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2013holyfamilypenguin1,385
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?
KK here is a follow up. Palmatoria. Intended to be a helpful follow up.
Brazil school corporal punishment with a first person account. It would appear that there is a tradition and not all that many years ago.
Description.
Antigamente, nas festas de formatura, no Brasil, era costume os alunos presentearem seus professores com palmatórias, como sinal de submissão à autoridade.
Previously, the graduation parties, in Brazil, it was customary for students present their teachers with paddles, as a sign of submission to authority.
Description.
A palmatória, por vezes também chamada férula, e um artefacto genialmente de madeira formado por um circulo e uma haste. Foi muito utilizada no passado nas escolas pelos professores a fim de castigar alunos indisciplinados, golpeando-a na palma de mao do aluno castigado. Algumas palmatórias podem conter furos no circulo, a de aumentar a sensação dolorosa. Os furos servem para vencer a resistência do ar e aumentar a velocidade do golpe, aumentando assim a dor e vestigio deixado na pele por cada golpe.
The paddle sometimes also called ferrule, and an artifact ingeniously timber formed by a circle and a shank. It was widely used in the past in schools by teachers to punish unruly students, striking her in the palm of the hand punished student. Some paddles may contain holes in the circle, to increase the sensation of pain. The holes serve to overcome air resistance and increase the speed of the stroke, increasing the pain and trace left on the skin for each stroke.
Antigamente, nas festas de formatura, no Brasil, era costume os alunos presentearem seus professores com palmatórias, como sinal de submissão à autoridade.
Previously, the graduation parties, in Brazil, it was customary for students present their teachers with paddles, as a sign of submission to authority.
It’s interesting that a popular Brazilian television comedy would show corporal punishment administered. It’s a regular part of an ongoing skit.
Playful Corporal Punishment.
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?
Who did not take the teacher spanked before? In Brazil, its use was introduced by the Jesuits, as a way of disciplining resistant indigenous acculturation. The practice was perpetuated by African slavery. The lords used it as one of many punishments applied to disobedient blacks. At the end of the nineteenth century, when education was in its infancy in our country, the paddle migrated to school. With campaigns to end child abuse in the 1970s, corporal punishment was convicted. Transformed into crime in the 1980s, the use of the instrument was abolished defitivamente the drafting of the Statute of Children and Adolescents in 1990.
CLICK
ODE TO Paddling
Here is the poem without indentation. That drives you crazy KK.
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ODE A PALMATÓRIA
Nas escolas tinhas o condão
de instrumento do saber.
Não refiro ao livro que ensina o cidadão
que nessa fonte inesgotável vai beber.
Também não digo do lápis, caneta ou borrador.
Muito menos falo de giz, lousa ou apagador.
Eras simplesmente a palmatória,
que sem favor da oratória,
não demonstrando compaixão nem piedade,
por não ter com estes qualquer afinidade,
desasnavas, na força bruta, a menina ou o menino
que levitasse entre o muar e o bovino.
Não tendo time nem devoção a santo,
teu aspecto humilde era teu manto.
nfligias a dor como tributo ao saber.
Só os fracos de ti guardam ódio,
mas, por ti, tantos chegaram ao pódio.
O que significa que cumpriste teu dever.
Na intransigente defesa do bem,
sempre impuseste a ordem e a moral.
Por isso afirmo que o ensino te tem
uma incomensurável hipoteca social.
Aposentaram-te, mas deixaste um memorável ninho,
marcando uma época, mostraste como educar.
Pois, se a palmatória estava no meio do caminho,
outros métodos que me perdoem: só restava estudar.Henrique Veiga, advogado brasileiro
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_L you love my duff links.
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KKxyz3,59957
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?
Passing mentions are useful in helping to establish what was normal or common at a particular time and place.
____________________________Evening Bulletin (Honolulu) 10 June 1896.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ … d-1/seq-1/
At the circus
[. . .] The only Rowley [dramatist] carried the house with him in his specialties and inimitable songs, as did Bob Scott. Judging from the finished manner in which he handles the paddle used to punish the scholars, in the afterpiece Bob must have been a schoolmaster at some time or another; probably another. [. . .]
____________________________
Parental paddle
The Indianapolis Journal. 24 May 1903.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ … -1/seq-13/
Children have obeyed
BECAUSE THEY WANT TO SEE GENTRY’S DOG SHOW THIS WEEK.
