Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1881 — Whipping in the Old-Time School. [ARTICLE]

Whipping in the Old-Time School.

Bostdh Transcript. ';* > • «Ar .5. A public school fifty years ago - was a Very different affair from what it 'to nowadays. Upon my word, when I think or the whipping that went on day after day ihtne old May hew school, I am astonished at it. Yet, with the variety of corporal punishment so Treely bestowed there was mingled a ghastly sportive element, a grim humor which did not always commend itself to the perception of him Vho received the' flagellation. A merry conceit, for instance, was that of Master Clough. That ingenious person would direct a culprit to stand upon the platform, near the desk, and without bending the knees, touch the floor bis fingers. Then a smart flourish of ;.the. rattan and a sudden blow would cause the unhappy youth to involuntarily resume an upright position with divertihg rapidity. It was reallyamusing (to Master Clough.) Sometimes BUf offender would be asked.by.one of the masters which instrument of torture he would choose, the riding-whip, the ruler, or the rattan. Whichever he seemed to prefer was not the one used, but one of the others would make him smart. This little change would have - a healthful moral influence upon the scholar, teaching patience and resignation under disappointment. A pleasant illustration (to the teacher) ,of the irony of fate was shown in another way. When the stock of rattans ran low (and that was not • seldom-)- some victim in disgrace would be dispatched . for a fresh supply, knowing on his return he would feel the first stroke of the rod. With what ingenious, refinement of torture the victim Was mils made to find the weapon that 'should ■

wound him. „ —- There was another clever divefttoh of our kind-hearted masters, which, in summer, when the days were l<jng, occasionally broke the moriotony of schoolboy life. Sometimes, of a sultry July afternoon, a tired scholar, overcome by the heat, would go to sleep. Then it was that the master, seizing his rattan and stealthily yes joyfully striding across the rows of desks, would give the sleeping wretch such a rousing whack as to astonish and confound as well aB suddenly syake him. I confess that these, diversion A ot the pedagogue were not without th^ir.attraction for us who looked on and saw; the comical contortions of the boys' whose fortune it was to be under tlisc 4 - pline. The ■fact that our turn might come next did not prevent us from finding what entertainment we might in what our master evidently enjoykf. None of us had yet read the maxjtos of the cynical. Lia Rochefoucauld, but we realized that under certain tfrornrstances there is something in the ir sfortunes of our friends that gives ut a certain sort of satisfaction. "» ; ->j. There were indeed days when flof,Sing was administered innomeopathic' ose, but with a most heroic fullness of practice. I once made a careful estimate of my own experience in that way, and came to the oeneiusion that I had averaged about a whipping an 4, a half a day during my connection with the MayheW School. Ot course we became somewhat inured to this rough treatment. It was considered: the proper thing to suffer with Spartan, firmness, and he who wbile lain across the master’s knee could calmly make comical and derisive faces frpm his ignominious position, for the entertainment of his associates, without having his attention diverted to other parts of bis body, was accounted a brave fellow. Then there was a superstitious belief that by laying one’s eye-lash in the hand that was about to be feruled, the accursed wood was sure to be shattered on coming in contact with .the magic hair. But I never saw one shattered.