THRASHING OF CHILDREN

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27874, 24 January 1956, Page 7

THRASHING OF CHILDREN

Sir, —On this controversial and delicate subject, I would like to suggest that people just study our animals' and their young. As an example, just watch a kitten that persistently annoys its mother; or a pup the same, and witness the disciplinary action taken—result, a much humbled but still affectionate youngster. The Book of Proverbs, chap. 23, verses 13 and 14, states “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod he shall not die. Thou shalt beat with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” Our society today seems to be cluttered up with a fair percentage of near neurotic, or neurotic, people, who by some inexplicable process have wormed their way into positions of authority which demand more emotional stability to direct than they possess.—Yours, etc., PHILEMON L. BASHFORD. Rangiora, January 23, 1956.

Sir, —As crimes of violence in Russia, including murder, are regarded as venial offences beside the cardinal sin of “deviation,” the question whether children there are beaten or not seems beside the point. It is profitless to pontificate about corporal punishment, because individual reactions to it vary. For cowardly thugs, it has often p'roved a deterrent. To a political fanatic, it seems an unsuitable form of correction and might stimulate him to make further bids for martyrdom. The notable feature of our enlightened generation is that with all the benefits of psychiatry, welfare work, and learned treatises on juvenile delinquency, our Borstals and Approved Schools are bursting at the seams: and many inmates have never had a hand laid on them in anger. The quotation from Oscar Wilde is hardly apposite, since that master of paradox delighted in shocking his Victorian contemporaries, 'just for the love of the thing.—Yours, etc., - I.S.T. January 23, 1956. [“N.B.” may briefly reply, otherwise, this correspondence is closed.— Ed., “The Press.”]