Musical Ponies, Military Drills, Loop-the-Loop, Monkey and Performing Elephants – The Parade.“You must be a good child or I won’t take you to Gentry’s dog and pony show:” This has had a very good effect upon Indianapolis children for many days, and many mothers have held up the chances of missing the show instead of using a paddle in order to punish or to make a mischievous child obey. Children have been looking for ward for weeks to the annual visit of their favorite circus, and they will all flock to Sixteenth street and Capitol avenue this week, for Gentry Bros.’ famous shows will show there every afternoon and evening during the week, the first performance to be given to-morrow afternoon. [. . .]
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?
Immigrants often bring their attitudes and customs with them. A lot of Germans settled in the USA although mainly in non-paddling states. I have previously asked if the paddle was known in Germany (see here). I have found no evidence that the immigrants Germans brought school paddling with them.
The following illustration appeared in a popular German weekly in 1873. It shows a father armed with a paddle-like device or lath. I am not sure of the correct interpretation of the caption but possibly the boy has received a bad school report.
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2013holyfamilypenguin1,385
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?
Brockway’s notorious “Paddle” 1897. Spanking? Paddle?
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KKxyz3,59957
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?
Article on US school paddling greatly expanded, new pictures added, statistics updated.
A most excellent summary of a complex topic.
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?
The school paddle did not arise out of a vacuum although its origin remains uncertain. Schools used very strange rulers in the USA in the early days.
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ … d-1/seq-1/
Essex County Herald (Guildhall, Vermont) 12 September 1874.
Punishment at Auburn Prison Box cells, the paddle, and the swing have taken the place of the cat and the shower bath at the Auburn, N.Y. State prison.Confinement in the dungeon or box cell has no terrors for the convicts. The prisoners do not mind the confinement, and they know from the experience of those who have suffered that after being kept two or three days on the bread-and-water diet, they are taken out, given a good meal, and then put back. This practice is continued until the convict yields.
To hang on a sort of trapeze, with their arms out stretched above their head, and only the tips of the toes touching the floor, is a more severe punishment. But the convicts do not fear it much, as it is seldom used, and when it is, the punishment is of short duration.
The paddle is made of wood or leather, and resembles a schoolmaster’s ruler. It is used as a mother uses her slipper or the palm of her hand upon her naughty child. This method of punishment is rarely resorted to.
The usual punishment for all offences is confinement in the dungeons and box cells.
A convict named Samuel Stockley recently made an attempt to escape. He was punished by being compelled to work with a ball and chain, and hid himself in the yard, intending to make a second attempt to escape. Having been found, he was hung in the swing. Drawing himself up, he unloosed the buckles which held his wrists, and went to his shop. At night, he again hid himself preparatory to a third attempt to escape. The officers found him and fastened a ball and chain to his legs, and shaved one side of his head. A day or two afterward the ball and chain were taken off, and he was locked up in his cell on full rations.
A few days ago Michael Morgan who was sent here from New York in May 1872, to serve twenty years’ imprisonment for robbery on the highway, stabbed Capt. Thorne, the keeper, in one of the State shops. He was locked up in a dungeon.
William Savage, a convict, who recently struck a keeper in the mess room, because he would not allow him to speak to the principal keeper, and then ran down the aisles between the row of stools, and called on 1,500 convicts, who were at dinner, to help him, was punished by confinement in a box cell.
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?
http://abagagemdonavegante.blogspot.com … -saio.html
[Machine translation from Portuguese]
“The paddle was the instrument of physical punishment of students most used in the world. Its use is still popular in some Eastern countries. In the West, England only banned in 1989.
In Brazil, its use was introduced by the Jesuits, as a way of disciplining resistant indigenous acculturation. The practice was perpetuated by African slavery. The lords used it as one of many punishments applied to disobedient blacks. At the end of the nineteenth century, when education was in its infancy in our country, the paddle migrated to school.
With the campaigns to end child abuse in the 1970s, corporal punishment was convicted. Transformed in crime in the 1980s, use of the instrument was defitivamente abolished with the preparation of the Statute of the Child and Adolescent – ECA in 1990.”
Chermont Leonardo de Sá, Brazilian Educator
____________________________________________Uncertainty if not mystery surrounds the origin and adoption of the school paddle in the USA. The search has therefore been extended to other nations and other languages notwithstanding the difficulties. The suggestion is that schools in Brazil adopted a punishment used on slaves. This is a common supposition in the USA but I have found no evidence this is so. There is quite a gap between the abolition of slavery and the widespread use of paddles in schools.
