It may perhaps be of interest if I give some description of our methods of corporal punishment in schools, which are still, even the primitive ones, employed by some masters in the provinces. In our old schools there were two kinds of flogging--one for the girls and the other for the boys. Girls used to be beaten on the palms of their hands. There used to be an instrument in each school which was called the _flaka_. This was a long thick stick, to which was fastened a loop. The girl's wrists were fastened to the stick by means of twisting the loop round it, and the stick was held up by a person at either end. Then the master (there were no schoolmistresses), standing in front, used to inflict the punishment with a thin hard rod. The number of the strokes usually varied between five and ten. Laziness, much talking, and mischievous behaviour were the principal offences which brought about this punishment As I remarked before, boys used to be beaten on their feet--sometimes on the soles of their boots, in graver cases without them, and even sometimes without their socks. The boys had to be pulled down, and two persons held up their feet, and the master used to strike the feet with a thick rod. The number of blows only exceeded twenty in the case of a very bad offence, and flogging on the bare feet was generally the result of the master finding something inside the culprit's boots or socks to mitigate the force of the blows. It often happened that the boys, foreseeing their fate, used to place between their feet and socks such things as cotton handkerchiefs, and pieces of sheepskin. I remember I did not cry when I was beaten for the first time, as I thought it was very cowardly to cry in the presence of so many boys. But a boy who was sitting next to me said, "You silly! why did you not cry?" He then told me that each time he knew he was likely to be punished he placed some soft stuff inside his socks at once, and while he was being beaten cried out for mercy as loudly as possible. He said he made the master reduce the number of strokes by this plan.
In the old preparatory mixed schools there used to be another method of keeping children in order, which, I must admit, was decidedly barbarous. Those elementary schools for children consisted only of a large hall with two galleries in it. The smaller gallery was occupied by the master, and there he summoned the children in groups of two or three at a time to come and say their lessons. There was no division into classes. The larger gallery was used for the girls, the boys occupying the middle of the hall. Although the little scholars used to have low benches before them, they had to sit on the floor, each boy or girl having his or her own mattress or sheepskin, which the parents had to provide, to sit upon. Now the master used to have hanging on the wall by his side a long stick whose length was always in proportion to the size of the hall-that is to say, it reached from one end of the room to the other. Whenever the master observed any of his pupils not behaving well and not doing their work, he often did not take the trouble to call the delinquent up before him, but simply took down the long heavy rod, held it up by its thick end, and, with the thin end, struck at any part of his victim he could reach--head, shoulders, or back. Sometimes, if this did not do, he would poke them in the ribs instead. This punishment was very common in all the elementary schools in my time, and was not peculiar to our province, but practised throughout the country. I cannot remember whether I suffered under the long pole in my childhood, but I imagine I did not, as the masters of these schools used to spare the children of well-to-do people for fear of annoying their parents, and thus forfeiting the chance of getting a better fee.