Merchants, those wanting to sell products, often coin “facts” or elaborate lore in order to sell their wares. This frustrates historical research, as do those who quote “facts” without mentioning of their sources. An example from a fetish site I will not name:

Spencer Paddle, named after Harold Spencer, a schoolteacher on the east coast of the United States. It is differentiated from other paddles by the holes in its blade. In the 1930s …

Paddles with holes existed long before Spencer.

American Way has mentioned the Spencer Paddle previously and there are several mentions on fetish sites, generally with much the same vague wording which suggests the wording has been borrowed from a common source. I have found no mention of Spencer or his paddle in older literature. I would like to identify the earliest mention. Can anyone help?

The “Spencer Plan” was sorted here: http://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/t … 1436560592

Can we make similar progress with the Spencer Paddle mentioned above (March 11, 2013) and elsewhere on the Forum by American Way?

. . . the Spencer paddle. Inventor Harold Spencer, a schoolteacher in the Eastern U.S in the 1930s . . .

I believe the use of the paddle in US schools was largely due to the influence of parents.

There is no evidence that school paddling was derived from fraternity practice although it is possible graduate teachers who had been fraternity members had some influence.

Hazing and initiations in USA colleges occured from the earliest times. The paddle seems to have been a late arrival. If we could understand when and why this happened it might help understand school use better.

JOURNAL OF THE ILLINOIS STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY 91:4 Winter, 1998, page 233-

Harmless Pranks or Brutal Practices?
Hazing at the University of Illinois, 1868-1913 Winton U. Solberg

http://dig.lib.niu.edu/ISHS/ishs-1998wi … ter233.pdf

Rites of passage mark important transitions in life, and soon
after the first universities arose in Europe it became customary to
subject new students to some form of initiation. In German universities
in the seventeenth century, for example, pennalism was the
name given to an oppressive system of bullying neophytes (pennal
was a slang term for freshmen, who carried with them a pennal or
pen-case for use at lectures). In England the system under which a
senior boy could compel a junior boy to perform vexatious tasks was
called fagging, a word that came into use in the mid-1820s. Hazing is
the term employed to describe the familiar collegiate ritual in
America. The Oxford English Dictionary defines hazing as “a sound
beating, a thrashing,” and as “a species of brutal horseplay practiced
on freshmen at some American Colleges,” and it records the Harvard
Magazine in 1860 as the first to use the word to describe “the absurd
and barbarous custom of hazing which has long prevailed in the college.”

Early American colleges imported the custom of fagging, and
in the early nineteenth century hazing replaced it as a method of initiating
and disciplining freshmen. Hazing was a product of the class
system, whereby all students who entered at the same time were considered
members of a single class throughout their college course.
The conditions of college lifea fixed curriculum, the recitation system,
the college dormitory, and antagonism between faculty and students
strengthened class ties, and class rivalry opened the way for
what Henry D. Sheldon called “numerous perversions.” Describing
the hazing of freshmen by sophomores in the nineteenth century,
Sheldon noted various degrees of the custom that ran the gamut from
practical jokes and tricks to serious and cold-blooded offenses.
During the first month at college the freshman was the likely victim
of annoying pastimeshe was jeered at, his room was liable to be
invaded at all hours, and his person and belongings formed the
means of amusing his tormentors. More elaborate vexations followed.
One of the most common was “smoking out,” a practice in
which a group of sophomores seized and closed up a newcomer in
room, filled it with smoke, and attempted to sicken their victim.
Meanwhile, the freshman might be compelled to perform such nonsensical
acts as making speeches, singing songs, dancing, or reciting
the alphabet backwards. “Salting the freshman,” enjoyed at one college,
consisted in placing salt and water on the chairs of freshmen in
chapel; at another college molasses replaced the salt and water. More
serious, a group of sophomores might single out an individual freshman
whom they considered odious, gag and blindfold him, and
hurry him away to some desolate locality, where they practiced various
indignities upon him, such as cutting off his hair and branding
his body with indelible ink or smearing it with paint, tossing him in
a river or putting him under a pump for a considerable period, and
leaving him in a remote place or a cemetery with a gag in his mouth
and his hands bound behind him.

