correct his child, being under age, in a reasonable manner. (1 Blackstone, 452.) So also in American law. (2 Kent's Com. 203.) There can be no doubt as to the parent's power to enforce his authority to this extent. So long as he keeps within the bounds of reason, he will be protected, and aided, if need be, by the law.

"Honor thy parents to prolong thine end;

With them, though for truth, do not contend:
Though all should truth defend, do thou lose rather
The truth awhile, than lose their love forever.
Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed

Shall have a child that will revenge the deed."

CHAPTER V.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT-TEACHER AND PUPIL.

SEC. 1. A school-master is liable criminally if, in inflicting punishment upon his pupil, he goes beyond the limit of reasonable castigation, and, either in the mode or degree of correction, is guilty of any unreasonable or disproportionate violence or force; and whether the punishment was excessive under the circumstances of any case, is a question for the jury. (Commonwealth v. Randall, 4 Gray, 36; 3 Greenl. on Ev. sec. 63.) He is also liable to be dismissed for cruelty. Teachers are not often barbarous, yet it may not be improper to state here that the law is a strong power to protect the weak from injustice, and to take from the strong a full equivalent for the wrongs which they may commit. When the Hon. John A. Dix was Superintendent of Schools for the State of New-York, he gave the following as his opinion: The practice of inflicting corporal punishment upon scholars, in any case whatever, has no sanction but usage. The teacher is responsible for maintaining good order, and he must be the judge of the degree and nature of the punishment required when his authority is set at defi

ance. At the same time he is liable to the party injured for any abuse of a prerogative which is wholly derived from custom. (Supt. Common Schools Decisions, 102.) Many very well-informed and well-meaning people are, in these latter days, beginning to doubt whether corporal punishment is under any circumstances advisable or excusable. The Supreme Court of Indiana expresses itself on this subject as follows: The law still tolerates corporal punishment in the school-room. The authorities are all that way, and the legislature has not thought proper to interfere. The public seems to cling to a despotism in the government of schools which has been discarded everywhere else. Whether such training be congenial to our institutions, and favorable to the full development of the future man, is worthy of serious consideration, though not for us to discuss. In one respect the tendency of the rod is so evidently evil that it might perhaps be arrested on the ground of public policy. The practice has an inherent proneness to abuse. The very act of whipping engenders passion, and very generally leads to excess. Where one or two stripes only were intended, several usually follow, each increasing in vigor as the act of striking inflames the passions. This is a matter of daily observation and experience. Hence the spirit of the law is, and the leaning of the courts should be, to discountenance a practice which tends to excite human passions to heated and excessive action, ending in abuse and breaches of the peace. Such a system of petty tyranny can not be watched too cautiously, nor

guarded too strictly. The tender age of the sufferers forbids that its slightest abuse should be tolerated. So long as the power to punish corporally in schools exists, it needs to be put under wholesome restrictións. Teachers should, therefore, understand that whenever correction is administered in anger or insolence, or in any other manner than in moderation and kindness, accompanied with that affectionate moral suasion so eminently due from one placed by the law "in loco parentis"—in the sacred relation of parent-the court must consider them guilty of assault and battery, the more aggravated and wanton in proportion to the tender years and dependent position of the pupil. It can hardly be doubted but that public opinion will, in time, strike the ferule from the hands of the teacher, leaving him, as the true basis of government, only the resources of his intellect and heart. Such is the only policy worthy of the State, and of her otherwise enlightened and liberal institutions. It is the policy of progress. The husband can no longer moderately chastise his wife; nor, according to the more recent authorities, the master his servant or apprentice. Even the degrading cruelties of the naval service have been arrested. Why the person of the school-boy, "with his shining morning face," should be less sacred in the eye of the law than that of the apprentice or sailor, is not easily explained. It is regretted that such are the authorities, still courts are bound by them. All that can be done, without the aid of legislation, is to hold every case strictly within the rule; and if the correction be in

anger, or in any other respect immoderately or improperly administered, to hold the unworthy perpetrator guilty of assault and battery. The law having elevated the teacher to the place of the parent, if he is still to sustain that sacred relation, " it becomes him to be careful in the exercise of his authority, and not make his power a pretext for cruelty and oppression." (14 Johns. R. 119.) Whenever he undertakes to exercise it, the cause must be sufficient; the instrument suitable to the purpose; the manner and extent of the correction, the part of the person to which it is applied, the temper in which it is inflicted-all should be distinguished with the kindness, prudence, and propriety which become the station. (Cooper v. McJunkin, 4 Indiana R. 290.) This court has more sympathy for roguish youths and less for hectored teachers than any other, we believe, in the land. To our mind the reason why the law gives the teacher the right to punish is very clear and easily explained, but it does not seem to be so to this court.

SEC. 2. A parent is justified in correcting a child either corporally or by confinement, and a school-master under whose care and instruction a parent has placed. his child is equally justified in similar correction; but the correction in both cases must be moderate, and in a proper manner. A school-master stands in loco parentis in relation to the pupils committed to his charge, while they are under his care, so far as to enforce obedience to his commands, lawfully given in his capacity of school-master, and he may therefore enforce them by