The Schoolmasters Birch.
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THE SCHOOLMASTER'S BIRCH. • BY THE LATE IRVING BROWNE. '"ПНЕ law invests the schoolmaster with a 1 high degree of immunity in the matter of beating his pupils. He stands substan tially in the place of the parent while the scholar is in school, and even when he is out of school and out of study hours, on the way to or from the temple of learning. It will be less tedious to take the statement of Dr. Johnson as to this law than to cite legal ad judications, for he was strictly accurate in his advice to Boswell on this subject. " Boswell was of counsel for a schoolmaster in Scot land, who had been somewhat severe in his chastisement of one of his pupils, and the case was pending on appeal from the Court of Sessions before the English house of lords, on a proceeding to remove him from his office. The opinion of this most learned of literary philosophers having been solicited, he discov ered as follows : ' The government of the schoolmaster is somewhat of the nature of a military government; that is to say, it must be arbitrary; it must be exercised by the will of one man, according to circum stances. A schoolmaster has a prescriptive right to beat, and an action of assault and battery cannot be admitted against him, un less there be some great excuse, some bar barity. In our schools in England, many boys have been maimed, yet I never heard of an action against a schoolmaster on that ac count. Puffenclorf, I think, maintains the right of a schoolmaster to beat his scholars.'" (Boyd v. State, 88 Ala. 169; 16 Am. St. Rep. 55.) The court in this case cite several passages from Solomon in support of flogging children. I have never yet seen any cited from Job. Solomon said one thing, which the court did not quote, but which is gener ally applicable to these cases of whipping scholars, namely : " He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken
down and without walls." There is always danger in delegating the parents' right to chastise the child to a teacher who has no affection for him nor particular interest in him, and who is rendered naturally impatient by the petty vexations of trying to keep a large assemblage of lively and inconsiderate youth in order. It is very familiar and elementary law that the teacher of a public school has the right to chastise the pupils in moderation for mis conduct. Fitzgerald v. Northcote, 4 Post. & Finn. 656; State v. Prendergrass, 2 Dev. & Bat- 365; 31 Am. Dec. 416; Lamler т. Seaver, 32 Vt. 114; 76 Am. Dec. 156; Cooper i1. Mcjunkin, 4 Ind. 290; Starr т. Liftchild (significant name!) 40 Barb. 541; Sheehan TJ. Sturges, 53 Conn. 481. In the last case the court observed : " We regard his authority as all but absolute." In the Fitz gerald case, Chief Justice Cockburn said : "The authority of the schoolmaster is, while it exists, the same as that of the parent." In all the authorities that I have consulted there is but one breath of discontent with this state of the case. In the Indiana case above cited the court observe : " The law still tolerates corporal punishment in the school room. The authorities are all that way, and the legislature has not thought proper to in terfere. The public seem to cling to a des potism in the public schools which has been discarded everywhere else. Whether such training be congenial to our institutions and favorable to the full development of the future man, is worthy of serious considera tion, though not for us to discuss. Orre thing seems obvious. The very act of re sorting to the rod demonstrates the incapac ity of the teacher for one of the most im portant parts of his vocation, namely, school government. For such a teacher the nurseries
