Cathy G may be of help with first hand knowledge albeit in her salad days of the panhandle in Florida.  Florida from north to south are more miles than one could imagine. I only have drove a portion and began to learn that first hand. The closer you are to Alabama and Georgia the further you are from there you will more likely find yourself among those that have settle from colder climes in the USA.

One of the reasons why I find the exchanges in the Twitter cache credible to an extent are girls from the fewer counties in dark are the ones claim they are spanked.   In the eighties more students were Florida than the entire country today.

Lake Butler in Union County (recently banned paddling) can be found as a small dark spot in the upper right hand corner is a place where several accounts have been relayed from student accounts in their Twitter to here.  I don’t discount the number that could care less but I don’t discount the number that do care.  That is the reason why I post their accounts.

University paddle use revisited

I have previously drawn attention to some of the following news items when speculating on the possible role of universities in the adoption of the paddle in US schools. (See above, July 2011.)  I am referring to other than fraternity initiations and hazing.

The Missourian was a student newspaper run by students training to be journalists. It had a wider readership than students alone.

It seems there was an agreement to limit the size of paddles but I was unable to determine what the agreed limits were.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-2/
The Evening Missourian. September 12, 1919. Page 2. 
 
ENGINEERS USE THE PADDLE
 
Three Students Run Gauntlet for Violating Campus Rules.
 
Students of the School of Engineering started their 1919-20 campaign against violators of campus rules at noon today when nearly two hundred men, armed with paddles, formed a circle around the Columns and forced three students to run the gauntlet.
 
Robert Edmonston, a senior in the School of Business and Public Ad-ministration, was the first to feel the sting of the paddles. Walking across the campus was his offense.
 
Charles Erbs and Frank Mefford, both freshmen in the School of Engineering, were the other victims. Erbs was paddled for trespassing on the campus, while Mefford committed a graver offense by walking across the mounds.
 
Hundreds of students watched the activities from the campus walks and the steps of Academic Hall. The majority of the onlookers were freshmen. 

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/
The Evening Missourian. September 22, 1919. Page 1.
 
The merits and demerits of the Engineers’ paddling of a couple of weeks ago will be debated next Saturday night) in Room D of the Y.M.C.A.
 
Page 5.
 
Sophomores Out After Freshmen Candidates.
 
Sophomores with paddles appeared on Rollins Field Saturday afternoon to do their part toward rounding up certain freshmen whose presence on the freshman football squad is need-ed. According to Coach Woody, twenty or thirty freshmen who should be out working with his squad everyday are missing and he intends that such shall not be the case much longer. The sophomores, with lists of names, promised the freshman coach that his missing would-be Tigers would be found and returned to him early this week.  

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/
The Evening Missourian. September 24, 1919, page 1.
 
JOURNALISTS FAVOR ENGINEERS
 
Vote to Continue Paddling for Walking Across the Campus.
 
A vote to uphold one old tradition at least was registered by the School of Journalism at a student mass meeting last night. The question submitted to the students who met in Switzler Hall was whether or not the Engineers should continue to guard the West Campus and to punish those who walked across the greensward. Considering it as a matter of destroying or letting stand one of the old traditions of the University, the journalists voted 33 to 12 in favor of the Engineers, two men voting to allow all University janitors to take part in the paddling.
 
The meeting was called at the re-quest of the Student Senate which is asking all schools and colleges of the University to answer certain questions regarding paddling of University students.
 
Two students in answering the questions asked, suggested that the number of paddles used be limited to 3,000.
 
The result of the votes in other schools will be put with the results from the School of Journalism, and the committee appointed by the Stu-dent Senate will draft a set of rules accordingly. After these have been approved, by the senate they will be sent to the discipline committee of the University for final sanction. Until the matter is settled the Engineers will have full control.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-6/
The Evening Missourian. September 25, 1919. Page 6. 
 
LAWYERS FAVOR PADDLING PLAN
Meeting Last Night Decides to Limit Size of Paddles.
 
Students in the School of Law had a mass meeting Wednesday night at which the question of paddling was taken up and thoroughly discussed in accordance with the request of the Student Senate. One hundred out of the 175 students registered in the School of Law were present and voted to keep up traditions, with some reservations.
 
They decided that the sizes of the paddles used in punishing offenders should be limited, that freshmen should not be allowed to take part and that the juniors and sophomores should act as guards.
 
