Corpun file 23585

The Springfield Sun, Kentucky, 1 April 1908, p.6

Sees Virtue in the Paddle.

Oregon Newspaper Sounds Praise of Corrective Implement.

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If boys must be flogged, the paddle seems to be an almost divinely appointed implement to do it with. That area of the body which it most aptly fits is not very susceptible to mortal wounds: it has merely a sufficiency of nerves to unlock penitential tears by their tingling when temperately flagellated; and the bones which it contains are so abundantly swathed about with muscular tissue that there is no danger of breaking them. It is fashionable in these degenerate days to deny the hand of Providence in arranging the affairs of the world: but if there is one piece of evidence more convincing than another that the Almighty actually did fit this and that together and adapt one thing to another in our mundane sphere, it is the perfect adaptation of this portion of a boy's body to receive impulsive stimulation from a paddle.

But must boys be flogged? What is the ultimate effect of paddling on the boy himself and upon the teacher, upon paddler and paddlee, to borrow a legal terminology? In the opinion of The Oregonian, the paddle is distinctly and unequivocally a means of grace. It edifies not only the physical and intellectual parts of a boy, but also his soul. Many an unruly youth apparently foredoomed to perdition and predestinated to wrath, has been plucked like a brand from the burning by a regenerative paddling. The world is full of men of light and leading whom Satan thought he had bought and paid for in their early youth, but who were redeemed and washed of their sins by a good, sound whipping. Marvelous are the virtues of the paddle; salutary is the smart thereof, and the parent who rails against it is not wise. -- Portland Oregonian.