THE SCHOOL FOR MILKSOPS.

Observer, Volume 4, Issue 96, 15 July 1882, Page 275

THE SCHOOL FOR MILKSOPS.

The modern pliase' of humanitarianism may be good in moderation, but pushed to extremes it is likely to produce evils quite as undesirable as its antitype. If excessive flogging of boys in schools tends to brutalise them, mawkish sentimentalism and squoamishness will hare an equal tendency to make them milksops and sneaks. When a boy becomes wilfully and obstinately impervious to reason and precept at one end, his faculties may generally be roused into activity by striking appeals to his sense of feeling at the other. The cane and the birch have had a larger share in forming the characters of some of the greatest men in the world's history than most people are aware of. Byron must have had this in his mind when he wrote : — " O ye that teach the ingenuous youth of nations, Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain, I pray ye flog them upon all occasions, It mends their morals — never mind tke pain."

Many soft-hearted and doting parents are, of course, opposed to flogging in any form. Sir George Grey — who is not a parent by-the-way, at least so far as we are aware, confesses that he is "mawkishly sentimental" and has a horror of flagellation being inflicted in any form. It is precisely because Sir George Grey is not a parent, and has only looked at boys through the rosecoloured spectacles of condescending patronage, that he cannot understand the virtues of the rod. Solomon, who was a very much married man, and must have had rather a numerous family, enjoyed special opportunities of arriving at a correct judgment on this important question, and his testimony is conclusive — " He that spareth his rod hateth his son."

These remarks are suggested by. certain recent occurrences to particularise -which at present would be premature. One of the masters of a leading scholastic institution has been driven to resign his appointment because he administered a caning to a boy in his class. The lad, ii appears, was suffering from indisposition, and brought an intimation to that effect from, his father to the

headmaster. The fact, however, was not communicated to the teacher, and- he mistook the youth's- dullness and inattention for wilful contumacy. He administered a moderate castigation which left some marks. When the lad returned home the parental bosom was profoundly agitated by the moving tale of his son's wrongs. He laid a formal complaint of cruelty against the teacher, and without any but an ex far be inquiry, the master was peremptorily called upon to resign his appointment, under threat of a more disagreeable alternative. No fair and impartial tribunal investigated the grounds of complaint. The ipse dixit of the afflicted parent was accepted in blind faith, and a teacher of acknowledged ability and experience sacrificed.

This is a concession to " mawkish sentimentalisin," which tlio public at large will hardly approve, or desire to see brought into general operation. If parents aim at making milksops of their boys, they ought to keep them at home tied to their mother's apron strings, or carefully enclosed under a glass shade like some delicate exotic plant. Moreover, when a youth is suffering from indisposition he ought not to be packed off to school .to waste the time of a master, and demoralise the class. The person who is really responsible for the consequences is the parent who sends a lad to school in that condition. Once let it be clearly understood that the birch and the rod are to be replaced by sugar-candy and coddling, and then good-bye to that hardy British pluck which has conquered sea and land in the four quarters of the globe, and welcome the reign of puppyism, larrikinism, and the unchecked development of that brutal cowardice which betrays itself in street brawls, vandalism, and assaults on old men and weak women.