The committee appointed by the Stu-dent Senate on the paddling question will meet and compare notes tomorrow. Rules and regulations will then be formulated by the Student Senate and submitted to the student body at the mass meeting before the Drury game.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … ed-1/seq-2
The Evening Missourian. September 29, 1919. Page 2.
 
Judges Decide Against Paddling.
 
The judges rendered a decision in favor of the negative last Saturday night at the Athenaean debate on the question resolved: that the paddling administered on September 12 by the Engineers was for the best interest so f the University. James Coppage and Leslie Allen supported the negative of the question. Floyd Sperry and Rodney Fairfield spoke on the affirmative.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/
The Evening Missourian. October 01, 1919. Page 1.
 
THREE ENGINEERS ARE PADDLED
 
Failure to Attend Meeting Is Reason for Punishment.
 
L. B. Wilkes, Noble Taylor and J. F. Calvert, students in the School of Engineering, felt the sting of paddles wielded by sophomore students in the School of Engineering at 1 o’clock this afternoon.
 
The paddling was administered as punishment for non-attendance at a recent meeting held by the sophomores. Wilkes objected to the punishment, claiming that he was a junior, and the sophomores had no jurisdiction over him.
 
This is the second paddling held by the students of the School of Engineering this term.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-4/
The Evening Missourian (Columbia Missouri). October 04, 1919. Page 4.
 
CAMPUS TRESPRASSERS PADDLED FIRST IN 1905
 
In 1905 there existed on the West Campus of the University a hard beaten path about two feet wide leading straight from the Manual Arts Building to the Chemistry Building passing just east of the Columns in the center of the Quadrangle.
 
This path had been made by students who, disregarding the wide side-walks thought to save time and energy by travelling the shortest distance between the two points, the Manual Arts and the Chemistry Buildings.
 
The students who feet travelled this beaten path, it is said, were, for the most part, freshman engineers who went from their drawing class to their freshman chemistry class.
 
A group of students sitting on the steps of the Engineering Building one evening even as they do now watched the freshmen wend their weary way along the barren pathway to the Chemistry Building.
 
To at least one student in that group, it did not look exactly right that un-thinking feet should trample down the grass of the campus when sidewalks built for the purpose of being walked on existed and he said something to that effect.
 
Tradition was Born.
 
The rest of the group agreed with him and then and there the old tradition that “students shall not walk on the grass on the Quadrangle was born. This, according to H. A. LaRue, associate professor of highway engineering in the University, was the very beginning of that tradition. Mr. LaRue, who was graduated from the University in 1907, was one of the students in that group.
 
The next day notices were posted to the effect that persons who “cut corners” or walked on the grass of the Quadrangle where sidewalks already existed would be paddled by the engineers.
 
Violators of the decree were plentiful the first day but all who witnessed the paddling on the second day were more loath to forsake the sidewalks for the soft grass. In a week, that beaten path became deserted and little sprouts of grass began to cover up the sins of the transgressors.
 
Venture was successful.
 
Thus the engineers by means of paddles accomplished what M. L. Lipscomb, then superintendent of the University grounds, had been unable to accomplish by means of much talk, signs and barriers.
 
Paddling as punishment for other “crimes”, and even the tradition about underclassmen keeping off the mounds, existed before 1905, Mr. LaRue said, but this was the first time paddles had been used for walking on the grass.
 
Just how many students have been paddled for this offense would be hard to estimate, but the engineers have well earned their title as guardians of the West Campus.  

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/
The Evening Missourian. October 14, 1919. Page 1.
 
Girl’s Greeting Gets Him In Trouble
 
Charlie France, a freshman in the University was paddled yesterday by the Engineers. The size of the paddle was modified and freshmen were forbidden to take part. France walked across the grass on the lower end of the quadrangle to meet a girl who waved at him.

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-6/
The Evening Missourian. October 22, 1919. 
 
Page 2.
 
Twelve men who didn’t show up at the Ag meeting were paddled at noon today on the Ag Campus. Those whose names were posted on the “paddling list” and did not appear to be paddled will be paddled later and thrown in the pond on the State Farm, according to the paddling committee.
 
Page 6.
 
School of Law Is Against Paddling.
 
Abolition of paddling was recommended at the mass meeting of the School of Law yesterday afternoon. They favor some modified form of paddling to be directed by the Student Council and Student Senate. Confidence in the Senate and Council to deal with paddling properly was ex-pressed. V.P. Crowe was elected yell leader for the School of Law.  

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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-2/
The Evening Missourian. October 29, 1919. Page 2.
 
