TO WHIP NO MORE
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT OF
PUPILS MUST CEASE
UNLESS PARENTS CONSENT
PRINCIPAL BERRY IS REPRIMANDED BY THE BOARD.
Used Peculiar Instrument for Inflicting
Chastisement That Left Welts on Scholar's Arm--
Teachers Testified the Boy Was Unruly
The board of education intends to put a stop to violations of rules of the board regarding the administering of corporal punishment to pupils. A peculiarly flagrant case, according to the claims of several witnesses, came to the attention of the board last night. A. D. Zimmerman, who lives at Fifteenth and Kensington, and whose son, Mark Zimmerman, attends the Kensington school, was represented at the meeting of the board by Attorney J. G. Smith in his complaint against Principal Berry, whom Zimmerman accused of cruelly beating the boy.
It was testified to by witnesses at the hearing that Berry has an instrument of his own invention for whipping pupils. To a piece of broomstick a foot and a half or so long he has attached a leather strap about an inch wide and fifteen inches long.
It was brought out that the Zimmerman boy had a green leaf fastened to his tongue and was manipulating it so as to make a peculiarly strident noise, which angered the principal. The boy grew sulky and "sassed" the principal, according to the witnesses. For this offense he was whipped with the strap, and he claims that the principal struck him over the arm with the wooden handle. This the principal denies, but the boy showed welts which were still in evidence, thought the beating occurred a week ago.
The board decided that Berry should be severely reprimanded by the superintendent, as he had grossly violated the rule of the board that no pupil shall be subjected to corporal punishment without the consent of the parent or guardian of the pupil. The Zimmerman boy's teacher testified at the hearing that she had punished him on several occasions, but that the parents had not objected. She testified that the boy was somewhat unruly and resented the attempts of theirs to discipline him, though he was generally tractable so far as she was concerned. The board believes that many cases of violation of the rule regarding corporal punishment occur which never come to the board's attention, and will enforce the rule to the letter.
