The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

Nineteenth Century America experienced a resurgence of fraternalism with more than three hundred new orders coming into being. Only some of the fraternities and lodges were associated with universities. Many included various schemes for selecting and initiating members, often involving a test of courage or trust.

Late in the century, the entrepreneurial deMoulin brothers invented machines and devices, and quite possibly some of the rituals, to exploit the situation.

For some reason “spanking” with paddles was or became popular.

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmu … panker.htm

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmu … achine.htm

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmu … achine.htm

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

Posted earlier. Fraternal Order Paddling.

CLICK

CLICK

Earliest use of the paddle was not in a school setting but in a fraternal order.

CLICK

CLICK

Fast forward to 21:00.

CLICK

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

So far, I have considered only English language sources in my investigation. Could the answer be found in non-English documents?

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paddle_(Spanking)

http://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/paddle

http://fr.wikitranslation.com/en/En_fessant

http://fr.wikitranslation.com/en/La_pag … essante%29

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

A lot can be said for the paddle and strap thesis of school and home as attested to in the first link.

CLICK

Boys were more often subjected to father’s razor strop. Women should stay away from men’s tools.

CLICK

The Cowcatcher’s Daughter would seem to be the exception to that rule.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021767/

http://youtu.be/1ylyrOsWDT0

Pertaing to SCP.

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

<a href=”” rel=”nofollow”></a>

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

Hi KK, above you said <em>”Canada may be the best country for comparison with the USA. Was there a difference in how parents punished their children in the days when compulsory education was first introduced?”</em>

It would appear that PCP was applied similarly on both sides of the border but then clearly diverged at some point in the 1900’s. Up to the 1900’s, parents probably used whatever adhoc implement was at hand, and so there would have been a lot of similarities (switches, birches, paddle or plank, slipper or shoe, etc). But then, something changed. A while ago, I published a book (now delisted) called “Spanking Images in Advertising and Consumer Products” and this showed a definite propensity (from 1900 to 1960) towards certain implements depending on the country where the ephemera (postcards, birthday cards, print advertisement, etc.) was published. American material depicting PCP often showed a wooden paddle or a hairbrush, along with other implements like a slipper. Similar material from England had a great propensity to show a slipper (or shoe?), or cane/switch, but never a paddle or a hairbrush. In Canada, strapping (usually with a leather trouser belt) was common, that’s not really surprising since children were routinely strapped at school.

I would note, more from personal and anecdotal experience… I remember at age 4, being spanked with a wooden spoon and also a flyswatter. The wooden spoon from other accounts was reasonably common here. At age six (I don’t remember a spanking at age 5), it was the leather belt, but the MO changed (for reasons I won’t get into here) and thereafter, it was always an OTK slippering. I have witnessed many children being parentally punished during my childhood: while visiting my cousin in Germany (he was 6), he was strapped on the bare bottom with a leather belt that hung on a hook in the kitchen expressly for that purpose. However, except for this, the dozen or so spankings I witnessed others receive were all delivered with a slipper, each and every one (and the parents where either British, German or French). Maybe the hairbrush was used here to some limited degree but this clearly appears to be an American cultural phenomenon.

So from this, I think Canadian PCP was more reflective of custom in England or continental Europe, and to find a paddle being used at home would truly have been the exception. So in my opinion, I think culturally Canadian and American parents delivered PCP differently in situations where an implement was used. I could be wrong but that’s been my impression. I hope this didn’t take your thread too far off-topic, but you did ask the question!

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

HH,

Thanks for your contribution. I believe there is value in examining what happened at home in order to better understand what happened in schools. Indeed, this is essential to test my hypothesis that parents determined school CP practice in the USA to a greater extent than elsewhere.

Ideally, we would uncover the minutes of school board meetings, or newspaper or official reports on the same, or other records detailing the discussion concerning the adoption of the paddle. However, it is likely that if there are such records they are not presently accessible on the internet.

