urts it lingered in various forms in American schools--as did
the stocks, the penance-stool, and the whip. I have an example of a
"whispering-stick," a wooden gag, provided with holes by which it could
be tied in place, and which was used in a Providence school during this
century as a punishment for whispering. And many a child during the past
century had a cleft stick placed on his tongue for ill words or untimely
words in school. Sometimes, with an exaggeration of ridicule, a small
branch of a tree in full leaf was split and pinched on the tongue--a
true pedagogical torture.

IX

PUBLIC PENANCE

The custom of performing penance in public by humiliation in church
either through significant action, position or confession has often been
held to be peculiar to the Presbyterian and Puritan churches. It is, in
fact, as old as the Church of Rome, and was a custom of the Church of
England long before it became part of the Dissenters' discipline. All
ranks and conditions of men shared in this humiliation. An English king,
Henry II, a German emperor, Henry IV, the famous Duchess of Gloucester,
and Jane Shore are noted examples; humbler victims for minor sins or
offenses against religious usages suffered in like manner. In Scotland
the ordeals of sitting on the repentance-stool or cutty-stool were most
frequent. In economic and social histories of Scotland, and especially
in Edgar's _Old Church Life in Scotland_, many instances are enumerated.
Sometimes the offender wore a repentance-gown of sackcloth; more
frequently he stood or sat barefoot and barelegged.

[Illustration: Public Penance]

In our own day penance has been done in the Scottish Church. In 1876 a
woman in Ross-shire sat on the cutty-stool through the whole service
with a black shawl over her head; while in February, 1884, one of the
ringleaders in the Sabbatarian riots was set on the cutty-stool in
Lochcarron church and rebuked for a moral offense which could not,
according to the discipline of the Free Church in the Highlands, be
fully punished in any other way.

In English churches similar penance was done. In the _History of
Wakefield Cathedral_ are given the old church-wardens' accounts. In them
are many items of the loan of sheets for men and women "to do penance
in." About sixpence was the usual charge. For immorality, cheating,
defamation of character, disregard of the Sabbath and other
transgressions penance was performed. In 1766 penanc