WORSE THAN THE CANE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXVI, 29 July 1932, Page 6

WORSE THAN THE CANE

TEACHER’S SNEERING TONGUE ■ infinitely moke SERIOUS “Tlie child lives in a world in which physical pain is a frequently recurrent and accepted phenomenon, - the child understands physical pain. He cats himself and bruises himself ill bis tumbles and bumps with becoming regularity and acquiescents. “He lias a Avliole battery of devices to alleviate and mitigate physical pain; nibbing the afflicted parts, contraction of muscles, tears, abuse of the cause, j boasting. He is armed against physical i pain as against a known enemy. ! “In a. case of corporal punishment, | then, an adult adopts what is_ to him a crude and barbaric, instinctively prompted mode of attack upon an j animal at least moderately if not ade-! quately armed in defence (I refer here, 1 of course, to ordinary callings, not to excessively brutal thrashings); and society Avhips itself to indignation and calls out upon the cruelty of it. It is cruelty, they say, it is senseless and in-, effective cruelty, for corporal punish-1 ment never achieves its nominal aim— t tlie correction of the way of the erring one.” —A correspondent in “Times Edu-i cational Supplement.” “But what of the other types of pun- 1 ishment, those that leave no rveals to be displayed either proudly or with indignation?” asks the writer. “It is upon these that society ought to concentrate, for they leave Avounds 1 that are only the more serious for being invisible. Never was jingle more untrue than the old saying:— “ ‘Sticks and stones may break my hones, But words can harm me never.’ “The child has no armour except in- 1 attention or forgetfulness against the logic of the adult mind. “When avc inflict- corporal punishment Ave place ourselves oil the level of the child and meet him on knoAvn ground; Avhen avo adopt other, more subtle, methods of punishment Ave retain the superiority conferred by maturity, by education, and by experience ; Ave attack from a strongly entrenched position a defenceless foe in Avhat is to him an unknown territory. “That is Avhy far more indignation ought to he aroused over a teacher avlio gives rein to a bitter or a sneering tongue, Avho habitually neglects the aspirations or represses the enthusiasms of a child, than over one avlio resorts to the rod.

“When all is said and done, corporal punishment is dying a natural and comparatively swift death in the schools; it is far less prevalent there now than humanitarians Avould have us believe, far less prevalent than in many a home; and what there is of it usually takes takes place under conditions of strict regulation. But any teacher (or parent, for that matter) may exercise all his powers of sarcasm, of cynicism, or of invective upon a child, may slight him, repress him, neglect him in a score of ways, and nothing is said. “It all passes under the name of rough-and-ready justice, and many a teacher is actually praised because he ‘controls’ his class hy use of spoken word and Avitliout resort to material punishments. Yet such methods, on which little condemnation is passed, save in umead books on educational psychology, may leave permanent Aveals on the mhid and soul of a child infinitely more serious than the temporary Aveals left by the rod. NOT VISIBLE BUT THERE “Particularly is this the case the higher Ave move up the scale of intelligence, so that the greatest damage is done to minds of the finest texture and most sensitive perceptions. There is, of course, no outward and visible damage to be noted, save hy the trained and sympathetic observer; but it is seriously to be wondered Avhether much of the dulling and blunting of early ability may not he traced to this cause. “The child’s normal reaction is to slirink within himself, to encase himself in a shell of outward indifference or sullenness or assumed bravado; Avhile Avithin the Avound festers.

“As in surgery, internal injuries are more to be feared than external, so are unseen and unsuspected injuries to the mind more to be feared than injuries to the body. “We may justly condemn corporal punishment, but it is difficult to excuse our relatively pitiful expenditure on direct research into the problems of the mind and direct care for mental health, or to excuse our indifference to the possibly grievous harm that our words and actions may have upon the minds of children.”