NRS-16736 | Punishment Book [Copeland Public School]

Regulations under the Public Schools Act of 1866, adopted by the Council [of Education] 27 February 1867 regulated the punishment of children in schools by stipulating: “In the government of the pupils, all degrading and injurious punishments are to be avoided. The Teacher’s discipline must be mild but firm, his manner kindly, his demeanour cheerful and calculated to gain the confidence of his pupils, and his language marked by strict propriety. While he should overlook no offence, his aim should be to prevent the necessity for punishment by the improvement of the offender.”In relation to corporal punishment the regulations continue: “Corporal punishment should be inflicted in extreme cases only, and then as a last resource; and the teacher must keep a record of the time and place at which pupils were corporally chastised, the amount of such punishment and the nature of the offence.” Uniform stationery soon evolved to enable compliance with these regulations. These punishment books are registers of all cases in which corporal punishment was given to pupils. The information it details includes: the pupil’s name; age; nature of offence; amount of punishment (i.e. number of strokes); instrument of punishment (normally the cane); the date of the punishment; and by whom the punishment was inflicted.The series from Copeland Public School consists now of a single volume, but the Punishment Book and other records of the earlier Copeland North Public School (Agency no. 3107) were still held at Copeland Public School in the 1920’s, and were evidently regarded as being in series with the records of the later school. [1]The first entry in the surviving volume is dated more than two years after the school opened, and the last over a year before it closed. [1] Copeland Public School Visitors’ Book (1/8909); the Punishment Book was viewed by two former pupils of the earlier school, who have remarked on it in comments entered in the Visitors’ Book in September, 1925, and May, 1929.