CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Evening Star, Issue 12603, 7 September 1905, Page 3

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

THE POWERS OP A SCHOOL TEACHER. [Special to the Stab.] CHRISTCHURCH, September 7. A parent recently wrote to the North Canterbury Kducaiion Boated stating that Ids daughter was in snob a state of health that corporal punishment was detrimental to her. H-e asked if she would be accepted as a scholar in any school under the Boards jurisdiction on the understanding that she was not to receive any corporal punishment. He was aware that under certain circumstances a child was liable to be expelled. Tte subject was referred by tte Appointments Committee of the Board, to the Hoard’s solicitors, who gave a lengthy opinion. They said that the reply which should be suit to the parent was that it would bo inconsistent with the duty the Board owed tte public and the maintenance of discipline in their schools for the Board to give the undertaking asked for." Punishment was necessary, and to believe that when they did find it necessary to administer punishment they would see that the punishment administered was reasonable and proper in each case. The solicitors set out at length « decision given by Sir James Prendergast in the case Hansen v. Cole, in which the master of a State school was sued for an assault in respect to corporal punishment administered to a pupil. The Chief Justice explained the difference in position and authority of a master of a Slate school under a system of compulsory education, who was a public servant performing a public duty, and therefore not subject to tte control of the parent, and that of a master of a. private school, who received a child under contract with, the parent, and subject to tte conditions imposed by tbe parent. Tte solicitors thought that there was no room to doubt the power Of a schoolmaster to include corporal punishment as a part of the discipline of his school, ol that tte law would not interfere with him in tte exercise of such power, unless it be proved that he had exercised it unreasonably. It was only necessary for them to add that in cases where a master was warned beforehand that a child was of a "highly nervous or delicate constitution, and that corporal punishment may possibly affect its general health’, a greater responsibility was cast upon him of seeing that any punishment inflicted was reasonable and proper in the particular circumstances. The Appointments Committee informed tte Board yesterday that they had agreed to communicate wTth the parent in the terms of tte solicitors’ letter, and that the principle laid down by the solicitors in regard to tbe powers of a feather to inflict corporal punishment had been approved. The report was confirmed, one member remarking that it was one of the most imnortant documents ever dealt with by the Board.