On an average, Sheldon believes, not more than two or three
such affairs occurred each year in a typical college, and probably not
more than about 15 percent of any sophomore class engaged in hazing
of the type described. The majority, however, exhibited only a
passive opposition to the practice, and the governing boards of the
colleges tried without success to extirpate this initiation rite. One
reason was that students refused to inform on their classmates, but
the real reason for the persistence of hazing lay in the conservatism
and reverence for tradition that marks youth. “That freshmen had
always been hazed seemed sufficient cause why hazing should be
continued.”2 Hazing was a form of aggressive behavior that spread
across the land. When James Burrill Angell became president of the
University of Michigan in 1871, hazing and other disorders were
accepted conduct of students. The practice was difficult to control
because it took place outside class hours and frequently at night.
When Thomas C. Chamberlin became president of the University of
Wisconsin in 1887, hazing was a serious problem, although, as the
university’s historians write, “perhaps no worse … than elsewhere at
the time.” At the University of Missouri in the 1890s the hazing of
unpopular or obstreperous individuals occurred, but it never struck
any deep roots. At Indiana University hazing was one manifestation
of interclass rowdiness, and the practice of “scalping” (hair cutting)
freshmen had its day. One beleaguered sophomore held fifty freshmen
at bay with a shotgun when they tried to enter his room to give
him a second scalping. At the University of Iowa President George
MacLean, who took office in 1899, was less offended by such adult
offenses as entering saloons or drunkenness than by the adolescent
practice of hazing. In 1901 authorities suspended ten sophomores for
the remainder of the year for abducting the president of the freshman
class and holding him captive for two days. Hazing was well
entrenched at both military service academies. At West Point it was
practiced with methods that were “violent and uncontrolled,” and
Douglas MacArthur’s refusal to be a tattletale nearly ended his career
as a cadet.3

How to deal with hazing was part of the larger problem of
discipline that troubled colleges throughout the nineteenth century.
Officials tried various approaches in an attempt to maintain order
and create an environment conducive to learning. Neither harsh
paternalism nor an appeal to the honor of students proved successful.
Hazing was difficult to manage because it shaded off by slight
degrees from the practical joke to the serious crime. It was not merely
a colorful aspect of college life but a stage in the evolution of higher
education that helps us understand the conditions under which
American students were educated.4

etc.

_______________________________________

Henry D. Sheldon,
Student Life and Student Customs (New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1901),

http://hdl.handle.net/2027/miun.afm1696.0001.001

These paddling at the University of Missouri Quadrangle were renowned throughout the USA. There was no cutting corners for the underclassmen.

The Quadrangle.

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1917

Get off the grass had a different connotation 50 years ago. It makes one wonder if they really interesting in preserving the grass.

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1920

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With the paddle so readily available it was used in 1910.

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From this account even back before 1905.

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Matters got complicated after WWI with older students in 1921

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1921

Paddling to motivate students for community service.

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Paddling for group entertainment.

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1922.

Public paddling as a penalty draws a crowd of about 200.

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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/hvd.32044028945319
School Board Manual A reference work on School Administrative Labors for the Use of School Authorities Compiled by WILLIAM GEORGE BRUCE

Published by THE AMERICAN SCHOOL BOARD JOURNAL
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1904

Preface (page 3-)

[. . .]

School boards are isolated bodies. They do not mingle with each other as such. Their proceedings are hidden from one another, except in rare instances where they are printed in the columns of a newspaper or in pamphlet form. But even here important actions are submerged in a mass of routine and only intelligible to an outsider after they have been disentangled from official verbiage. [School board proceedings are also hidden from researchers such as me.]

This fact, together with the transitory character of the average school board and the absorbing occupations of many of its members render helpful literature on school administration most necessary. The man who is constantly preoccupied with business or professional labors has little time or inclination to wade through a mass of literature in order to equip himself adequately for school administrative duties. He may rely upon the practical sense which has served him in his regular business or professional labors only to find that he lacks the experience and the ready access to precedence so necessary to fruitful deliberation and wise conclusions in public affairs.

[. . .]

Excerpt page 19-20.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT. Argument-

Those who defend corporal punishment contend that the old maxim “spare the rod and spoil the child” holds good at all times, that its application maintains discipline when no other expediency can, and that it reclaims the incorrigible when other means fail.