M. S. U. CLUB DEBATES PADDLING
 
Speakers Advocating Abolition of Custom Have Best Arguments
 
The abolition of paddling in the University was debated by the M. S.U. Debating Club Saturday night. Paul Howard and George Bailey sup-ported the affirmative, while Steven Keiser and Russel Cooley upheld the negative. The debate was extemporaneous. All the debaters were making their first appearance before the club. The affirmative won.
 
At the business meeting the new constitution was read. It will be adopted at the next meeting. Application for articles of incorporation was before the Circuit Court last week.

Yikes.  3,000 paddles.  Today they don’t even have 3,000 undergraduates.  The only place that would need near that amount on hand would be the paddles needed to punish the naughty young men and young ladies of Enterprise, Alabama and even at that it would be having a spare paddle for every student spanked in the course of the year.  The most dreaded words after assume the position is be seated.

https://engineering.missouri.edu/about/pride-points/

I have not been able to find a report on  the University of Missouri’s student council’s deliberations in 1919 but it seems they specified paddle dimensions.
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https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-1/
The Columbia Evening Missourian. October 12, 1922. Page 1, col. 3.

He’s Official Paddle Inspector.
Ralph Emerson, a student in the College of Agriculture, was appointed by the Student Council last night as official paddle inspector. He will see that all paddles used in future paddlings are of the dimensions prescribed by the Student Council.

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It is clear from the following item and may others elsewhere that hazing of new students, especially during the “rush”  overlapped with punishment paddlings at the University of Missouri. I do not think there is any clear or direct causal link between university and US school paddlings.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … d-1/seq-2/
University Missourian. November 11, 1913. Page 2.

Some More Paddling.

Editor the Missourian: 

Every time a student looks sideways or steps out of the regular routine, a number of his fellow students immediately take offense and raise the yell, “Let’s paddle him.” We read of several students being suspended and receiving reprimands last week. This week we hear of another paddling. A few have taken it upon themselves to keep up this old horseplay.

Paddling was supposed to be one of the especially devised methods of chi-chi-ing the freshmen. The freshmen were aided by means of the paddle to go through a series of antics for the amusement of the sophomores each fall. Then, it was used only during  the first weeks of school and only on the freshmen. Now it seems to be a typical roughneck it is necessary to keep your paddle behind your door the year round.

The majority of the students discountenance the proceeding. It casts a bad reflection on them to have their classmates humiliated in this way. This kind of hazing will have to stop some day. The question is, will somebody’s school career have to be ended for good?

T.

KKxyz wrote: ↑

Oct 03, 2020

Strong need to avoid conspicuous marks 

One of the reasons the paddle was adopted by US schools seems to have been a desire not to leave conspicuous marks that might offend parents and do gooders. However, there are surprisingly few published statements to this effect. Possibly, either the desirability of not leaving marks was too self evident to need stating, or few were willing to admit to such possibly duplicity, or perhaps both.

American Way recently reported the following item in another thread. (See also #838 & #856 above):
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The Evening Statesman (Walla Walla, WA). 1 November 1907, page 4.

HOW TO SPANK A BOY
Here Are the Directions as Given to School Teachers.

Do you know how to spank a boy?

Maybe you think you do. Several men in Walla Walla have vague memories of the crude old-fashioned methods that were good enough perhaps for their ancestors. But if you desire to teach school in the state of Washington you want to go about such things right.

And here it is—the method officially approved for the state of Washington—for it is the method just announced to the teachers’ institute at Bellingham by W. W. Montgomery, deputy state superintendent of public instruction:

“Never use a switch.” said he. “A switch will mark a child, and a child that goes home with ridges and marks on its legs is immediately made an exhibit by the patents: the neighbors are called in, and a general pow-wow results. Use a ruler, one that is sufficiently broad and about 18 inches long. A spanking with a ruler in the right place leaves no marks and there is no pow-wow afterward.”

Parents might be upset that the body of their golden child has been marked, but skin heals rapidly.  Deep bruising, particularly caused by striking the body frequently in the same area, is far more insidious.  The marks may not be visible, but it doesn’t mean there is no injury.  I have no argument with the use of an eighteen inch ruler, which is relatively light, but some hardwood paddles  are capable of causing long-term damage, even if it isn’t immediately apparent.  This is particularly the case where students are paddled on two or more consecutive days.

In 1896 what would they mean by the latest improved paddle method.  It must work considering how sparingly it was used.  They really took their statistics seriously unlike our OCR.

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn … 95%2C5541/