The opposite category is equally revealing.
Some punishments were remembered not primarily because they were severe but because the pupil believed them unjust.
The Cheating Accusation
The clearest example remains the sixteen-year-old accused of cheating in a test in 1958.
He maintained that another boy had copied his answers.
The teacher and headmaster rejected his explanation.
He was punished before the class.
His parents subsequently believed his account and complained to the school.
Decades later he still described the punishment as ineffective because it had been unfair.
Why Injustice Lasts
A deserved punishment can eventually become an amusing or matter-of-fact school memory.
An undeserved punishment is different.
The pupil remembers not simply the penalty but the failure of an adult to believe him.
The issue becomes one of justice rather than discipline.
Provocation
The seven-year-old Scottish boy involved in a playground fight in 1967 provides a less clear-cut example.
He did not deny fighting.
He did, however, believe another boy had provoked the incident.
Both were punished.
His later assessment was therefore less favourable than that of many respondents punished for straightforward breaches of rules.
Being Heard
These cases suggest that the opportunity to explain mattered.
A pupil might still be punished after giving his account.
But being questioned fairly could influence whether he later accepted the decision.
A disciplinary system based entirely upon immediate punishment risked acting before all the circumstances were understood.
The Cost of Error
Every disciplinary system occasionally makes mistakes.
Corporal punishment possessed a particular difficulty because the penalty could not be withdrawn afterwards.
A detention could theoretically be cancelled.
Lines could be stopped.
Once corporal punishment had been administered, an apology from the teacher could acknowledge an error but could not undo the event.
Lasting Resentment
This may explain why disputed punishments occupy such a prominent place in adult recollection.
The pupil who deserved punishment might forget many details.
The pupil convinced of his innocence could remember the injustice for the rest of his life.
For the historian, these accounts are therefore important reminders that effectiveness cannot be separated from legitimacy.
A punishment which produces obedience at the price of lasting resentment may have achieved less than the teacher intended.
