[lit-ideas] Re: English Pubic Schools
- From: Judith Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 04:19:44 +0000 (GMT)
--- Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
JE> > I doubt those soldiers were public schoolboys.
> Btw by "something short of
> > that" did you mean fagging? or beatings by
> schoolmasters? or beatings by
> > prefects?
> >
>
> All of the above. It's interesting that you even
> break it down.
It isn't interesting at all; these are different and
potentially separable phenomena. FYI corporal
punishment in UK state schools was finally totally
abolished in 1986 (the birch was abolished in 1948),
but only in 1998 in the few public schools that had
retained it.
Fagging is different in that it is (was? Eton
abolished it in 1980) a system of patronage/servitude
(a nasty one, IMO) not of savage beatings.
(The UK is signatory to the Convention on the Human
Rights of the Child and -- of course -- the European
Convention of Human Rights:
"The issue of corporal punishment must now be
considered in light of the Human Rights Act 1998 and
the European Convention of Human Rights, particularly
Article Three on protection against torture, inhuman
or degrading treatment or punishment.
The provisions of the Convention of the Rights of the
Child 1989 is also important for child punishment, as
Article 19 states: "Parties shall take all appropriate
legislative, administrative, social and educational
measures to protect the child from all forms of
physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect
or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation."
"
and physical punishment by parents is also an issue.)
One can't
> read an autobiography of an Englishman without
> encountering descriptions of
> horrendous beatings, and a lot of them, in the
> public schools.
Many of us can. Many of us have. We do all the time.
In the BBC
> 1980's production of The Singing Detective
not an autobiography
. Of course that's
> set in Wales,
I thought it was set in the Forest of Dean
but everything I've read about the
> English isn't any better.
it wouldn't be: Wales has almost no public schools
(Dennis Potter, who wrote _The Singing Detective_,
didn't attend a public school -- in England, where he
was born and where he continued to live).
> Even Prince Charles' education has been described as
> an endurance test.
Yes indeed. But that had nothing to do with beatings:
he was sent to a school that was totally inappropriate
for him personally.
I don't know how
> they compare to public schools but suspect they're
> probably pretty similar
> in terms of treatment.
See data on corporal punishment above.
. PBS
> a few months ago did a show on English criminals who
> were deported to
> Australia originally. Deportation was used instead
> of the death penalty.
And of course we have now renounced the death penalty
totally.
> One of the criminals was an 11 year old girl,
> sentenced to death for
> stealing another girl's dress.
we gave up executing children long long ago, of course
It's just
> facts.
But you see, it isn't. You have a few facts but the
broader picture you paint is devastatingly flawed.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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