[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—There is something almost fantastically ironic in finding in the same issue of The Spectator containing Mr. V. S. Pritchett's analysis of my recent book, Foreigners, a letter from an assistant elementary schoolmaster, supporting the view that the caning of school children, particularly girls, is an effective and justifiable part of modern education.
IA) not pretend to be an authority on child psychology, but Foreigners is to a large extent the story of my own child- hood, and if it has a point at all it is this : that physical punishment as delivered regularly by the master of my school, and mental punishment, as delivered regularly by my mother, had no other effect than to make me repeat the offences for which I was punished. The same reaction was observable with all my schoolmates. If we didn't react directly we did so indirectly. Nearly all my mates except the weaklings were bullies. As Mr. Pritchett observes, I was inclined to this myself, although I think he will agree that it was mostly re- action to the bullying I received. The other lads, if they didn't take it out on smaller lads, took it out on birds, or blowing up frogs, or other pleasant refinements of rustic life.
My mother punished me mentally. She conjured up for me a personal vengeful God, ready to whisk me off to eternal damnation if I swore, or smoked, or even thought anything rude. So real was this God that He actually made a Personal appearance to me one night when my mind was tortured with an accumulation of sins. But this didn't stop me sinning again, and even deeper. What I have tried to show in Foreigners is that if I hadn't had the shore and the cliffs and the woods of Bramblewick to escape to, if I hadn't learnt a rough philosophy of behaviour from a direct contact with nature, I'd have been driven mad between the influences and punishments of school and home.
I think the truth is that physical punishment is practically valueless as a deterrent for misbehaviour, as valueless and stupid as war. That it has its sexual aspects when performed by a master on a young girl is, I think, obvious to any person of intelligence. I have two baby daughters of my own. I am appalled by the cold-blooded admission of your corre- spondent that an assistant elementary schoolmaster may some day (if my writing continues to prove as profitless as my father's " art ") have the legal right to get a cheap kick by
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