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Friday, May 30, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Spartan training

Remember Dr. Johnson? The great Champ of English Literature who was also the first English Lexicographer! He attributed his fame, popularity and genius to his own tutor, Mr. Hunter, precisely because of his severity: “My master whipped me very well. Without that, Sir, I should have done nothing.” The genius also commended one of the headmasters of Westminster school, Dr, Busby for his savage discipline. Dr. Busby claimed that his rod was a sieve through which h is pupils had to pass.

The great Philosopher Aristotle while coaching his student Alexander, destined to become ‘the great’ at a later date had “played the taws upon the bottom of a king of kings”, to put it in the words of W. B. Yeats.

Eminent poet John Milton, defender of free speech and free divorce is reputed to have driven his first wife away because she interfered with the cane lashes he gave to his nephews he was coaching and the dismal screams they let out.

Parents of those days when they admitted their wards in schools used to tell the teachers: “Spare their eyes and skin them alive”. And both parents and teachers invariably believed that “Children being not reasonable can only be governed by fear”.

These incidents remind us of a proverb: ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. A similar version of this proverb appears first in the 13th chapter of Proverbs (The Bible): “He that spareth his rod hateth his son.” The proverb continues to live, in numerous variant forms, down the ages.

A child is chided for his childish things both at home and at school. At times he is also flogged for being a little adult. Flogging and chiding, in spite of all that is said highly of them by grown-ups create a sense of complex in the receiver.

Edmund Gosse in his book Father and Son (1907) narrates how he was caned even at a young age of six for some trivial misdeed. And the result was: “I have to confess with shame that I went about the house for some days with a murderous hatred of my father locked within my bosom.” That was the thought of a six year old. Ego is like a blown up balloon which when pricked bursts. Disaster follows. Ego creeps into the mind of the human babe when it starts hearing. And this happens in the womb itself.

Several eminent men have put on record their unhappy memories of school. John Dryden, the poet-Critic, declared that he would remember his stern master until his dying day. Lord Lawrence, the famous Governor General of India, remembered that “he was flogged everyday of his school life except one; on which he was flogged twice”.

Many schools even today are nothing more than “Prisons of captivated youth”, where there was nothing to be heard but whipping and bawling, the children terrified and the masters perpetually in a rage,” to use the words of the French essayist, Montaigne.

The lack of understanding between the teacher and the taught resulted in numerous rebellions. The Headmaster of Eton, Keate, once flogged more than eighty students in a single day. And he faced a mutiny that went on for three weeks only to be subdued by the militia.

What can students expect from a teacher who wears a frowning countenance? How can he attract the immature and timid mind to its book? What great fun can there be in using the cane under the pretext of saving their future lives?

Times are changing. Teachers are not allowed to whack the kids in a fit of fury. It has become their moral duty to put on a smiling and helpful countenance. Schools have begun to look upon the student as an interesting and valuable person in himself. He has every right to be happy in school, where he spends a very major chunk of his waking hours. The teachers are given to understand that the student is quite capable of disciplining himself if he is provided with stimulating work.

P.Raja

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