tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7458031571764013912.post7534373972323648200..comments2024-03-27T03:22:46.572-07:00Comments on The Cat's Meat Shop: The Refractory PupilLee Jacksonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09812128348822569086noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7458031571764013912.post-41065484920557293182010-06-09T11:24:58.448-07:002010-06-09T11:24:58.448-07:00Indeed, and when teachers complain they must tread...Indeed, and when teachers complain they must tread the delicate line between appearing to have genuine cause for complaint and merely seeming incompetent.<br /><br />As an aside, I assume you know the admirable Victorian Village at Blists Hill. It has a well preserved schoolroom and on some days, a teacher to explain how classes would have been conducted.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7458031571764013912.post-82169526881050100412010-06-07T13:06:38.763-07:002010-06-07T13:06:38.763-07:00Certainly one shouldn't take a single letter-w...Certainly one shouldn't take a single letter-writer as describing anything more than his views. I suspect the average Victorian school was quite disciplinarian and fairly free with corporal punishment. But it is perhaps instructive to find exceptions to the rule, lest we get too carried away with modern stereotypes. Truancy was certainly an ongoing issue for poor areas of London http://www.victorianlondon.org/publications2/howthepoorlive-4.htm#truancyLee Jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09812128348822569086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7458031571764013912.post-32945986640726261572010-06-07T12:15:46.098-07:002010-06-07T12:15:46.098-07:00I must say that I am astonished by this because we...I must say that I am astonished by this because we tend to think that the regime in schools and in society in general was much stricter then.<br /><br />When young I knew an old gentleman who would have been brought up and schooled at the end of the Victorian era. He regaled me with stories of his childhood and I clearly remember him telling me about his school master who frequently caned his pupils. This punishment was no light tap, either: the beating was so vigorous, he told me, that the teacher's starched cuff would come adrift and slide onto the cane, whose movement would then toss it across the room. The child being beaten would wait for this to happen and rush to retrieve it, for which he would receive a small pecuniary reward!<br /><br />One also wonders why, if the children described by Mr Pearse were so rebellious, they could be persuaded to go to school at all, let alone stay there all day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com