Page:Discipline in school and cloister (1902).djvu/17

 might well reply that they had many precursors. The history of monastic flagellation is an argument they would have been justified in urging in support. But they have a respondent of another opinion. Has not Soloman said: 'Spare the rod and spoil the child?'

In the Coutumes de Cluny, written by the monk Udabric in 1087, we read: 'At prayers, if the children sing badly or fall asleep, the prior or master will strip them to their shirt and flog them with osiers or specially prepared cords.'

We know nothing of the duration of the punishments, but the following fact plainly shows that the delinquants were intimidated. On St. Mark's Day some scholars of St. Gall's had incurred the punishment of a flogging for truancy. The boy who was sent to the attic to fetch the rods, wishing to save himself and his comrades from the punishment, seized a burning brand and set fire to the abbey. This simple fact plainly shows that the children of those days were little rascals, and one is not surprised to find a priest complaining to St. Anselme du Bec that he could do nothing with his pupils although he thrashed them soundly.