I can also see that if all punishments were delivered in public there would be less opportunity for abuse, overstepping any limits on corporal punishment set by the school, or even of the boy accusing the master falsely of such abuse.
From the point of view of the boy bending over and having his bottom slippered I don’t think it mattered very much. It wasn’t especially humiliating or embarrassing to be whacked in front of other boys. We saw it all the time and knew it could happen to us at any time.
If you were sent to the headmaster for the cane it was always, as far as I know, administered in private with just the boy and the headmaster in the room.
