Another crying fault among teachers is, that many still make rods and sticks their chief—if not the sole reliance, for restraining their pupils from doing what they prohibit, or for compelling them to do what they command; as if the only sure method of informing the mind, or curing the deep-rooted diseases of the soul, was by the barbarous quackery of bruising the head, or scarifying the body. Under the old _regime_, there were some punishments, (possibly still in use) of which it is hard to say, whether the cruelty or folly was greatest. For instance—one was to beat the collected ends of the fingers with an implement, sometimes made like a butter stick, at other times like a broad, flat rule. This served the double purpose of inflicting the first punishment, and for administering a second, which was to smack the palms of the open hands until they were often black and blue with bruises. I can speak experimentally of a _third_ punishment, not less novel, I believe, than ingenious; but whether it was ever practised by any other than a master of my own, (God rest his soul!) “this deponent sayeth not.” It was unquestionably a favorite one with him, and well do I remember it, having occasionally suffered it in my own person. There was one thing which the scholars thought much in its favor—it could only be conveniently applied in the season for fires, as it consisted in igniting the end of a stick, extinguishing the blaze after a sufficient quantity of charcoal was formed, and then smoking the boys' noses, who were compelled to stand as still as statues, from the dread of something still more painful. How it may be with such of my school fellows and fellow sufferers as are still living, I cannot tell; but I confess my own nostrils have always taken unusual alarm at smoke ever since, although it has been more than forty years since they have received any in this way. What could have been our worthy tutor's object I never could conjecture, unless it might have been to give himself lessons in physiognomy, while contemplating the various contortions into which he could throw the human countenance, by the application of so simple, so cheap an agent, and thus coming at a better knowledge of the dispositions and characters of his pupils. I have it from several unquestionable authorities, that other punishments, still more cruel, irrational, and unjustifiable, _were once_, if they are not yet, common in some schools. Among these, I will here mention one, which a highly estimable gentleman told me, that he himself saw inflicted on his own brother, many years ago, in a celebrated eastern school, which was always full to overflowing. The poor little fellow, for some offence not recollected, was actually suspended from the floor by his thumbs, and suffered to hang so long, that several weeks elapsed before he recovered the perfect use of his hands. This was kept a profound secret from the father, doubtless