of Cambridge, containing nearly 3,000 children, for a year and a half, and is now forbidden for girls in all the schools. The discipline is good.

No corporal punishment is practised nor found necessary in Sabbath schools where the most neglected children of the lowest classes are or should be collected.

Corporal punishment of marriageable females is practised in the schools of Massachusetts for failure of a lesson. Such practice should be made a misdemeanor and the remedy summary, because it is unnecessary and shocking to the community.

Whipping has ceased in the penitentiaries of Massachusetts and in the State prison for more than ten years; it has ceased on shipboard and is not practised upon wives or apprentices.

It is not in accordance with the present stage of civilization in this State.

There is no more reason to believe that school children cannot be governed without the whip than there was that sailors, or negroes, or felons could not be governed without the whip.

Arguments for the continuance of the use of the rod drawn from the practice of a half-civilized nation more than 2,000 years ago are not available at the present day.

The English Poor Law Board for the government of pauper children has enacted the following laws:

ART. 142. No male child shall be punished by flogging whose age may be reasonably supposed to exceed 14 years.

ART. 140. No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child until two hours shall have elapsed from the commission of the offences for which such punishment is inflicted.

ART. 138. No corporal punishment shall be inflicted upon any female child.

Punishment is to be inflicted only in the presence of the master and schoolmaster; a record must be kept of the particulars of the offence and punishment, and laid upon the table at every ordinary meeting of Guardian and read to the Board.

The children in our public schools should have at least as much protection by law as is allowed to the pauper children of England. It is injurious to the pupils.

The sensitive, delicate and good children, who are in fear of being whipped for failures, are most likely to fail and therefore most likely to suffer.

The delicate and nervous in their organization are most likely to be uneasy and therefore to be whipped for the organization given them by their Creator.

Females, inasmuch as they are more sensitive, more excitable, more subject to changes and diseased actions during their school life, are more likely to suffer injustice from unwise teachers, and more likely than boys to be injured mentally, morally and physically by corporal punishment.

The period of second teething, from six to twelve years in both sexes, is a period of development, excitement and irritation, it should be borne in mind by parents and teachers.

Those children, especially boys, who are naturally morose, when treated harshly become sullen, and have wrongs, fancied or real, for which they not unfrequently retaliate upon society for the rest of their lives.

Corporal punishment has an injurious effect upon good children, especially girls, who commit no faults for which they are whipped. To see, hear or know that their mates are whipped, is so shocking to them that children have been removed from school for no fault of their own, and deprived of their rights to avoid it. Some teachers deride this sensitiveness in children as sentimentalism. We have

no right to destroy their humanity.

If the punishment is secret it is liable to fearful abuse, if public it is a gross outrage upon the good; we might as well compel the community to witness executions.

Children cannot choose their teachers; they must submit to suffer in body and mind if the teacher is unskilful; the suffering of the body can be prevented by the enactment of a law, and the unskilful will be driven from the profession. Children should be protected by statute law from bad teachers as the community is protected by law from bad men.

The use of corporal punishment in schools teaches children that blows are just and proper for the punishment of trivial faults, even in the case of marriageable females; it will also teach them that

they themselves may inflict blows upon those who have committed faults against them.

It is injurious to the teachers.

Corporal punishment demoralizes the teacher. It is a law of human nature that he who frequently causes pain and suffering with the intent to cause pain and suffering becomes callous to the suffering he produces; his power of measuring it is diminished. History is full of instances. It is seen in criminal courts. Judges have been removed in consequence schoolmasters are no exception to

this law.

He who invents instruments for the purpose of producing pain and with it produces wales and stripes, and extorts screams from females, is already to a certain extent demoralized.

That it is injurious to teachers is shown by their levity in regard to whipping, their declarations made, that a whip should be kept and used in a school-room as a whip is kept and used in a chaise, thus ignoring the reason and moral nature of children; that to distinguish between boys and girls in this punishment is unjust to the former; that teachers should keep no record of their punishments; that they should be responsible to their own consciences only, and that if they are prohibited from the use of one kind of punishment they will resort to others even worse; that those children who suffer by blows from vicious or ignorant parents at home can only be governed by blows in schools.

The sickening record of the cruelties practised in Girard College proves the necessity of law to protect teachers and children.

Unskilful, indiscreet young men and women are invested with this kind of punishment the moment they enter the school, and are liable to do great wrong during their first days of service. A young woman in a Cambridge school, within four days from her entrance into it, committed an indictable offence upon a little girl.

The temperament of a teacher, his religious belief as to the suffering of the body for the good of the soul, his views as to the nature of offences and their relation to the majesty of God, has led to great cruelty.

Female teachers, who are more excitable than males, less equable in temper, and more liable to mistakes in consequence, would be

greatly protected from the commission of wrong by a statute prohibiting corporal punishment.

It is notorious that the number of prosecutions of teachers has greatly increased, not only in consequence of the increase of the number of punishments, but also because the teachers are now more carefully watched.

The community in Massachusetts is averse to corporal punishment. This is shown by the general movement upon the subject, the declarations in newspapers, secular and religious, in sermons, in the governor's message, in the report of the board of education, by the votes of committees where the question has been presented for decision, the frequent prosecutions of teachers, and their declaration at a public meeting that the respect for them is diminishing. Especially is the whipping of young women and girls opposed by the people. For the protection of the teachers against the present feeling in the community a law should be enacted.

What shall be done with incorrigible children? The same that is done under the corporal punishment system with incorrigible children, and it is claimed that fewer children will be found incorrigible under a system of kindness, reason, and restraint, than under a system of corporal punishment.

If a child is injurious to the school he should be removed, for good children have more rights in school than bad children. If a female is so incorrigible as to require corporal punishment she is an unfit associate for good girls.

If a child commit an offence against the law and become a criminal, he should be placed in the hands of the proper law officers. Schoolmasters should be the friends and teachers of youth, and not policemen.

If this law is enacted, all defence of corporal punishment will cease; teachers will govern by reason and moral power; one of the narrowing influences upon teachers will be removed; towns will demand better teachers; the number and compensation of teachers will be increased, and the incompetent and unskilful will be driven from the profession.

It will be found, as in the Netherlands, in New Jersey, Cambridge, and Syracuse, that the schools will be successful without

corporal punishment, and the Commonwealth will be more honored, and stand higher in the scale of civilization.

"Corporal punishment should be abolished, because teachers often inflict it on the representations of others, instead of their own knowledge; because it is often practised as an example; because teachers often punish hastily; because children are often flogged for truancy, and, by excessive punishment made to hate school, without being reformed; because the least guilty are often punished, while the deceitful and real offender escapes; because it oftentimes awakens revengeful feelings; because it hardens the heart of some, and creates an unmanly fear in others; because it is demoralizing alike to the teacher and scholar; because, whenever it has been abolished by law, the effect has been salutary. In Prussia, in Holland, in Austria, in France, in Syracuse, New York, and New Jersey, abundant evidence can be shown, that so wedded were teachers to this practice, that legislation was considered necessary; and the taking from the teacher the power, by law, has established the principle of humanity on a firm basis, which cannot be shaken.

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Corporal punishment should be abolished, because teachers are constantly talking about their experience, when it is well known they do not, in a majority of cases, invent plans to avoid the use of the rod, but resort to it as the quickest form of government, instead of employing the more efficient and elevating power of reason and conscience. The really kind, humane teacher is obliged to bear the stigma of this old barbaric experience' of the inhumane teacher