Perhaps the most important distinction in the survey is not between the cane and slipper, nor between boys and...
School discipline did not exist in isolation. For many children, the reaction of their parents was almost as important...
One feature appears with remarkable frequency in the recollections of former pupils: fear before the punishment. Indeed, anticipation sometimes...
The survey contains references to an extraordinary variety of implements. The cane was perhaps the most famous, but it...
Although the popular image of school corporal punishment is usually that of a pupil bending over for the cane...
The authority to administer corporal punishment varied considerably from school to school. In some establishments the cane was reserved...
Anyone attempting to measure the historical use of corporal punishment immediately encounters a serious problem: much of it was...
The circumstances in which corporal punishment was administered varied almost as much as the punishment itself. Some punishments took...
One of the strongest arguments advanced for corporal punishment was that a painful and immediate penalty would discourage repetition....
There are certain objects from our schooldays that possess the extraordinary ability to transport us immediately back through the...
One of the peculiarities of British school terminology was that the dreaded “slipper” was frequently nothing of the sort....
The school slipper rarely looked new. Indeed, quite the opposite. Former pupils repeatedly describe battered old gym shoes with...