I think it was meant to increase the deterrence value of the cane — once you knew how much it hurt, you would go out of your way to avoid it. But I think it probably had the opposite effect: half the terror of the cane at my school was that only a very few people had received it, so it seemed terrible, mysterious and disgraceful to us good kids. If we’d had a couple of whacks early in our school careers, either as part of a group punishment, or for nothing at all, a lot of the shame and awesomeness would have gone away.
What were the logistics of slippering a whole class? Did all the victims form a queue at the front of the class, or were you called to the front one at a time, or did your all bend over in a row like the Bash Street Kids.