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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 971, 9 December 1879, Page 2

Thus moralises the Auckland Free Lance: — In all schools or places of training the juvenile human being, it is necessary to carry into effect a strict system oi discipline. Morality must be inculcated ;' and m a place to which waifs and strays are consigned m order that they may be rescued from the contaminating influence of the streets, no doubt much trouble is caused to the teachers by the unruly habits, or rather the want of habits, of the unfortunate boys. But all the trouble imaginable, could not for one instant justify the school authorities m publicly branding a lad with infamy because he had been guilty m his juvenile want of morality with some petty infringement of the laws of meum and tuum. It ia clearly the duty of the teachers when they understand the idiosyncracies of the various lads to treat each m such a manner as to drive out the old '• City Arab" principles ; and this, not by usineharsh and unwarrantable measures, but by the gradual substitution of a better perception of the meaning of the moral for the dark meander»ngs of the neglected and partially unformed. — All this means, that going down the wharf two or three days ago we fell m with a boat's crew : of. youngsters from the Naval Training School. On the back of the shirt of one of these boys there was painted m large characters the word thief ! Give a dog a bad name and you may as well hang him ! Call a man a thief m public, and ten to one you will goad or force him into^ becoming one ! Why, the pillory, — that disgusting punishment used m a former age, — the wooden collar of the Chinese, — the ear-hanging of the Mussulmans — were not worse than this, and indeed not so bad for they were not thought so much of, being matters of every days occurrence. But here m a sort of Christian Country, we have a bit of aboy worse than pilloried, and quite likely ruined for life by reason of the inevitably hardening effect of this illjudged punishment, i