NINETEENTH-CENTURY SCHOOL DISCIPLINE
The 19th-century reality regarding corporal punishment in schools must be considered to place the Brother’s approach in context.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, children were seen as defective adults, the fruits of original sin, whose evil propensities needed to be beaten out of them.
Flogging was common in the armed forces – not until 1866 was any real attempt made to limit corporal punishment in the military.
Hanging, transportation, and whipping were standard penal punishments.
In schools, savage and uncontrolled beating was not uncommon.
In May 1810, Dr. John Keate, Headmaster of Eton, flogged a hundred boys for not attending a roll call.
Even by mid-century, sixty strokes of the birch laid on a boy’s buttocks or back was permitted.
1874 – John Moss, Headmaster of Shrewsbury gave a boy 88 strokes of a cane. Questions were asked in Parliament.