The Reminiscences of a Very Old Man 1808 1897

n scarcely be realized in these days of advanced thought, which have so fully recognized the absolute importance of the most careful treatment of childhood. The Inferno of Dante is a description of the punishment of the guilty, but what follows relates to the wanton infliction of pain on innocent helpless infancy, the result of the old absurd doctrine that "to spare the rod is to spoil the child." The ways and degrees of suffering, both mental and physical, are various. Jove chained Prometheus on Caucasus and sent a vulture to gnaw at his liver. This must have been very trying, not merely in its severity but in its duration. The Holy Inquisition is credited with remarkable ingenuity in devising contrivances for extorting by torture any answers it desired to certain questions. But though Mother Ward's methods of torturing theinfantile pupils of her dame-school were less demonstrative, they were no less effective. I was one of her pupils and know all about it. We little ones sat in a row on a bench without a supporting back, and were ordered to sit upright. If, after prolonged sitting, fatigue of the spine caused the weaker ones to droop in the least, down came a sharp cane stroke on the poor little knuckles without word of warning, and a keener pain diverted for a time the attention of the sufferer from the dull ache of the weary back. The dame's vulture eyes glared over the top rim of her spectacles, and all the eyes of Argus could not equal the detective ...