Beat the boys and spare the Rolls Royce

My taxi-driver this morning was fully roused with solutions for the student violence that had last night left the Prince of Wales' Rolls Royce daubed with paint and the Cenotaph stained with urine.

Most of his plans involved corporal punishment of one kind or another - with additional sad reflections that by the time the villains reached the age of revolt it was probably too late. The time of suitable chastisement had already past.

I was strongly tempted to remind him of the good old days in sixteenth century Cambridge, described in Virgil's Schoolboys, the Poetics of Paedagogy in Renaissance England, a new book from OUP which, for reasons wholly unconnected with the current dissents, has been on my desk for the last few days.
 
Thanks to this excellent tome, I now know that, four hundred years ago, any applicant to become a Master of Gramer (as Grammar was then called) was required to come to Saynt Mary Church 'betwyne vii or eyght' to prove his skills in applying corporal punishment before the Proktour and Vycechauncelar.

His weapons were to be a rod and a 'palmer', a piece of wood, with a hole at one end, so that the application on the pupil's hand should produce a satisfactory blister.

For this formal inauguration a genuine pupil was not required. But a 'shrewde boy' had to be procured who did not mind being 'beyte openly' as long as he got his grote at the end of the day.

Acording to author, Andrew Wallace, this performance showed the dissonance between Virgil's generally perceived virtues and the forgetfulness of self that lay dangerously close to the heart of his art.

The original audience, in order to justify the physical entertainment, had to listen to arguments on grammatical points in the manner specified by Priscianus of Caesarea whose 6th century expertise was then deemed almost as important as the palmer to the proper teaching of Virgil.

How successful was this?

A note on page 211 makes clear that expectations of Priscian grammar skills were amended over the century as 'demand of the degree waned' and the ceremony was reduced to only only three or four grotes worth a year.

It is less clear when the 'beyting' bit of the grammar show  ceased.

I know of at least one man in London who would like it brought back as soon as Nick Clegg can get the Lib Dems to agree.

At the current rate of change, that ought not to be too long.

Comments

[Clayton Burns]

This post has attracted too many comments for me to risk saying anything. However, I am struggling to resolve an ambiguity in my sentence:

"Sir Peter should be beaten with a stick as a surrogate for the Queen."

Does this mean that Sir Peter should be beaten with the Queen as a surrogate for a stick?

[Clayton Burns]

To a degree, one has to agree with Sir Peter. It is an issue that is beyond words. Unless we are going to have a British Cultural Revolution, it will probably be necessary to resort to force.

However, the goal of preventing violence against the Royals is far too modest. Let's start with beating some grammar into the teachers. (Perhaps some have noted the appalling performance of UK--Wales--students on the wretched PISA tests).

The teachers have just given up and decided to go through the motions. No wonder the youth have taken to pissing on the Royals.

Every English teacher in the UK should be ordered to instruct students in the COBUILD Intermediate English Grammar and then in the COBUILD English Grammar. Those unable to succeed with their charges would be labeled 'A' and horse whipped. As if only. I hope my "as if" is not ambiguous.

Also, the silly PISA people should be told that they are imposing heavy opportunity costs by not setting a sound curriculum for their testing. We need to be encouraging schools to be using the best tools.

I have a choice for the best Netbook for the schools: the ASUS 1015PN. UK banks would be better off buying this Netbook for every student than worrying about their obscene profits.

There are causes afoot in the world. Beating up on the students might feel prophylactic, but it would bode no good.

[Terence Hale]

Hi,
Your picture :-

“Charles what’s that”!, “Don’t call me Charles, call me King”, “OK Charles”.

Regards Dr. Terence Hale