European History of School Corporal Punishment : A Critical Review

In this paper, the writer has attempted to clarify the pedagogical stereotype that has hindered many historians of education from pointing out that corporal punishment was never abolished in the early modern history of educational thoughts. In fact, according to the writer\u27s perusal of the texts, the early modern educationists permitted a rod or beating as a last resort of correction, while they denounced corporal punishment. For example, John Locke did admire the use of the "Whipping" for children\u27s "Obstinacy" and "Stubbornness" in his famous book Some Thoughts concerning Education (1693,see §78), though he denounced corporal punishment as a "slavish" one in the same book (§52). Locke admitted the corporal punishment as a means of discipline, for it was not outside (corporal) punishment. The same fact can be pointed out in the educational thoughts of Quintilian, Augustine, Erasmus, Joseph Lancaster, Pestalozzi, Horace Mann, and so forth. Lancaster, while he condemned the corporal punishment, recommended the punishment of pillory, fetters, and "the birds in the cage". Similarly, Mann maintained the corporal punishment as a lesser evil that cured the grave evil. In spite of such undeniable facts, many historians of education have ignored the facts. Why? The writer maintains that the eyes of historians of education have been blurred by the pedagogical stereotype that emerged to obtain a professional authority of the educational science in the nineteenth century. For example, Joseph Payne, as "the first professor of education in England", established such a pedagogical stereotype in his lecture "On Corporal Punishment as a means of discipline in Schools" (The Educational Times, March 1861). He pretended to demonstrate that corporal punishment was denied as a means of discipline as well as a means of promoting learning in the history of orthodox educational thoughts including John Locke\u27s