A FABLE THAT SENT A GERMAN WRITER TO PRISON.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VI, Issue 306, 28 February 1879, Page 9

A FABLE THAT SENT A GERMAN WRITER TO PRISON.

The author of the following "Fable" in the Frankfurter Zeitung, has beeu sentenced, for writing it, to one month's imprisonment, il " being offensive to Prince Bismarck "' :—: — " There was once a schoolmaster who used a great many canes and was much given to putting his pupils in solitary confinement. Once the inspector called on him and found the school in a very bad state. 'My friend,' said he, ' you have unlimited control over everything here, how is it that your school gets worse and worse every year V ' Ah,' replied the tyrant, ' I have a wicked, wild lot to rule. Give me another bundle of canes a year and build me one or two more cells for the confinement of the refractory, or 1 really cannot answer for the consequences.' ' Why,' exclaimed the inspector, 'you already give ten times as many floggings as your colleagues. If flogging were the remedy, the vilest jailer would be the best mentor, and your school an example for the whole world. But the stick is the measure of your pedagogy, and what you ought to have taught you have still to learn. When the pupils are fit for nothing, that shows the teacher is fit for nothing, so be good enough to march out. What we want is a schoolmaster who has no need of canes, and is satisfied with one cell.' "