NEWS from one hundred years ago: INSTITUTIONAL VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS

A case in the Dannevirke magistrate’s court has set people talking about the way school teachers whip or beat students. David Cullinane, a high school student, has taken legal action against his ‘master,’ Donald Kennedy. David and a student friend ran into their teacher in town one day. Neither lifted his cap to show deference and obedience. ‘Next day at school they were called out by the master for punishment.’ David refused ‘to bend into a position to receive punishment, and it was alleged that, when he was attempting to leave the room, he was seized by Kennedy and given 10 strokes in all with a supplejack. A doctor called in for the complainant said examination showed several bruises, which were, he considered, unduly severe, and on an improper part of the body.’ The magistrate, after hearing the evidence, says that a teacher has ‘the right to punish a pupil for offences against the rules’ so long as the punishment is ‘reasonable.’ He dismisses the case because he thinks that ‘under the circumstances’ the punishment was not ‘excessive.’ All school students are liable under law to be beaten by their teachers. Leather straps are wielded in primary schools. Canes are used in high schools. Boys are beaten far more often than girls since society is very gendered and a widespread view is that boys need to learn to be ‘manly.’ The practice is common everywhere in the world. Coporal punishment of school students will still be lawful fifty years from now in every country other than Japan, Italy and Mauritius.
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New Zealand Herald, 20 November 1920