It is likely decisions to adopt the paddle were made at local level by small school boards with limited resources to maintain records. In addition, the decision was probably not considered a major one and could have been lost among numerous other minor matters. It is the extraordinary rather than the ordinary that tends to be specifically recorded.

The possible role of women entering the teaching profession and bringing domestic CP with them can not be discounted. Females were popular in the early days of compulsory education because they were willing to work for less pay than men and were hence cheaper to employ.

It is clear the paddle was widely known, especially in the South, before schooling became compulsory. It is also clear straps and other implements will still in use in some places until relatively recent times. The spread of the paddle northward may have been slow. Perhaps it has persisted in the more conservative areas longer than other implements elsewhere and thus paddles now dominates from that persistence alone.

It is possible that use of CP peaked in schools after 1950, or even later. In the early days, there was resistance to compulsory schooling and to school CP. Slowly schooling and school CP became better regulated and more accepted. Parents who had experienced moderate regulated CP at school were more accepting of SCP of their children. A far bigger proportion of the population went to school and stayed there longer.

In my view, expressed in other threads in this forum, that the paddle is inferior and dangerous technology because the only way to increase severity is at the risk of deep and potentially injury through the use of a heavier paddle.

____________________________________

American Way has provided a lot of undigested info via hyperlinks that shows the razor strap was well known in certain schools, including:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=na … 44,5264470

Reading Eagle – Jan 30, 1927

School Board Orders 3 Whipping Straps

Fairbury, Nebraska, Jan. 29 (AP).-

Straps, about the size of a razor strop, and of good leather, have been ordered by the school board, for pupils in the Fairbury schools.

When unruly students got beyond the control of an algebra teacher recently, the school board, in ending his services because he could not maintain discipline, ordered “three suitable straps for whipping.” A resolution adopted stated that the board “stands back of the teachers in efforts to maintain discipline and good behavior even to the extent of corporal punishment.”

The same item with additional details appears on page 8 of Beatrice Daily Sun, Thursday, February 03, 1927.

PARENTS AT FAIRBURY FAVOR SCHOOL STRAPS

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

Hi KK, I should add as further evidence (as to which came first, SCP or PCP tradition), staying at a friend’s house when we were 8. It was his bedtime and my parenyts had not come to pick me up so he refused his father’s request to ready for bed. I remember his dad saying he was about to bring the strap if the boy didn’t obey. The parents were Scottish, so as in school, so as at home? (NB. He was not strapped, he went to bed and I was picked up 10 minutes later).

But more to your points, you said <em>”The possible role of women entering the teaching profession and bringing domestic CP with them can not be discounted”. </em>Certainly true. According to C.E.Phillip’s most excellent book in 1957 “The Development of Education in Canada”, he stated that the most notable reduction in the intensity and frequency of SCP in our schooling occured between 1850 to 1900. The reason given was that female teachers constituted only a small minority up to ca.1850 but within only a 20-25 year span, outnumbered men in every province. While women were capable of physically punishing a child, they simply preferred a variety of other methods (not all of which were better in my mind, such as sarcasm or ridicule)

You also said, <em>”In my view… that the paddle is inferior and dangerous technology…”. </em>I really have to agree on that one. The reason is, a few sharp swats can leave quite the bruising, and this is fodder for all the anti-CP campaigners. The number one reason we adopted strapping, and of the hands, in SCP was exactly to find a means of delivering a satisfactorily punitive delivery system while <em>not</em> marking. The thought being, no marks would substantially reduce parental complaints about their child’s CP at school, and equally would reduce judicial complaints and inqieries. And it’s true, both these things happened where hand-strapping was adopted. This is why I always found it surprising that the paddle had not been replaced with other methods. This simply goes to your point of how culturally intrenched this must be in American schooling, like the cane was for England.

The paddle seems to be very much the preferred implement in USA schools. When did it first come into widespread use? I am particularly interested in early mentions of the school paddle in dated factual or fictional literature, and in official documents.

Have other cultures used the paddle in schools?

HH,

The safety of the paddle has been discussed previously here: http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/m … 351902620/