There are several possible objections to the above excerpt which was found and reported by AW above, June 4, 2014.
1. The translation is uncertain. I know no Portuguese.
2. There is confusion between a particular implement, the palmatoria, probably a Roman device, and corporal punishment. The normal target is unclear.
3. The statement is made without reference to sources or primary documents. It amounts to no more than an opinion, possibly well informed, or not.
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?
Found earlier by American Way
A staged photo, date uncertain but sent to a boy in Pennsylvania circa 1906-1910.
The shape of the “board” is of interest. It may be a roof or wall shingle. The “handle” is much too wide and short to be easily gripped. The paddle looks dangerously thick and heavy for such a small boy. It may not be a school paddling as “education” could occur at home.
2013holyfamilypenguin1,385 -
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?
The palmada’s intended target in this case was may the palms of the hand.
August 10, 1914 Evening times-Republican. (Marshalltown, Iowa)
The palmada does resemble a wooden spoon as an instrument of correction. The anti-spanking zealots had a field day over this picture of celebrity Kate Gosselin’s parenting skills with her wooden spoon raising her brood. She nicknamed the spoon “The Spanker.”
I’m sure it’s the bottom that is intended target. It better be. She’s stepping on one of my many land mines. 
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KKxyz3,59957
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?
Shingles have been much used for “spanking”.
A modern specification for shakes and shingles can be seen here. A blue label shingle might be a suitable paddle blank but care would be needed in choosing a shingle with suitable grain to reduce the risk of splitting or breaking.
Useful details about modern shingles and their use is available here.
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?
I have previously suggested that the adoption of the paddle in USA public schools might relate to the greater dominance of parents over professional teachers and tradition European school practice. The latter was based on Roman and Greek practice. This parental dominance was greatest in small rural and Southern school districts. It may have lead to the transfer of CP as used in homes into schools.
The following article does not mention SCP but it does disclose the attitudes and concerns during the time when compulsory education was being introduced. Not much has changed nearly 140 later although power has shifted from males to females. It is boys who are now disadvantaged rather than girls.No Jenny to rise to this bait!
_________________________________
The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio), 22 Nov. 1877
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/ … d-1/seq-2/
SHALL BOYS AND GIRLS GO TO SCHOOLS TOGETHER? Boston is just now very much agitated over the question whether girls shall be admitted to its Latin School, one of the famous public institutions of the city, which is maintained at the public expense. Petitions asking for the establishment or the girls’ department have been presented to the School Board by several important bodies, and among the signatures to them are those of many distinguished men and women of Massachusetts. Long arguments for and against opening the school for girls have been heard by a committee of the board, one or the members of which is a lady, and on Monday the case was closed.
The discussion is interesting outside of Boston, because it involves subjects which are now attracting wide attention in the country. Shall boys and girls, after they have passed the earlier years of childhood be sent to school together? Shall girls receive the higher education in colleges that are also attended by boys?
The arguments in favor of the mixed education, as presented by Mrs. Zina Fay Peirce, for instance, are that it is desirable for the youth of the two sexes to grow up with a knowledge of each other, which they cannot do if they are separated in their childhood; that the system of co-education is American, and that we only ape foreign customs when we give it up; that the taste and refinement of the girls have an effect to soften the hardness and lessen the coarseness of boys when they are trained together. The answer to these arguments might be that even if co-education is American, and separate education European, that is nothing in favor of it for we may be wrong and Europe right; and that the knowledge which it is eminently desirable the two sexes should have each other, the mutual effect of their companionship in childhood, maybe acquired in the family, and the associations of family, just as well as in a school in which they shall be trained together. Boys and girls do not need to go to the same school to get acquainted.
The argument against co-education, presented among others, by six of the Presidents of the leading American colleges, including Harvard and Yale, is that the moral atmosphere of a boys’ school is not a fitting one for girls; that the moral tone of the Latin and Greek classics, while it does not hurt boys, is bad for girls; that the physical conditions of girls forbid their safely entering into competition with boys in high schools. In fine, the argument is that girls may suffer morally, and do suffer physically, in undertaking the tasks required of boys such institutions as the Latin School. The Hon. Charles Francis Adams opposes co-education, but thinks there is craze enough in favor of it to force it into our educational system, where it will remain until some shocking scandal frightens the community back into the European system of separate schools.
