The Beautiful Tree: Indigenous Indian Education in the Eighteenth Century c5.s17.9

c5.s17.9

8. The internal routine of duty for each day will be found, with very few exceptions, and little variation, the same in schools. The hour generally for opening school is six o’clock. The first child who enters has the name of *Saraswatee*, or the Goddess of learning, written upon the palm of his hand, as a sign of honor, and, on the hand of the second, a cypher is written, to show that he is worthy, neither of praise nor censure, the third scholar receives a gentle stripe; the fourth two, and every succeeding scholar that comes an additional one. This custom as well as the punishments in native schools, seem of a severe kind. The idle scholar is flogged, and often suspended by both hands, and a pulley, to the roof, or obliged to kneel down and rise incessantly, which is most painful and fatiguing but perhaps a healthy mode of punishment.