THE GIRL AND THE CANE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 6

THE GIRL AND THE CANE.

A bsoluto equality, or parity, as . our naval fried ds would say, between the sexes lias received a setback by the decision of the Auckland Educa-tion-Board to prohibit the corporal punishment of gilTls in schools while retaining it for boys. This looks like another injustice to women, and one 'wonders whether any militant advocate of equal rights for men and women, will take up the cause and insist on the right of girls to receive the same punishment as boys. One mejnber raised the cjruestion as to how the teacher would deal witlb. cases where a boy and a girl were equally guilty* of misbehaviour. He asked whether in that; case the boy would be thrashed and the girl go vfitrpunished. In the days of chivalry the boy would gladly have taken a double punishment and 'would have shown his knightly devotion to tho "ladye fayre" by sacrificing himself in her behalf. But the days of chivalry are passing, if they, have not already passed, and the modern boy wouli be more inclined to resent being punished at a.13 than he would be to offer himself as a vicarious sacrifice for the other sex. Perhaps the abolition of corporal punishment in the case of girls is a beginning of a subtle movement to inula rmiiio the whole fabric of women's rights. It comes' in the guise of a gift and a privilege, but "it may be only a gift of tho Greeks, a kind of wiooden horse concealing the enemy within. Or it njay be the first step towards the abolition of corporal punishment in schools altogether. It is said that a really pood teacher can keep order without punishment of any kind. It is not easy. Lowell once said that a real test of ability as a publ ie speaker would be if anyone could stand on the end of a form, balanced at the other end by schoolboys anxious to get away for a holiday, and could so hold their attention that they would tesij it tho double temptation of a desire to see the speaker tipped over and the desire to enjoy themselves elsewhere. Probably keeping order in a class without power to inflict penalties of any kind would require a similar degree of skill. But thare is a tendency in some schools, and with some tea chers to resort too frequently to corporal punishment. A first step towards its abolition would be the restricting of the power to inflict it to the headmaster. Teachers are always reluctwint to report a pupil because it reflects "on their o'U'n ability to keep order. In time they might lfrtirn the art of maintaining discipline by other nuaans. Most people will be glad to see corporal pil nishment prohibited in the case of girls, even tUough it does discriminate between the sexes at a, ifcime when women are doing so much both in the pi 3 r and on the playing ground to prove their cilisolute. equality with, or superiority to, the degenerate male. ' —W.M.