RIGHTS OF A SCHOOLMASTER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10574, 27 January 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

RIGHTS OF A SCHOOLMASTER.

BOY PUNISHED FOR SMOKING IN THE STREET. Has a schoolmaster any right to punish a pupil for smoking a cigarette m the, street This point was raised at Highgate, when Alfred Wallis was summoned by the Finchley Education Committee with respect to the non-attendance at school of his son Richard. The boy, who cried m the witness box, said he was afraid to go to school, because the master punished him. He was going to the Church Lads' Brigade parade one evening, when the master knocked a cigarette out of his mouth and cut his lip. The next morning the master called him out of class and thrashed him. In answer to a question, the boy said he had heard it was a rule of the school that boys were not to smoke, swear, or throw stones m the street. Mr Smith, the headmaster of the school, was put m the box, and said scholars knew the rule. He made the rule. He knocked the cigarette out of the boy's mouth, and gave him two "banders" the next morning for breaking the rule. Counsel for the schoolmaster contended that the master had jurisdiction over the boy, and liad acted within his rights, as laid down m "Clearly v. Booth." Sir Francis Cory-Wright said he did not agree. In the case quoted it was held the boy was m the jurisdiction of the master because the lad was on his way to school. This boy was not going to or coming from school. "I think," added the -Magistrate, "the master acted illegally, and if the parents think 60, | they have their remedy." The father, was fined Ss for the boy's nonattendance.