THE CANE AND THE BRAIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19608, 9 April 1927, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE CANE AND THE BRAIN.

BY OKIE!.. This much vexed question recurring fcgain and again in our correspondence icolumns calls for some notice, surely, in the woman's section, for they all have mothers; those boys subjected here, there and everywhere to the bitter indignity of the merciless cane. They have all at one time or another been the idol of a mother's eyes; in babyhood they lay crowing and gurgling upon her arm in Jweak and helpless innocence; they grew through the wonderful years of two, three, and four, with the faces of angels and the hearts of ten thousand imps; they learnt fct her, knee the beautiful old stories of (Abraham, Esau and Jacob, Moses, David and Elijah—of how the sun stood still for SToshua, how Samson smote the Philistines jwith the jaw-bone of an ass, and how Samuel heard the voice of the Lord calling to him in the temple. These things they imbibed with their alphabet in the innocent days of ehiidhood; but boys will be boys and they grow up and go to school, here to be subjected to the 'bitter indignities of the merciless cane. Surely these things conjcern mothers, and if mothers, then women at. large. The tender, opening brain that mothers trained in babyhood to be no longer, it seems, trained but strained, forced upward, hammered into shape, battered this way and that by blows moral and physical —these are tho ways of making men, are they ? The whole question may be summed up in this—what relation does the cane bear to the brain? None, absolutely, definitely none, whatever may be said to the contrary. But wait- —1 have not stated that boys never shall be whacked. Boys will dp boys and in some cases a good thrashing is the only way to eradicate serious faults; but I still maintain, for all that, the cane bears no relation to the brain whatevei, and it should not for one moment be supposed that it does or ever could. To the brain, mark you, not to the boy but to the boy's brain, that extraordinary, mtiicate mass of grey matter with which some of us are blessed infinitely more than others, which those not fully blessed would give their eyes to possess, and which, over possessed, sends human beings either to the front ranks of fame or to the oblivion of the mental asylum.To this mass of grey matter over which we have really so little control, ana which ■we are given to. develop but never entirely to change, the cane coulq, not possibly in any reasonable light bear the slightest relation whatever. All which means that it is no good caning a boy because he is stupid and does not know his lessons, no good caning him because his spelling is faulty or his arithmetic poor —that boy may not be gifted with a knack of spelling properly, he may be hopelessly at sea how to set about his sums," and yet the unscrupulous master (but only the unscrupulous and unreasoning) takes the ready cane into his hand, and by brute force, attempts to hammer into a young mind that which never can be hammered, but only by dint of perseverance, instilled. To this the objection will be raised that the delinquent was lazy, that he jcould have mastered his spelling perfectly ;well, likewise his arithmetic; but for the Bin of laziness, sloth, he deserves the infliction of physical pain to force him into a better, more reasoning state of mind. The whole principle is wrong from start to finish. Laziness can only be cured by making the pupil stay in during game time and plod over his work while his fellows are enjoying themselves out of doors; by this means slothful habits could in time be eradicated, for he who is prone to neglect work is usually devoting his hours to play—very well, then, cut down the play. He won't like it and will gradually learn to attend to work at the proper time. An unscrupulous master vents his own personal spleen, bad temper or dislike upon unfortunate children who little merit the punishment they receive at his hand; but such we may hope in these times are far more rare than was formerly the case when teachers hardly took the trouble to establish any hand of comradeship and understanding between themselves and their pupils. „ But I would not advocate bringing all boys up without the use of the cane. In some cases it is necessary. For girls, physical punishment is anathema; but boys will be boys as we are so often told, and being boys" often amounts to cruelty, wanton destructiveness and other faults .which needs must be corrected and with no lenient hand. For "such offences as disbonestv, tcribbing, taking an unfair advantage 4of another, cruelty to one's fellows, jto birds, animals or any other living thing, for telling untruths and appropriating the property of others—such things as these merit punishment of the severe type, after, always' after, corrective measures', have been tried; but minds open to coilunit such offences will hardly be capable of profiting by more lenient methods. lissome cpes no other way exists to train the young mind so erring that it falis a3 if by nature into paths such as these, all which, mark you,-are totally unconnected with the brain but are matters of conduct.

The cane, then, should only be used in schools to inflict punishment where severe punishment is richly deserved, never for minor offences such as* neglect, stupidity, etc. Thus the cane to the whole school will appear as an awful instrument, an engine only brought out on occasions of the most dire misbehaviour, and will no longer be lightly used, lightly regarded and lightly borne with a sneer or a sullen air of dogged impassivity. The cane and the brain—no relationship whatever; the cane and the boy—unfortunately here we must admit a relationship but let the tie be rarely bound.