As early as the 1870s, corporal punishment had its critics. The Government wanted to limit its use in the state system, but Scotch said this would weaken teachers’ authority. As for alternative punishments, like detention after school hours, to deprive boys of outdoor exercise ‘is far more injurious to health, and, consequently, more truly cruel than a few strokes of a strap or cane’. ‘The fact is that the old Scottish tawse was most humane means ever used in school government.’”
William Littlejohn, Principal “‘He caned seldom and with reluctance, and was notably clement to maladjusted boys threatened with expulsion.’”
“Prefects’ privileges were their room, their badge and their exemption from detentions and punishments. They also had the privilege of power. At its most formal, in a Prefects’ Meeting, they judged and punished fellow students. The Captain chaired the meeting and administered the strokes (cuts) of the cane. The meeting also imposed lesser penalties like detentions or warnings. Boys could appeal to the Principal, but rarely did so, and Principals usually ratified the sentence.
Prefects’ Meetings lasted until around 1970. Throughout that time they penalised smoking, swearing, leaving school in school hours, and wearing uniform incorrectly. In the 1930s, at least, they intruded into the academic areas, punishing boys who copied others’ work or allowed work to be copied. Even boys smoking in their own homes, or in mufti, or on a country railway station, were caned. A Scotch boy was a Scotch boy anywhere, and there was no such thing as a private life. A prefect recalls:
Given our inexperience (and possibly blood lust), I think that the Prefects’ meetings were conducted in a fair and reasonably balanced way, allowing the usual assumption that ‘if you weren’t guilty, you wouldn’t have been here in the first place!!’ If found ‘guilty’ (and most were), the penalty was discussed and agreed by all the prefects before the guilty party was advised [1956].
In 1956, as the strokes were administered, prefects sometimes gave a score out of 10 for what the stroke earned. They signalled it by holding up fingers out of sight of the victim. A recipient writes of ‘the whistle of the cane and the biting pain after the first stroke. You felt the second one also, but after that the pain numbed the remainder.’ When Brian Taylor (Captain 1928) caned a boy for smoking, ‘the offender’s trousers burst into flames. Some wax matches had ignited in his pockets.’
“Leadership at Scotch has meant many things. It has always meant enforcing rules. It meant asserting authority, including the prefects’ own authority (in cases where boys were caned solely for challenging a prefect).”
“For all their free use of corporal punishment, those nineteenth-century teachers were in a way more gentle, more affectionate towards the boys, than the teachers whom the twentieth century assaulted so barbarously.”
David Pennington: “Caning by students was the norm. (I avoided this by sheer cunning.)”
“Scotch became self-sufficient, and in the 1930s it caned boys for leaving the grounds during school hours, whereas at Eastern Hill boys lunched in the city and frequented its busy arcades.”
“In the 1950s ‘The rules were rigid, the discipline harsh. I was present when a 15-year-old boy… was caned on the bare buttocks by an 18-year-old… a nice bloke who I met years later… 6 strokes – so hard the skin split and bled. He had bruising for 6 weeks – His sin? – he rang home from the public phone. He remained bitter for decades.’
“Without enough adult supervision, the boarding-house prefects might develop ‘pet hates, always picking on the same kids’. This set up a pattern whereby boys became resentful and this subject to further caning for insubordination. An ordinary boy might be caned six or ten times, and some boys were caned dozens of times. For boys whose punishment at home up till then had been the odd slap, caning came as a shock. So did the physical sequelae. David Brand (1972) drew colour illustrations of his bruises as they bloomed and faded over several weeks.”
“A welcome was also generously extended to the new Housemaster, Mr Thompson (‘Thommo’) who had his bed ‘short-sheeted plus a liberal application of tooth-paste here and there’. ‘Bunny’ Lappin, the Housemaster ‘nearly wore his cane out whacking both innocent and guilty.’”
“What is startling about smoking is that when Scotch caught boy smokers it punished them savagely. Between at least 1936 and 1971, School Captains routinely gave smokers four to six strokes of the cane. At some stages it made no difference if the offence was committed in Geelong, or out of uniform, or in a private house, or that a boy’s parents allowed him to smoke, or even whether he was actually smoking – in 1964 a boy received three strokes ‘for carrying cigarettes’. Six strokes was a heavier penalty than given to boys who stole, lied, cheated, bullied, or brought explosives to school.”
Card-playing and gambling in general reached the same point as smoking: we can see that they happened because they were the subject of jokes, and yet officially boys were punished for indulging. In 1961 a boy was caned for crimes including gambling.”
“Healey’s impetus at first was to asset control rather than to tackle revolt, for the revolt was still small. The disciplinary views of Scotch’s leading boys were conservative. In 1960 Satura told boys there were subject to discipline not just at school but everywhere except in their own homes, whether or not they were in uniform. The Public School Head Prefects claimed control over their boys’ smoking or drinking even when at private parties.
In 1963 Scotch caned a fifth former (Year 11) for smoking away from the school and not in school clothes. Most caning in the early 1960s was for smoking for which four strokes was the usual penalty. This was heavier than Nicholson’s caning back in 1936. The aim was both to punish and to change behaviour. A recidivist smoker was condemned to six strokes and “Told by School Capt. Some pertinent factors about School life & we hope was brought around to our way of thinking.’
