ABSTRACT
Solomon has said, “He that spareth the Rod hateth his son; but he that loves him chastises him betimes,” and the maxim has been considered indisputable in all ages. Schoolmasters have regarded the Rod as absolutely indispensable in the education of the young. The first flogging schoolmaster that we meet with in our reading is Toilus, who used to whip Homer, and who, after performing that operation effectually, assumed the title of Homeromastix. This worthy man received no other reward for his enterprise than crucifixion, which he suffered by the orders of King Ptolemy. Horace calls his schoolmaster, who was fond of this discipline, “the flogging Orbilius” (plagosus Orbilius); Quintilian denounces the practice of whipping schoolboys on account of its severity and its degrading tendency; and Plutarch, in his “Treatise on Education,” says: “I am of opinion that youth should be impelled to the pursuit of liberal and laudable studies by exhortations and discourses, certainly not by blows and stripes. These are methods of incitement far more suitable to slaves than to the free, on whom they can produce no other effect than to induce torpor of mind and disgust for exertion, from a recollection of the pain and insult of the inflictions endured.”
