There can be little doubt that corporal punishment could produce immediate obedience.
A child who knew that answering back might result in the cane had a powerful reason to remain silent. A pupil who had once received the slipper for running along a corridor might think carefully before doing so again.
Some former pupils openly acknowledge this.
One remembered receiving the cane only once and remarked that the lesson had been learned quickly. Another recalled being punished for answering back and said that the offence was never repeated.
From the teacher’s point of view, therefore, physical punishment possessed an obvious advantage: it was immediate.
There were no complicated systems of detention, behaviour reports or lengthy discussions. Misconduct was followed by punishment, sometimes within minutes.
It could also influence children who were not themselves being punished.
A cane hanging beside a blackboard needed no explanation. The pupil entering the classroom understood what it represented.
Thus corporal punishment operated partly through pain and partly through anticipation.
Fear itself became an instrument of discipline.
Several recollections make this particularly clear. Former pupils describe teachers who terrified them, corridors in which children dreaded encountering certain members of staff, and occasions when the mere prospect of being summoned to an office was enough to produce considerable anxiety.
For schools struggling to control large numbers of children, such a system could undoubtedly create outward order.
But outward order and successful education are not necessarily the same thing.
A silent child may be attentive, but may equally be frightened. A pupil who obeys because he fears being struck has certainly learned something, but what he has learned may simply be how to avoid punishment.
This distinction becomes important when examining the longer-term results.
If corporal punishment genuinely corrected behaviour, one might expect children who received it repeatedly to become progressively better behaved.
The recollections do not consistently show this.
Instead, numerous former pupils remember receiving the cane, slipper or strap over and over again.
Some were punished several times. Others describe physical punishment as an almost routine feature of their school lives.
One pupil recalled receiving the cane for smoking at least three times a week. Another remembered frequent punishment without any suggestion that it had transformed the behaviour concerned.
This presents an obvious difficulty for the argument that physical punishment was an especially effective deterrent.
It plainly deterred some children.
It just as plainly failed to deter others.
