Распис о школским каштигама из 1870. године
The Order on the School Corporal Punishment from 1870

Summary/Abstract: Corporal punishment, as a traditional and well known instrument of power in hands of European state authority, was also popular and commonly used in a new Serbian state of 19 Century. As simple, practical and useful method of discipline system, it was widely applied. From the courtyards of police headquarters to the jails and convict camps, even in a rooms of elementary school, corporal punishment was cheap, efficient and obvious way to reinforce a structure of power and to remind who is in charge. The document published here is an official order from year 1870, of a Serbian Minister of education and religious affairs, establishing a thorough method of punishment, which school teachers can and should use to discipline their pupils. Being elaborate and based on strong moral beliefs, this order reviles a strange mixture of humanity and cold bureaucratic reasons that SerbianMinister of education express. In the same time he was trying to protect pupils from arbitrary and malevolent acts of their teachers, and on the other hand he is convinced that extreme measures against “shameless” and “corrupted” children are morally justified.

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