[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] SIR, I am, I
hope, an average and normal public-school boy of ten years' standing, and I think it is time that people of the age and morbid mentality of Mr. Kittermaster stopped pouring out their Jeremiads into the ears of an outraged public of spinsters, maiden aunts, and other gullible individuals.
In neither of the Scottish schools where I have received my education has corporal punishment been rampant ; only for major offences were you ever " beaten "—for the rest, you had some extra " fagging " to do, or perhaps had to get up early the next morning. Where the cane did prove necessary the housemaster's decision was always final, and I may say that so far I have only heard of one brutal caning.
As far as I can judge, caning nowadays does nothing but good ; " the morbid sex-sensation " is apparently peculiar only to Mr. Kittermaster's experiences, and no one that I know of has ever wanted to " get his own back." Unless all schoolmasters are going to turn child-psychologists there is no alternative to corporal punishment as a deterrent and corrective except that of a system of fines as practised at the University. That is obviously out of the question, since most schoolboys soon run out of " cash " in the course of the term.
Most of the discussion has only proved that the system as practised at the writer's schools was a bad one. If the boy is normal, he will not suffer from any of those peculiar inhibi- tions and repressions. He knows the rules, and he expects to be punished if he breaks them.
In conclusion, might I assure T. C. Glen that if he was, in actual practice, living under a totalitarian form of government his letter would undoubtedly have been censored?—
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