Corpun file 16520

Time, New York, 13 October 1930

Education

Thrashing in Missouri, Turkey

Kansas City, Mo. still thrashes its naughty schoolchildren. But not so frequently as in the old days. Records published there last week showed that average daily school attendance in Kansas City for the year 1887-88 was 9,550. In that year, 466 pupils were whipped, 191 incorrigibles were suspended. Last year the city's pupils numbered 70,000. There were only 230 corporal punishment cases, 21 suspensions.

One oldtime teacher sniffed at the report. Said she: "If 466 cases were reported [1887] there must have been 10,000 which were not."

Great believers in thrashing of the young used to be the Turks. But under the Turkish Republic thrashing of servants by masters, wives by husbands, children by fathers, is no longer condoned. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, anxious to make his country as Western as possible, has abolished the schoolmaster's rod along with fezzes, women's veils and the complicated Turkish alphabet.

[...]

Copyright © 2005 Time Inc. All rights reserved.