THE DAY OF THE LASH.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1211, 21 August 1911, Page 6

THE DAY OF THE LASH.

AND WHY CAME IT. - GATE. ON THE PATH.OF.EFFORT, • (By Gyro.) r Flogging, said 'the Grand Jurr.'.at the , Inst sessions, is tho euro for the crime • child. Since then ono life sentence has been passed. But what of the non-crimo : child? How has he fared since the timo , .wlion- t-lie present Inspector-General—tho frion'd of Hall.-Jones—re:ired his "mod'orn system of'education" on the sands of beddonismP Why ifc*ia that tho averV age mossa-ce-boy is a bad writer, a bad speaker of his mother tongue, and, frc- ' queiitly enoueh, a bad bargain for his •employer?

Hark! List! 'Tis tho eylph-like ston of ■ "Bill" coming up the stairs of your office, freah from the State schools to apply for his first "job." Ho will presently bowl right in through tho door with his hat on, ... and, at your request, show you a- tria.l specimen of his convulsivo and blottesquo '"writinV 'Bur-do-not" let - us hurry ' things,, for, assuredly, "Bill"' will not -• j hnrr}'. Her has, perhaps, twelve stairs to mount, and that will take him quite a :! j monument of minutes. Meanwhile, thero is timo.to toll a story.

: Poplars, and the dancing leaves, and i ( tho fine quality of. sunlight which ad>Vventures through them on a genial morn-. • : ing in tho spring, wore thrpwjng 'a network of shadows over the "co-ordinated : .time-tables of the classes," neatly affixed with brass catches and tabs to tho wall of tho headmaster's room when I . called • down to see tho' "modernised" system at i the old 'city school which 1 had known so , ./-well. The headmaster talked pleasantly • ' of it, and, indeed,-was-quite cominunica- , . tive.' ' ■ ■' • , . Here, said he, .was the plasticine lesson. And I looked and saw a number of young persons-spoiling'their whito pinnies .and bibs with some sort of sticky stuff, and throwing bits of the stuff at one another. . - . • And therOj 'he. went on, was "the ihrusli- . -worki" I looked 'again, and noted Stan£. ar-i v., ami the boys' faces and luimi; .' ; with-, crude .shades M ■ 1 crimson lake and vermillion, and covering ' -jaxds^rßirtddge jwper with the same. ' What was ttio motif; of the .lesson, the • design, tho relevancy of it. to form, and line, and contour,: without which even .(die most modernised' brush-work must ■ .fall pretty flat? Tho . class-teacher's "demonstration,", in 'black, and 'white -on the seemed •' something liko . spring flowers. ■ •'''But; you could plainly .observe, asyou •j bent over their books, .that.Bill Primus. ' . hail other notions., He was splashing and washing in; ,on' his'.sheet; a study : in-■rf-aves under the; fore-foot' of a Kaip.ira ' ecow. And, while tho waves of Bill I'rimns rose higher and higher towards the. hawse-pipes,. until. they threatened to flood' tho chain-locker altogether, I bent over to see what Bill Secundus was' : doing. He was entirely non-nautical ' and, in fact, ■a' little theologuyfor his brush was'washing in tho-cuneiforms on the Moabite stone. And who was to say ' which of these. twain, of : adventurers under the "modernised system" was correct P Yon certainly could obtain little cluo from the brush-work of Bill -Ter.tius, who was looked up in a fight, at «atch weights -with ,an ,applic[ue.for. a lady's dress. Bill Quartus and Bill Quintus were frankly idle while Bill Sextus was so evidently wrestling, on the catch-as-catch-can principle, with the upper •waters of the'Yang-tse-kiang, or a design for wall-paper, or something, that it seemed wrong to disturb him. . .- We passed on to the "language • les- .. eon": w;here the 'first assistant was talking, .in a nico tenoriiig voice, on : tho. beauty of words, and the cadence of Well--balanced-sentences,' and ..then got'back: to the headmaster's office. As we passed back, through the play-ground we saw a ... class iv marching,_olf io the bush for. "na-, hiro'■ study," and /1 knew -that, without tho slightest reference to biologic theory at, all, uvo tlies, one spider, several caterpillars were-doomed. v all'this—fantastic as it may seem —is' .worth _ considering, y Partly becaijsb •„ - it' is a. nowise exaggeratiid picture, partly ■ for it partly accounts' for the hordo of ne'er-do-wells who come into merchants' offices as alleged employees to-day, partly, because it is why "Jimmy the Crime Child"-has now to be flogged on the recommendation of Crrand Juries but," more chiefly, than all, because, a good and strenuous education .where children do learn to write, and do'learn -to spell, and. do learn to, calculate such simple arithmetic as they will' never ;need is the greatest rctuin that' the Stat'o can make to tho poor- man's son. . ... . , Jlas not.Seddonisni and Wartlism barred the narrow but; nobTc Path, of Effort to' the artisan? I mentioned that matter to tho headmaster,. and the dialogue, as far as I can remember it, ran ( .somftning like this:— /'Supposing," I said, "that the language lesson wero to conclude 'with' a stern re- , quifement that the pupil should know and bo ablo to write down the meanings of;certain words, and supposing that, through patent lack af diligence, he were unable to do so, would he bo strapped or ker>fc_ in ?" , , ; "No,"' said tho hsadmastJer, "he would mot.. I lav«. very .little• corporal nnn.'sliin my school, and unless on raro no detention whatever." ."Then,' I chimc'd. in, i"do you not tlunk .that, in fear of tho roaring democratic flood' which Millar! let !oos o in 1890, nnd, which will nresently sweep him off his feet, too, you 'have rc:in.v£d that element from, the school course which alone makes, for betterment? You havo removed the element' of suffering ' He admitted that I had sold him'"the goods. . .And then when one really cows to think it is all cutting in so many ways. It. is not altogether that the siiojjkeoper cannot get a good errand boy, or the merchant a decent writer, or that the official who issues a certain weekly notico from a Government .to mo has only a dim and -nebulous notion <f how to punctuate and capitalize what he typewrites. The cancer has even got into sport. "Not very long ago the writer saw ■ a prominent Rugby forward railing drunk on a Friday night, and plaj-jiig on ( a Saturday. In 18.95 only a hard week's training would have been sufficient to see out. one of the nnrder games of that time. -. Perhaps someone may think'that wo owe apology to the Bill -who was rntr.lieiied in the opening of this ! ar,icle ii- h-olc-iing for a hypothetical "job." Thero is no need. "Bill" has met the telogranh •messenger on the third step of'the staircase, and they.arc "having a yarn." It will perhaps be nnotljer hour before that yarn finishes, for they say—do some of ' the young cynics of telegraph messengers —that "only the chump runs." Of tho remedial influences which, under this so-called democracy, stood for law and order up till lflOO—police, railway officers, and school teachers—and which all were gradually assailed as the march of Seddonism and Wnrdism went ont something was said in the previous article. Has not tho limit nearly been reached when the timo has como when juvenile brush workers, plasticine-puneh- . ers, 'and language-lessoners know their democratic "rights" so well that the teacher who lifts a hand to correct them 1 does so at his own risk, and no small risk oither. Only one remedial influence remains, or rather has not had a .start: - That is tho system of compulsory military training. Only a week or -two ago thoy gave one lawbreaker—one rebel against the system a medal,-., and, possibly, a year or two will see tho wholo system wrecked. And yet this is the.stuff which .they think is going, by. nnd-by, to hold up its end against OJonnany! . (To bo Continued.)