The strongest argument advanced in favor of opening the Boston Latin School to girls is that they have just as much right to be taught the classical languages at the expense of the city as the boys have. This is unanswerable. But have either boys or girls the right to be taught? Famous and venerable as is the Boston Latin School; is it an institution which ought to be grafted on our modern system of popular education? If boys and girls can afford the time to study the ornamental branches of learning, they can afford, in the majority of cases, to pay for their tuition; and in no case should the cost of it be levied upon the tax-payers generally.
As to educating the sexes together, we are inclined to agree with Mr. Adams. N. Y. Sun.
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?
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/25487/25487-h/2548
PECK’S BAD BOY AND HIS PA. By Geo. W. Peck
With Illustrations by Gean Smith.
Belford, Clarke & Co. – 1883.
CHAPTER XXV.
HIS PA KILLS HIM—A GENIUS AT WHISTLING—A FUR-LINED CLOAK A
SURE CURE FOR CONSUMPTION—ANOTHER LETTER SENT TO THE OLD
MAN—HE RESOLVES ON IMMEDIATE PUNISHMENT—THE BLADDER-BUFFER
THE EXPLOSION—A TRAGIC SCENE—HIS PA VOWS TO REFORM.
[. . .]
You see, I wanted to get Pa into the church again, and get him to stop drinking, so I got a boy to write a letter to him, in a female hand, and sign the name of a choir singer Pa was mashed on, and tell him she was yearning for him to come back to the church, and that the church seemed a blank without his smiling face, and benevolent heart, and to please come back for her sake.
Pa got the letters Saturday night and he seemed tickled, but I guess he dreamed about it all night, and Sunday morning he was mad, and he took me by the ear and said I couldn’t come no ‘Daisy’ business on him the second time. He said he knew I wrote the letter, and for me to go up to the store room and prepare for the almightiest licking a boy ever had, and he went down stairs and broke up an apple barrel and got a stave to whip me with.
Well, I had to think mighty quick, but I was enough for him. I got a dried bladder in my room, one that me and my chum got to the slotter house, and blowed it partly up, so it would be sort of flat-like, and I put it down inside the back part of my pants, right about where Pa hits when he punishes me. I knowed when the barrel stave hit the bladder it would explode.
Well, Pa he came up and found me crying. I can cry just as easy as you can turn on the water at a faucet, and Pa took off his coat and looked sorry. I was afraid he would give up whipping me when he see me cry, and I wanted the bladder experiment to go on, so I looked kind of hard, as if I was defying him to do his worst, and then he took me by the neck and laid me across a trunk. I didn’t dare struggle much for fear the bladder would loose itself, and Pa said, ‘Now Hennery, I am going to break you of this dam foolishness, or I will break your back,’ and he spit on his hands and brought the barrel stave down on my best pants.
Well, you’d a dide if you had heard the explosion. It almost knocked me off the trunk. It sounded like firing a firecracker away down cellar in a barrel, and Pa looked scared. I rolled off the trunk, on the floor, and put some flour on my face, to make me look pale, and then I kind of kicked my legs like a fellow who is dying on the stage, after being stabbed with a piece of lath, and groaned, and said, ‘Pa you have killed me, but I forgive you,’ and then rolled around, and frothed at the mouth, cause I had a piece of soap in my mouth to make foam.
Well, Pa, was all broke up. He said, ‘Great God, what have I done? I have broke his spinal column. O, my poor boy, do not die?’ I kept chewing the soap and foaming at the mouth, and I drew my legs up and kicked them out, and clutched my hair, and rolled my eyes, and then kicked Pa in the stummick as he bent over me, and knocked his breath out of him, and then my limbs began to get rigid, and I said, ‘Too late, Pa, I die at the hand of an assassin. Go for a doctor.’
[. . .]
______________________________
Barrels of various descriptions were ubiquitous in earlier times. If there were no spare shingles lying about there was sure to be a barrel readily to hand.
George Wilbur Peck (September 28, 1840– April 16, 1916) was an American writer and politician from Wisconsin. He served as the 17th Governor of Wisconsin and the 9th Mayor of Milwaukee.
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?
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/139 … =%3Bseq=43
Memories of Buffalo Bill, by his wife, Louisa Frederici Cody, in collaboration with Courtney Ryley Cooper. 1919
Louisa first met Bill Cody in St Louis, Missouri in 1865 and they started courting immediately. The neighbourhood children noticed and started teasing.
