the intention of | the punishment, and sewed another label I.- --'-... the .cords "I do not do as I am told" on to the lapel of bis coat, and he had again come to school without it. The icason she had adopted this form of punishment was because siie had been instructed to use as little corporal punishment as possible. Mr. Hanlon admitted that a technical assault had been committed, but contended that defendant had acted under igreat provocation. j The magistrate said that any properlyconstituted parent would support a teacher in a proper form of punishment, i but this sort of punishment was intended to hold the child up to ridicule. The i teacher had acted in a very high-handed I manner. If this was a form of feminine logic, it was just as well that the awardling of punishment was not given to j women in the higher walks of life. De-

j fendant's provocation had I.een gross in the extreme, and he did not feel inclined |to condemn her too severely. Her real offence was her conduct to the eomplain--1 ant in the presence of the school children. , The charge of assault would be dismissed as trivial. The second offence would bo ' sufficiently vindicated by a tine of live i shillings."