MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
ON the motion for the adjournment last week, Mr. Peter Freeman raised the problem of corporal punishment in schools. He contended that this form of discipline was of no value either as a deterrent or as an example ; he stated that it was " degrading and demoralising " ; that it was a form of tyranny which aroused among the little boys of this country a condition of " continuous fear." " Always," he said, " it injures a child's character." He pointed out that in many progressive countries, such as Russia and Peru, this iniquitous system had been abolished by law. And he gave many instances of the effects of corporal punishment, which, even when read in the cold calm pages of Hansard, make the blood run cold. Mr. Gandar Dower who followed referred to the increase in juvenile delinquency and admitted that when at school he had been beaten several times. He could not recall, he •said, that any permanent resentment was created by these episodes and in fact his subsequent relations with his house master had been relations of amity and trust. Mr. Hardman, in replying for the Ministry of Education, made an interesting and constructive speech. He admitted that as a method of maintaining discipline, corporal punishment was " completely out of date." He contended that it was bad for a boy and even worse
for the master or prefect who administered the punishment. But he argued that the Ministry cannot move ahead of public opinion and that for the moment public opinion was not convinced that with- out such punishment discipline could be maintained. And he promised the House that the Ministry would invite the Foundation for Educational Research to report regarding the most suitable future methods of punishment and reward. And what on earth will the Foundation for Educational Research have to say?
* * I also, when a boy, experienced the " antiquated and pernicious system" of which Mr. Freeman complains. At my private school, if I remember rightly, I was beaten some sixteen times: at my public school I must have been beaten some eight times. I am not conscious that these repeated lashings left scars upon my soul. Only on two occasions was I beaten unjustly or in anger ; whatever sense of grievance was created by the other twenty-two episodes passed as quickly as my weals. In theory, of course, the system is not humiliating only ; it is an outrage upon human dignity. Yet human dignity is a strange sort of vegetable which is dependent upon the soil and climate in which it grows ; it is not blighted by the rain and wind of ordinary weather ; it wilts only when the soil or climate change. I quite understand that German or Japanese boys, obsessed as they are by considerations of personal status, face or " honour," should be driven to suicide if beaten in the presence of their fellows. In their cases there is, on the one hand, a deliberate desire to humiliate, and on the other hand a predisposition to feel humiliated. But in our English schools it was different from that. In principle, I suppose, it was degrading for a boy of sixteen to have to submit to the indignities which a beating entailed. One was ordered to descend to the boot-room ; one was obliged to kneel over a bench with one's head in a boot-locker ; and then the captain of the house or the captain, of cricket struck eight sharp blows at one with a cane. One grunted at each stroke with a grunt of anguish, nobly borne. I do not contend that such experiences were enjoyable ; they brought with them a certain amount of anxiety and a great amount of physical pain. But I do contend that they were not humiliating ; anger, resentment or mortification was not aroused ; and subsequent relations between the beater and the beatee remained amicable, re- spectful and often comradely. Nor were the elements of physical prowess and physical endurance wholly absent. One had broken some rule ; the consequences, if one was found out, were inevitable and immediate ; and one bore these consequences with friendliness and such courage as one could muster. That was all. * * * * Of all my twenty-four beatings the only two which I remember with any disquiet did, in fact, contain an element of deliberate humiliation. At my private school we were frequently assured that of all British communities we possessed the highest moral tone ; we were told that we were "put on our honour " not to break the rules ; and one of the most rigid rules was that against buying sweets in shops. On one occasion an older friend of mine—who I now recognise possessed a dominant personality—received the sum of ten shillings from a visiting uncle. He suggested to me that we should expend this money in a teashop in an adjoining town. Hiding our school-caps in our pockets we slipped into that tea shop and ordered poached eggs, lemonade and many bananas. Half an hour later we were seen leaving this haunt of vice and were reported to the headmaster. The whole school was summoned, and my friend and I, with commendable honesty and with flaming cheeks, confessed our guilt. The headmaster then delivered a short allocution in which he explained that we had let the school down, that we had broken our word of honour, and that an example must be made. It was made in such a manner as to stir in me even to this day feelings of half-amused and half-angry shame. My amusement derives from the thought of the pink pathetic spectacle I must have presented. My anger from the fact that for days there- after I was enshrouded in a cloud of disgrace ; my comrades shunned me as a pariah. They were, of course a bunch of little prigs ; but the headmaster's intention, in arranging this unpleasing scene, had been to humiliate. And I cannot believe that in so doing he was acting well.
* * The second occasion which still festers slightly in my memory occurred several years later when I was in the sixth form at my public school. I was never good at mathematics, and I am prepared to confess that I behaved in my algebra class with impertinent frivolity or disdain. The master who presided over this class was a powerful man and one who disliked me very much indeed. He arrived late one morning and apologised by saying that he had been kept by the Duke of Connaught, in reply to which remark I whispered the one word "Snob." I regret having committed so wounding an impudence, even as I regret that my whisper was not more restrained. That sad sibilant word reached his ears. " Who said that? " he asked with purple face. I admitted my guilt ; I was told to remain behind ; and thereafter I was beaten as I had never been beaten before. When I rose from the bench over which I had been made to kneel I noticed that the lime tree outside the window was swirling in a whirr of green ; I also noticed in the eyes of my algebra master a sudden twitch of apprehension ; he thought that I was going to faint. He made me sit down with my head between my knees ; he was apprehensive and kind. " I hope," he said, " that you will be a more polite boy in future". I admit that I ought to have been beaten on that occasion ; but I do not think I ought to have been beaten in personal anger. It was humiliating for a boy of my seniority to be beaten at all ; it was wrong tor the master to have conducted the operation while still under the influence of rage.
* * I trust that the Foundation for Educational. Research, when they come to examine the problem of corporal punishment in schools will decree that no boy should be beaten in circumstances of un- necessary humiliation and that no boy should ever be beaten by the master whom he has insulted. I should go further. I should say that no boy or girl should be beaten in institutions where the soil and climate is unpropitious to corporal punishment. I am sure that there are many schools in which the boys, or their parents, regard corporal punishment as degrading ; in places where that feeling exists such punishment is clearly deleterious. But there are other places where it is not deleterious unless thinking makes it so. It is often better to give a boy a few stripes than to give him hundreds of lines. Is it that I, as a veteran beatee, wish to see inflicted upon my successors the pain which I experienced myself? Or is it merely that, as a reasonably progressive man, I do not wish to deprive the aristocracy of the last of their privileges—that of being beaten hard on the behind?
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