[. . .]
But he had already gathered reinforcements, and a line of children was on the sidewalk, pointing their fingers at me and crying:
“Louisa’s mad
And I am glad
And I know how to please her!
A bottle of wine
To make her fine
And her handsome beau to squeeze her!”
Then they scattered — for the “handsome beau” was coming down the street – scattered, leaving only the urchin of the hoop behind. I had started from the porch to paddle every one of them, and suddenly stopped, blushing and angry – and trying to keep from laughing at the same time.
[. . .]
The above was written long after the events described. It is uncertain whether “paddle” was a word from 1865, or later. Did Louisa have ready access to a paddle or did she mean she made to “spank” them?
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 precursor to Just William?
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?
My research into the origin of the US school paddle has been frustrated by the ubiquity of the word “paddle” in documents during the period of greatest interest in the states of greatest interest.
Travel by canoe was important in the early days of the US. Later canoeing was an important recreation and competitive sport. There are many mentions of paddles in connection with these activities.
The expression Paddle your own canoe (act independently and decide your own fate), began to be used in the early 19th century and was the title of at least two poems and is included in the subtitles of books.
Paddle steamers, steel making before Bessemer, and glass making all used paddles.
Digitisation of printed works continues. I remain hopeful that an important document may yet come to light, perhaps a report of a school committee or board meeting together with discussions in a local newspaper.
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?
More than one path may apply. Not all possible paths are shown. A direct link with slavery is very unlikely.
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?
Paddling – how it works. Started July 2009
The science of strap and paddle weight and pain. August 2009
This thread. October 2010
The ideal paddle. November 2010
Does cultural autonomy help retain the paddle? November 2011
Is the paddle suitable for school CP? September 2012
The Paddle at School, Home, Work & College. February 2013
Please advise of any errors or important omissions.
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?
Corsicana State Home, formerly the State Orphans’ Home, was established in 1887 by an act of the Twelfth Legislature to support, educate, and care for orphan or dependent children. It opened on July 15, 1889, and housed fifty-four children the first year.
_______________________________
http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiug.3011204 … =%3Bseq=50
Report of the Board of Trustees of the State Orphan Asylum Located at Corsicana, Texas, from January 1, 1895, to January 1, 1897. Including the Rules and Regulations for the Government of the Asylum. Austin: Ben C. Jones & Co, State Printers, 1896.
By-Laws
Teachers
Page 24-
[. . .]
14th. Teachers should be gentle, kind, sympathizing and courteous to their pupils, and at the same time require from them prompt obedience, courtesy and politeness. All teachers shall aim at such discipline in the school as would be exercised by a kind and judicious parent in his family, avoiding corporal punishment in all cases where milder means can be successfully employed, but not hesitating to make use of it whenever other means fail, and never engaging in violent controversy or discipline in the presence of the school. It is strictly enjoined upon all teachers that they avoid all appearance of indiscreet haste in the discipline of their pupils, and in the more difficult cases that may occur to apply to the principal for advice and direction.
15th. No teacher will inflict corporal or other severe punishment in the presence of the school, nor without the principal or one of the other teachers being present at the time. It shall be the duty of each teacher to make a record of every instance of corporal punishment, with the time and cause thereof, the name of the offender, how punished and the degree of severity, and report the same to the principal at the end of the week.
[. . .]
______________________________
The bylaws of the state institution require teachers to emulate kind and judicious parents. If the paddle was the norm in family homes it would be the implement used in the state home and associated school. This is the earliest and most specific instruction to this effect I have found. It may have been a model for other public schools.
A description of life in the home in the 1930’s can be found here.
Excerpts:
Mrs. Hurt was the first matron to use a wooden paddle on me when she whipped me – usually for my smart mouth. I’ll have to admit, I usually had a whipping coming.
[. . .]
“Hoss” Ross’s office was on the second floor of the Big Boys building where he kept a barrel stave paddle made from a soap flakes barrel from our large laundry. That paddle had holes drilled the length of it. It was carved and padded to protect his hand at the handle. There was a sign above his desk listing the infractions of the rules and the number of strikes by his barrel stave paddle for each violation. However, we schemed to soften those blows against our buttocks. Those whippings, which we usually referred to as “beatings,” were administered after the noon time dinner or evening supper. That way, “Hoss” could remind us at the dining hall of our appointment with him.