The opponents hold that the infliction of corporal punishment is a form of savagery; that it hardens the culprit and has at the same time a debasing effect upon the well behaved pupil. The competent teacher it is held can govern by kindness and persuasion.

Exemption.— Parents are permitted to file with the principal a written request that their children be not corporally punished. Such children may be suspended for disorder, idleness and inattention to duties, for a period of not more than ten days for each offense; but no child can be readmitted after a third suspension without the action of the board.

All students in the high schools and girls in the grades are usually exempt.

Freak Punishment. — Blows upon the head, violent shaking of pupils and lone confinement is prohibited.

How Applied.—Either a strap or a rattan must be used when the necessity for corporal punishment arises, but must not be inflicted in the presence of the victim’s classmates or during the lesson in the course of which the offense is committed. It should be applied only in extreme cases, as a last alternative, and only by the principal or by his express authority.

Tendency.— Nearly one-half of the larger cities have abolished corporal punishment. The tendency in recent years has been to reduce the application of corporal punishment to a minimum. While some school systems have abolished it entirely, it has been deemed wise by others to take no official action, yet let it gradually sink into disuse. Teachers prefer that the rule authorizing them to inflict corporal punishment remain, although they may seldom if ever avail themselves of it.

Excerpt page 46

Pupils

Corporal Punishment. — The following expresses most aptly the position of the average school board on the subject: “In many instances it becomes necessary to either whip a boy or expel him from school. If he is whipped he is the only one punished, while, if he is expelled, the punishment falls more heavily on his parents than on him. A whipping is a temporary punishment, while expulsion is a lasting disgrace. It is easy, therefore, to make the choice. In view of these facts, it would be foolish, and even wrong, to banish the rod from the public schools.”

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. A good find. I love the appellation of freak punishment as in freak accident and not as in the punishment of a freak.

FYI.

American School Board Journal: William. G. Bruce’s role in its founding was recounted in his memoirs, which were excerpted in the journal’s January 1991 edition, its centennial.

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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 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://www.network54.com/Forum/198833/t … 636/Paddle

[Formatted by KK to improve readability.]

Paddle
June 8, 2009 at 11:57 AM
American Way

[Apparently not from National Humanities Center website]

The paddle Some kind of paddle, a flat and mostly rigid instrument for hitting people, especially on the buttocks, have probably been utilized as early as somebody discovered that a spanking, if hard and long, hurts the hands of the spanker. Replacing the hand with an instrument was an obvious step.

If I could guess, I should say that sandals or the like were the first objects used as a paddles as most people had one, they are flat and stiff, with almost the perfect shape for the task, and are always at hand (or should I say “at foot”?). In support of my theory I will state the fact that the slipper (used mostly by women, even when men also use it) is a favorite all over the world, in all cultures.

Anyway, there are very few references to specialized instruments until a couple of centuries back. The paddle itself is like the ones used in several sports, a wooden instrument with a handle and a flat head, its size varying between 1-1/2 foot [18 inches] in the ones used for over the knee spanking to the more than 3 feet of the ones used for slave punishment. Several shapes where used for the head, round, oval, oblong and rectangular being the most common. Some specialized heads are the one with two oval sections, supposedly to hit both buttocks simultaneously, and, nowadays, some with a hand-shape or even looking like a heart, made as novelties for erotic spankings.

There are also some paddles made of stiff rubber or leather. The ones made of leather are usually made of several layers to make them stiffer and modernly reinforced with a sheet of steel or plastic between the layers. The head could have holes, to avoid the cushioning produced by the air trapped between the head and the skin. Some say that this feature was invented in the 30’s by a teacher called Harold Spencer, that developed the so-called Spencer paddle to use on his pupils, but there are older drawings (see below) showing holed paddles being used for punishing slaves.

The first historic reference we have found about the use of some form of the paddle is from 1816. Then, in conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in France, in the city of Nimes, protestant women were beaten in the bare buttocks with battoirs, (a flat heavy implement for beating the clothes while washing), with the added detail of a fleur-de-lis pictured by the protruding points of nails driven thru the wood. The instrument (without the fleur-de-lis) had been commonly used for domestic punishments. From about the same time as the paddle for punishing slaves.

