VERMONT SCHOOL JOURNAL AND FAMILY VISITOR. Volume II. JULY, 1860. Number IV. LEGAL RELATION OF TEACHER AND PUPIL. It is well known that, primarily, the law protects the person of every one, of whatever sex or age, from the violent interference of others, and if one individual in any manner restrains the liberty of another, or inflicts upon him bodily pain, or by superior strength or cunning constrains his movements, a natural right has been invaded, and an action at law is given to the person thus injured. But this natural right is modified by certain relations, where it conflicts with the performance of duties, which the law considers to be of paramount importance. Every-day life abounds in illustrations of this modification, and the most obvious, perhaps, is the relation of parent and child. The community have an interest in the proper moral and intellectual education and discipline of its youth. This object can be best attained through the instrumentality of the parent or natural guardian, and hence the law imperatively demands it of him, and has armed him with that right of physical coercion and restraint, the want of which would render it difficult or impossible for him to do his duty in this respect. When the parent sends his children to the public school, he transfers all his authority and rights, and not merely is the Burden lifted from his own shoulders and fallen on another's, but the Rod also passes from his hand to that of the teacher, and the latter in his school-room is now invested with every duty of mental education and moral improvement, and, as incident to these, every Such is the foundation of right of corporal punishment and correction, which each parent possessed in his own family. In the technical language of the law, he now stands in loco parentis. the teacher's right to correct a pupil, as explained by Judge Reeve, in his treatise on Domestic Relations. But the power of administering punishment, like all others, is liable to abuse, and wherever this seems to have been done, the courts interfere to protect the rights of the pupil. Here is the language of Ex.-Gov. Royce, while Chief Justice of Vermont, in delivering the opinion of the court in Hathaway v. Rice, 19th Vt. R." The right of a master to correct his scholar has always been practically and judicially sanctioned. But it rests upon similar ground as the right to correct a child, or servant, and the chastisement must not exceed the bounds of moderate correction. And though courts are bound, with a view to the maintenance of necessary order and decorum in schools, to look with all reasonable indulgence on the exercise of this right, yet whenever the correction shall have been clearly excessive and cruel, it must be adjudged illegal." In Massachusetts, teachers seem to have sometimes overstepped the limits of their authority, so far as to make themselves liable to be indicted as criminals; as appears from the case of Commonwealth vs. Randall, 4th Gray's R. A school-master, who was arraigned for an assault on a pupil, requested the judge on the trial to tell the jury that he was criminally liable for punishing a pupil, only when he acted malo animo, from vindictive feeling, passion or ill-will, or inflicted more punishment than was necessary to secure obedience; and not for error of opinion or judgment, provided he was governed by an honest purpose to promote the discipline and highest welfare of the school and the best interests of the child. This the judge refused to do; but he charged the jury, that in inflicting corporal punishment, a teacher must exercise reasonable judgment and discretion, and be governed, as to the mode and severity of the punishment, by the nature of the offence, the age, size and apparent powers of endurance of the pupil. The Supreme Court, afterwards, on an appeal by the master, confirmed the judgment of the court below. A case recently determined in Chittenden County, involved the question, whether the authority of a teacher extended beyond school-hours and the limits of the school-yard. A district school was under the general charge of one A. B. Seaver, assisted in the inferior departments by young ladies. A pupil of one of the latter, while passing the school-house sometime after the school had been dismissed, made a loud, insolent remark, applicable to the principal, who was within hearing. The next morning, when the boy came to school, he was called up by the principal, who inflicted the punishment on which this suit was based. On argument before the Supreme Court, the master's right to correct a scholar for offences done out of school, was acknowledged; but as the case has not yet been officially reported, it is unsafe to speak of it with more particularity. The authority of the teacher over his school is not confined to those persons whom the law terms infants or minors. It has been held in Maine, that if one who is over twenty-one years of age voluntarily attends a town school, and is received as a scholar by the instructor, such a one has the same rights and duties, and is under the same restrictions and liabilities, as if he was within the age of twenty-one. The circumstances of the case, in which this law was enunciated, gave occasion for the court to decide, that where a scholar, in school-hours, places himself in the desk of the instructor, and refuses to leave it on request, he may be lawfully removed by the master; and for that purpose the master may immediately use such force, and call to his assistance such aid from any other person, as is necessary to accomplish his object; "and the case is the same," say the court, "if the person removed is not a scholar, but a person having no right in the school." 27th Maine R., p. 266. The same doctrine is held in Vermont, in State v. Williams, 27 Vt. R. There remains one other point, within the scope of this article, on which the books have spoken-the liability of a teacher of a town school to an action by a parent, for refusing to instruct his children. Twenty-one years ago this question was discussed in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the case of Spear vs. Cummings, which is reported in the twenty-third volume of |