would be to desist, and leave the
scholar too careless for instruction, and too much hardened for reproof.
Locke, in his Treatise of Education, mentions a mother, with applause,
who whipped an infant eight times before she had subdued it; for, had
she stopped at the seventh act of correction, her daughter, says he,
would have been ruined. The degrees of obstinacy in young minds are very
different; as different must be the degrees of persevering severity. A
stubborn scholar must be corrected, till he is subdued. The discipline
of a school is military. There must be either unbounded license, or
absolute authority. The master, who punishes, not only consults the
future happiness of him who is the immediate subject of correction, but
he propagates obedience through the whole school; and establishes
regularity by exemplary justice. The victorious obstinacy of a single
boy, would make his future endeavours of reformation or instruction
totally ineffectual. Obstinacy, therefore, must never be victorious.
Yet, it is well known that there, sometimes, occurs a sullen and hardy
resolution, that laughs at all common punishment, and bids defiance to
all common degrees of pain. Correction must be proportionate to
occasions. The flexible will be reformed by gentle discipline, and the
refractory must be subdued by harsher methods. The degrees of
scholastick, as of military punishment, no stated rules can ascertain.
It must be enforced till it overpowers temptation; till stubbornness
become flexible, and perverseness regular. Custom and reason have,
indeed, set some bounds to scholastick penalties. The schoolmaster
inflicts no capital punishments; nor enforces his edicts by either death
or mutilation. The civil law has wisely determined, that a master who
strikes at a scholar's eye shall be considered as criminal. But
punishments, however severe, that produce no lasting evil, may be just
and reasonable, because they may be necessary. Such have been the
punishments used by the respondent. No scholar has gone from him either
blind or lame, or with any of his limbs or powers injured or impaired.
They were irregular, and he punished them; they were obstinate, and he
enforced his punishment. But, however provoked, he never exceeded the
limits of moderation, for he inflicted nothing beyond present pain; and
how much of that was required, no man is so little able to determine as
those who have determined against him--the parents of the offenders