When Was Corporal Punishment of Children First Advised Against?

[HeyHomie]

Is there a certain point in history where we can, with certainty, say that someone advocated against corporal punishment of children? Were ancient Greek philosphers arguing in favor of time-outs and against spanking? Did any Renaissance or Reformation doctors/clergymen/philosphers argue against it?

What is the oldest documented arguement against it?

NOTE: Please, let’s not debate about corporal punishment in this thread. Thanks.

[bordelond]

Interesting paragraph at the Wikipedia page for “corporal punishment”:

From the 16th century onwards, new trends were seen in corporal punishment … [E]arly writers on education, such as Roger Ascham (1515-68), complained of the arbitrary manner in which children were punished. Perhaps the most influential writer on the subject was the English philosopher John Locke, whose Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693) explicitly criticised the central role of corporal punishment in education. Locke’s work was highly influential, and may have helped influence Polish legislators to ban corporal punishment from Poland’s schools in 1783.

[OldGuy]

Do you mean parental corporal punishment specifically or school and school-like settings as well? I don’t really have an answer, I’m just guessing that the latter was advocated against before the former.

[HeyHomie]

@OldGuy

Do you mean parental corporal punishment specifically or school and school-like settings as well? I don’t really have an answer, I’m just guessing that the latter was advocated against before the former.

Either, really. Basically what I’m looking for is someone to say something like “Aristophanes argued against it in 54BCE” or whatever.

[Markxxx]

I did an project for old Chicago Hospitals so I read a lot of old Chicago Tribune articles from the late 1800s and early 1900s and one thing that was interesting was the Tribune noted how Jews (or I should say Jews in America) were against this. The articles I found would indicate something about hospital and kids being abused, and they would state how Jews were firmly against using physical punishments against kids.

Don’t know if it’s true, but it was stated in the paper. Anyone know?

[bordelond]

@Markxxx

I did an project for old Chicago Hospitals so I read a lot of old Chicago Tribune articles from the late 1800s and early 1900s and one thing that was interesting was the Tribune noted how Jews (or I should say Jews in America) were against this.

Kind of a stretch … but if Poland outawed corporal punishment in schools in 1793 (post #2 above), perhaps many Jews who came to America from Eastern Europe had long accepted that corporal punishment in schools was wrong.

[thelabdude]

Ah but does not Proverbs advocate it? That would suggest there was at that time those opposed to it.

[HeyHomie]

@thelabdude

Ah but does not Proverbs advocate it? That would suggest there was at that time those opposed to it.

I take the Proverbs verse to indicate not that there were some opposed to it (necessarily), just that there were lazy parents.

[constanze]

Maria Montessori argued for and developed a whole system of education based on the child that went without corporal punishment, in the 1890s.

Before that,Emile by Rousseau was one of the first well-known attempts to describe child-rearing. I haven’t read it in detail yet, but my understanding is that by encouraging only the positive traits, Rousseau also didn’t activly recommend punishment; however, this is more of a theoretical treatise about human nature in general, and less of a practical parenting book.

The Native Americans tribes I’ve heard of, that is, the big well-known ones, found the idea of hitting or beating children, as they saw the whites doing, abhorrent. They did practise punishment: a baby that was crying after its needs had been met would be hung outside the camp to get quiet; a child that disobeyed the rules would be dunked in the river and/or go without food for x days. Generally though, the attitude towards children was a lot of love and good example by the adults.

[Farmer_Jane]

Rousseau came to mind, but he also got an erotic pleasure out of being beat as a kid.

Re: Jews: I doubt it had anything to do with Polish Jews. Jews have long been against corporal punishment, and capital punishment is something that rarely happened (despite laws about stoning). It has to do with giving the child consequences that relate to his actions. There is a book on Jewish parenting I have that mentions a Talmudic saying that children should be hit with something no harsher than a shoelace.

[Captain_Amazing]

Quintilian, in the first century, argues against corporal punishment:

By that boys should suffer corporal punishment, though it is received by custom, and Chrysippus makes no objection to it, I by no means approve; first, because it is a disgrace, and a punishment fit for slaves, and in reality (as will be evident if you imagine the age change) an affront; secondly, because, if a boy’s disposition be so abject as not to be amended by reproof, he will be hardened, like the worst of slaves, even to stripes; and lastly, because, if one who regularly exacts his tasks be with him, there will not be the need of any chastisement…
Besides, after you have coerced a boy with stripes, how will you treat him when he becomes a young man, to whom such terror cannot be held out, and by whom more difficult studies must be pursued? Add to these considerations, that many things unpleasant to be mentioned, and likely afterwards to cause shame, often happen to boys while being whipped, under the influence of pain or fear; and such shame enervates and depresses the mind, and makes them shun people’s sight and feel constant uneasiness … scandalously unworthy men may abuse the privilege of punishing, and what opportunity also the terror of the unhappy children may sometimes afford others.

Plutarch, also in the first century, also says something similar:

This I also assert, that children ought to be led to honourable practices by means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows or ill-treatment, for it is surely agreed that these are fitting rather for slaves than the freeborn; for so they grow numb and shudder at their tasks, partly from the pain of the blows, partly from the degradation. Praise and reproof are more helpful for the free-born than any sort of ill-usage, since the praise incites them from what is disgraceful.

and, speaking of the way Cato raised his son, said:

A man who beat his wife or child laid violent hands, he said, on what was most sacred.. . .When he [Cato’s son] began to come to the years of discretion, Cato himself would teach him to read, although he had a servant, a very good grammarian, called Chilo, who taught many others; but he thought not fit, as he himself said, to have his son reprimanded by a slave, or pulled, it may be, by the ears, when found tardy in a lesson.

In his Confessions, St. Augustine, while he admits he probably deserved the beatings he got as a kid, points out that he was terrified of them, and notes the hypocrisy of the schoolmasters, who would beat the students for careless mistakes while, in their life, they were more sinful than their students ever thought of being.