With truthful sincerity I
answered:
"Father Duffy, I was laughing to think how much your nose is like a
frog."
It was just after play-time, and I was compelled to stand by him and
at intervals of ten minutes receive a dozen lashes, laid on with
brawny Irish strength, until discharged with the school at night.
To-day I bear the marks of that whipping upon my shoulders and in my
heart. But Duffy was not alone in the strictness and severity of his
rules and his punishments. Children were taught to believe that there
could be no discipline in a school of boys and girls without the
savage brutality of the lash, and the teacher who met his pupils with
a caressing smile was considered unworthy his vocation. Learning must
be thrashed into the tender mind; nothing was such a stimulus to the
young memory as the lash and the vulgar, abusive reproof of the gentle
and meritorious teacher.
There was great eccentricity of character in all the conduct and
language of Duffy. He had his own method of prayer, and his own
peculiar style of preaching, frequently calling out the names of
persons in his audience whom it was his privilege to consider the
chiefest of sinners, and to implore mercy for them in language
offensive almost to decency.
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