CANING SCHOOL PUPILS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20402, 2 November 1929, Page 14

CANING SCHOOL PUPILS.

PRACTICE BECOMING RARE. , VIEWS GIVEN BY MASTERS. [BY TELEGRAPH.—-OWN . CORRESPONDENT. ] WELLINGTON. Friday. Tho cane and the schoolmaster were once inseparable. The Cane is 'still the schoolmaster's badge of authority, perhaps, but it is used rarely in comparison with tho practice not ?„• great many years ago. A new outlook on education has brought about new methods, and corporal punishment is rapidly reqeding . into tho background with tho dunce's caj: There is no prohibition on the use of the cane in primary schools, but its use seoms to bo exceedingly rare. When, on occasions, corporal punishment is deemed to be necessary, tho strap is resorted to. " This," saia a school inspector, " is all to the good. An efficient and properly-trained teacher should only on raro occasions in a primary school need to administer corporal punishment in any form. . In certain bad casos caning may bo tho only remedy, but these arc vory few and far between. Much depends upon the teacher." It is in the larger secondary schools, where high-spirited lads 16 or 17 years of ago abound, that the cano sometimes sees tho light of day. "It is the only medicine that some boys understand," said a secondary schoolmaster, " but caning for •trivial offences has long ago gone out of fashion, and rightly so./ for tho cano, in my opinion, should bo reserved for really serious offences.

" The master who cannot 'keep order without the cane, should soek another occupation. Even the strap, the cano's milder brother, is foreign to the present spirit of education, but I must admit that there are occasions when I have used both with effects .1 suppose that as long as human nature is what it is'the cane will be there in the background. There was found, however, at least one former schoolmaster who deplored the modern tendency in educational methods. " Caning is a dying art," ho said. "Wc are rearing a raco which will go out into the world without knowing how to take the hard knocks which must ultimately come.' Canings were frequent when I was a boy at school, and none of us was any tho worse for them, As long as the punishment is deserved it does no harm. In fact, it does good. Caning keeps them up to-tho marjt. j I fully believe in ,it and have always put my belief into practice." The modern youngster, if he reads this, can find consolation in the fact that the gentleman quoted above is well over 80 years of age, and has long ceased to put into practice what ho preaches^