[George W. Bush]

You would NOT approve of the way gentlemen's sons and daughters were taught in those days. Rote learning, and failure to recite letter perfect was punished most severely . . even Roger Ascham, who was considered a most humane and enlightened teacher, advocated frequent use of beating with a stick to encourage learning. Queen (then Princess) Elizabeth herself was beaten for mistakes in her Latin. Now that's "forcing".

Oh, man, the good ol' days!

[linda_22003]

Or consider M.R. James, remembering a tough master's dressing-down to a student in Ancient Greek class, in 1875:

"A boy who construes 'de' *and* instead of 'de' *but* at sixteen years of age, is guilty not merely of folly, and ignorance, and dulness inconceivable, but of crime, of deadly crime, of filial ingratitude which I tremble to contemplate!"

You can picture the whack of the stick on the desk during that tirade. James notes laconically (in his memoirs, "Eton and King's") "It was bad policy, for it unnerved one for further efforts."