Beat Him When He Sneezes?

In Britain's House of Commons, the talk got around to the old question: should a schoolboy ever be beaten? Laborite Peter Freeman, president of the Vegetarian Society of Great Britain, wanted to forbid the "brutalizing" practice.

E. L. Gandar Dower, Tory M.P. for Caithness and Sutherland, reminisced about the canings he had received as a schoolboy: "I cannot remember that I ever suffered from it, and I took my revenge on my housemaster years later by making him my trustee and executor of my will. I think that that will show that I bore no ill will."

Then David R. Hardman, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, spoke for the Government: "I believe it to be a method of keeping discipline which is completely out of date. . . . It is bad for the child and it is very bad for the adult who administers it. [But] there is also the Ministry point of view.. In saying that I do not imply that officials are sadists, eager to continue the use of caning and flogging. I merely say that, as a Ministry, it is important to move with public opinion. We do not advocate the use of corporal punishment, but public opinion has to be convinced that without it discipline can be maintained. . . . The time has come for an expert inquiry into this vexed problem . . . in the light of modern scientific knowledge on the most suitable forms of punishment and reward."

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