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hcsj441,211
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?
In the Computing Corner thread, HH noted:
KK wondered what this had to do with the earliest mention of the Paddle. I don’t know, but I do have a strap (actually a short 8-tailed taws) that came out of a Boston school ca.1850’s. A strap! not a paddle, but who knows what if any regulation existed specifying the implement. I suspect none existed.
There was much French influence in Boston in the 19th Century, so could HH‘s 8 tailed tawse be a type of martinet?
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HH2012836
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?
Apologies to hcj, further on this topic in the “Spare not the Rod …” thread, I misquoted your comment as coming from KK.
At any rate, I mentioned this strap in a post found earlier in this thread here
The image disappeared so I have reposted a new (hopefully more permanent) one. This is made from folding the tail section over into two plies, thus the 4 tails you see have another four underneath them. That is better illustrated in the second of two views. An extremely well made piece! stitched, edging tools used, and tail beds punched – indicates a professionally made piece by a saddler (with appropriate tools) and thus someone actually paid for this implement to be made.
The strap is quite short at 13″ overall. Perhaps more for flogging the back, back of legs? I don’t know.
Come to think of it, this could have had one of two influences: (1)from a martinet, yes I can see that, or, (2) The Scots had been cutting “Mill Straps” for domestic use for several hundred years. … short multi-tailed implements, often presented to new brides as wedding presents, with the intention of spanking the anticipated children to come along as required. I can see both influences in this piece.
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hcsj441,211
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?
Thank you HH. That is indeed a very unusual implement and it is difficult to imagine where the idea came from, but as you say, it appears to be expertly crafted.
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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?
Source: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.c2623283 … %3Bseq=630
The School Journal (New York & Chicago) volume 52, page 604, 23 May 1896.
Corporal Punishment in the School by Helen M Bullis
It may seem to some that a new article upon so old a topic lacks reason for being. This would be true if corporal punishment were entirely obsolete, or, on the other hand, were proved by experience to be the best of all possible systems. But neither is the case. Every teacher of experience knows that such punishment is still widespread, and most look upon it as a more or less necessary evil.
A highly considered primary principal told me recently that her own method of discipline in a city school in New York state was to compel the pupil to lie face downward across a chair and then “paddle” him with a broad ruler. I have myself taught in schools where the ferule was almost daily splintered – I do not use a figure of speech – upon refractory children, and worse than that, where the system had continued so long that the pupils could understand no other.
[. . .]
The inclusion of the quotes surrounding the word paddle indicates the author recognised the word was being used in a non-literal sense. The item was probably first presented in New Jersey.
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hcsj441,211
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?
An interesting article KK; it could just as well have been written in 1996!
I noted one descriptive statement:
…compel the pupil to lie face downward across a chair and then “paddle” him with a broad ruler…
a similar technique to examples we have seen from Vietnam and other Eastern countries. To me, this seems a safer position than the traditional stance for paddling.
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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?
Source: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/139 … =%3Bseq=39
A Labrador doctor; the autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell Published 1919
CHAPTER II. SCHOOL LIFE
Marlborough “College,” as we say in England for a large University preparatory school, is situated in Wiltshire, in a perfectly beautiful country, close to the Savernake Forest — one of the finest in all England. [. . .]
[Fives bats have been discussed previously somewhere on this forum but I have not found the posts.]
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?
Indiana features disproportionately in the posts above as a paddling state (52 mentions). Was or is there something special about this northern mid-western state which might help explain the popularity in the USA of the paddle?
Settlers generally brought their cultural practices with them. Did this happen in Indiana? Or did the paddle arrive from the south via the Mississippi and its tributaries? Or perhaps an influential person or clique imposed the practice during the introduction of compulsory education?
Since its founding as a territory, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state’s northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the Mid-Atlantic states and from adjacent Ohio, and Southern Indiana by settlers from the Southern states, particularly Kentucky and Tennessee.
The most common ancestry claimed by residents of the state in 1980 was German (42%). I have found no evidence to suggest that German settlers preferentially favoured the paddle (see here).
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana
According to a 1897 newspaper report, an old “statute” permitting students to be optionally paddled instead of expelled applied in Muncie, in east central Indiana, at some time before 1897. I have found no evidence of a state law to this effect. Possibly, it was a local law, yet to be found.
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?
“Paddled” with a rattan?
The Indiana School Journal. v.21 (1876), pages 416-418
An object lesson
Barnes, the schoolmaster in a suburban town, read in the
Educational Monthly that boys could be taught history better
than in any other way by letting each boy in the class represent
some historical character, and relate the acts of that character as
if he had done them himself. This struck Barnes as a mighty
good idea, and he resolved to try it on. The school had then
progressed so far in its study of the history of Rome as the Punic
wars, and Mr. Barnes immediately divided the boys into two
parties, one Romans and the other Carthaginians, and certain of
the boys were named after the leaders upon both sides. All the
boys thought it was a big thing, and Barnes noticed that they
were so anxious to get to the history lesson that they could hardly
say their other lessons properly.
[. . .] [Great disorder]
. . . . Then Barnes went for a policeman, and when
he knocked at the door it was opened, and all the Romans were
found busy studying their lessons. When Barnes came in with
the defeated troops he went for Scipio Africanus, and pulling him
out of his seat by the ear, he thrashed that great military genius
with a rattan until Scipio began to cry, whereupon Barnes dropped
him and began to paddle Caius Gracchus. Then things settled
down in the old way, and next morning Barnes announced that
history in the future would be studied as it always had been;
and he wrote a note to the Educational Monthly to say that in his
opinion the man who suggested the new system ought to be led
out and shot. The boys do not now take as much interest in
Roman history as they did on that day. – Phil. Bulletin.
It is likely readers of the above item would know what a rattan (cane) was and that they would understand “paddle” meant beat or strike, presumably on the buttocks. It is likely that paddles were well established at home if not in school in Indiana by 1876.
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Another_Lurker10K289
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?
<div style=”width:100%;background-image:url(“/realm/A_L_123/A_L_trg.gif”);”>Hello KK,
I was a little puzzled by the reference to ‘Fives bats’. At my school Fives was played with the gloved hand, and reference to this Wikipedia article on Fives generally, and another Wikipedia article on Eton Fives seems to suggest that was the norm in English Public Schools.
However, although I haven’t had time to do extensive research, in older (especially pre-20th century) material there seem to be references to Fives bats, and indeed to their use in punitive applications. The Wilfred Thomason Grenfell autobiography you link is one such. An H H Munro short story and a P G Wodehouse novel are others.
This article by by Howard Wiseman in the English Fives Association’s Annual Report throws some light on the situation. Apparently ‘bat Fives’ was a pre 1930s game which effectively become extinct. Sadly the article does not quote the dimensions of the items in the Winchester School collection from which Mr Wiseman constructed a replica Fives bat. Alas, if the Hand Ball Supplies Company did indeed market a reproduction ‘Fives bat’ in 2008, as suggested in Mr Wiseman’s article they no longer seem to do so, and the UK Fives Federation site states that Fives:
I have searched for previous references here to Fives or Fives bats and can locate only three items, two of them relative to Fives courts at my school and one to Fives courts at a school attended by a former contributor, but no mention anywhere of Fives bats.</div>
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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?
