Corpun file 25489 at www.corpun.com

The Reading Eagle, Pennsylvania, 9 November 1928, p.16

Parents Assail Use of Rubber Hose in School

Flogging Too Severe, Mt. Joy Residents Tell Board

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Mt. Joy, Nov. 9.-- A petition bearing the names of a number of patrons of the Mt. Joy public schools, protesting the use of rubber hose as a measure of discipline in the borough schools, has been presented to the School Board. The petition followed approval of this means of punishment by the Board tacitly given at a recent meeting.

The action arises from a case last week, when 19 boys are alleged to have been flogged by E.U. Nitrauer, principal of the Mt. Joy schools, and Harold Shaar, of Lancaster, a teacher in the schools. The Board is said to have depended on the teachers. At the meeting it voted down a proposal to banish the practice of flogging with garden hose.

According to several boys who declare they were beaten by the teacher, the 19 boys were lined up in a room in the school building by the teachers. There, according to the boys, they were given the choice of paying a fine for "disorderly conduct," or being flogged. As the boys marched out of the room, they declared, they were beaten with the rubber garden hose.

Parents Protest.

John Barnhart, father of Harold Barnhart and Herman Hartman, father of Herman Hartman, jr., two of the boys involved, appeared before the School Board, protesting the action. It was at this time that the proposal to do away with this form of punishment was defeated.

The alleged floggings were inflicted following a school performance, last week, when 16 of the boys were declared to have created unnecessary noise during the performance. The three other boys who were in the group were punished, they say, because of violation of the school cigarette law.

The parents of the boys, in presenting the petition, declare that Nitrauer had no authority to impose punishment on the boys, because it was after school hours and at a public performance. They declare that he should have called out the civil authorities, rather than take the law into his own hands.

No lawsuits have been brought. It is intimated that the School Board will overlook the petition, unless further action is taken.