We all relate slavery with the single tailed whip, and it was the preferred implement for punishments. But after the slave import ban by the British and the USA in 1808, the price of slaves raised (as also the price of tobacco, sugar and cotton). As the scars left by the whip tended to drive down the price of a now more valuable slave, it was not wise whipping them as before. Slave owners take advantage of the fact that they could beat a slave into unconsciousness without leaving any scares by using a large paddle instead of the bullwhip, and its use became much more common.

Nowadays, the paddle as an instrument for punishing children is related mainly to the USA, where it is the traditional spanking implement. In the area of domestic punishments, the paddle itself was less common that other paddle-like objects, because unless the man of the house (or a gentle uncle, or other generous relative) had the woodworking ability for doing one (not very much required, anyway), they had to be bought, and that expenditure was not necessary, having at hand other common implements.

The actually favorite paddling instrument at home in the USA was (is?) the hairbrush. Any hairbrush with a flat wooden back can be used, and all women had one. The ones with a short handle are ideal for over the knee spankings, while a longer handle makes them useful for hitting with the child bent over the edge of the bed, a table, or the kitchen counter.

Other of the mothers’ choices was the wooden spoon, preferably a large and heavy old one made with hardwood. The spoon can be severe, because most of the weight is on the head, that goes faster when hitting, and its convex back tends to concentrate the force of the impact in a small surface, almost a single point. It is used with the children on the knees, or bent over the kitchen counter.

In English and American schools the canvas topped and rubber soled shoe used for gym, you can call it sneakers, gym shoe or plimsoll or even slipper (no matter whether it was an actual slipper or not) was used for punishing pupils on the buttocks. It is the favorite of physical education teachers. Also other common kitchen implements were used, like wooden spatulas, breadboards or cutting boards, flyswatters, another favorite, the 12-inch ruler, and more recently, the ping-pong paddle.

The wicker carpet beater was used mostly in Southern Europe (battipani in Italy, pala de sacudir alfombras in Spain and tapi-tapis in France). As it is fairly long, was used with the child bending over furniture or holding their ankles.

Today, when in most countries the physical chastisement of children at school is banned, 23 southern States of the US maintain it and the paddle is the preferred instrument. From a couple of swats with a short paddle at the classroom, to a formal punishment of five with the long paddle at the Dean’s office, pupils of both sexes and in all school grades are punished. The most used paddle is about 2 feet long, 3 inches wide and 1/2 inch thick paddle nicknamed the Dean’s paddle. In this environment, the swats are usually delivered with the children bending resting on a desk.

The state were most paddlings are given is Texas. Sometimes parental acceptance is required (and most parents do accept), and in some the children are given the option between suspension and paddling (one swat for each day). Many children chose a paddling as punishment. In 2001, there was even a judicial paddling in Texas. A judge made a father give 3 swats with a paddle on the buttocks to his son for truancy. It was afterwards decided that the judge had not the authority to impose such a punishment, and it was considered illegal.

The paddle was so common a punishment that the tourist’s souvenir shops sold paddles with inscriptions as “The board of Education“, “Heat for the seat“, “Applied psychology” and the like. As a curiosity, a guy named Joel Salvati, from New Kensington, Pennsylvania, USA, received in mid-2002 a call, and his mission on this Earth is giving of paddles for punishing children. Visit http://www.spare-rods.com/. He has instructions on how children should be punished, and you can order a paddle (with the inscription Love, Joey) just for the shipping cost. (I don’t know if he ships internationally).

[No photo attached. American Way, did you write the above or did you borrow the text from elsewhere?]

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?

It came from a naughty site that I chose not to reference. I have subsequently learned that such references are not verboten. However less authoritative and reliable, I thought it was worthy of perusal. KK you have written disparagingly of my writing so it would be impossible for me to be the author. I assume that by copying key words (battipani in Italy, pala de sacudir alfombras) it could be tracked down. KK you’re my my research mentor so I’m sorry for making it so difficult.

https://archive.is/XLUbl

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

Judge Pace, as reported, does not mention the paddle only the need for school corporal punishment to be reasonable.

Teachers are assumed to be female in this article.

Delinquents were required to “assume the angle” rather than the position in Spartanburg, a city that might possibly have lived up to its name.