What I have to say on this motion is not directed against any individual Minister, but rather against a certain concept, perhaps, in the Department of Education, one that can be changed, one that has already indeed been modified.
Now, my reason for proposing that corporal punishment be abolished in the case of girls is that it seems to me that such a motion is likely to be more widely accepted, not only in this House but outside, than if I were to propose the abolition of corporal punishment for both boys and girls, because, in the case of girls, there can be no valid argument about "gangsters" and "little toughs" and "little hooligans", as sometimes is argued in relation to the beating of small boys, even small boys of eight and a half, such as the one I mentioned previously with reference to the County Clare case. My view is that it ought not to be necessary for any teacher to have the right to give any form of corporal punishment to Irish girls from four to 14 years of age in our schools. I would regard as basically bad educationally, any teaching method based upon corporal punishment, because of three conditions: (1) it is based upon fear; (2) it presents to the rest of the class the disedifying spectacle of a child being beaten by a grown-up, a girl at that; and (3) there is a very powerful force of bad example given to children who see a small girl being slapped by a grown-up. Sometimes the younger the child, the younger the observing child, the more likely is the moral to be drawn by it that no shame need be attached to hitting children smaller and weaker than itself. The image, to my mind, of a man or a woman hitting a child with a stick is an unpleasant one, and one which I think we ought, at any rate in relation to girls, to be able to remove from our educational scene, in so far as the State, at any rate, directs it in this country.
I believe that the beating of children, the beating of girls in particular, has a brutalising effect, not only on those who receive the punishment, but also on those who see it, and, I fear, not infrequently on those who deal it out.
Now, the present regulations permit corporal punishment only for "grave transgressions." I quoted before, and the Minister quoted here, regulation 96, the departmental regulation on the infliction of corporal punishment. It contains the following clauses: (1) corporal punishment shall be administered only for grave transgression. In no circumstances should corporal punishment be administered for mere failure at lessons; (2) only the principal teacher, or such other member of the staff as may be duly authorised by the manager for the purpose, shall inflict corporal punishment; (3) only a light cane or rod shall be used and punishment should be inflicted only on the open hand. The boxing of children's ears and the pulling of hair and similar treatment is strictly forbidden; (4) no teacher should carry about a cane or other instrument of punishment; and, (5) frequent recourse to corporal punishment will be considered by the Minister as indicating bad tone and ineffective discipline.
That is the present position in theory. But, in fact, every parent in the country with children at national schools knows that punishment is not always confined to the open hand, that implements are, in fact, used other than the prescribed "light rod or cane," and that corporal punishment is frequently administered for minor offences, including lateness, failure at lessons, and so on. Yet the Minister strenously denies this, denies in fact, that, save in the most isolated cases, there is any corporal punishment at all for minor offences or failure at lessons! Now, I am certain that the Minister sincerely believes that, and I am equally certain that he is out of touch with the facts. And so we have the position, in my submission, that the whole country knows that in this matter I have been telling the truth, and that the Minister has remained resolutely and indomitably ill-informed on the subject. I have had many discussions with members of the public, with Senators, with Deputies, and even with Ministers, since I first raised the matter last June, and not one of them has denied that there is slapping and beating in schools for minor offences. Not one. Nobody has said it does not happen. Several have defended it, in spite of the fact that it breaks regulations. Some have even told me that they themselves are what they are, owing to the fact that they were beaten when they were at school. Well, one does not always like to put the question, but it seems to me that that might be interpreted as meaning that had they not been beaten at school they might to-day have been even more shining examples of virtue.
