Spare the rod and spoil the child. Punishment

There is little doubt that the view that if you spared the rod you would spoil the child was a widely held view in Victorian and Edwardian times; not sure how far into the last century it lasted but I think it was still the rule by which a lot of parents raised their children in the 50s and the 60s; it was widely believed then (and still believed by many) that, in order to teach children manners and boundaries, a little corporal punishment was occasionally needed. I think it was quite normal to hear a mother telling her children "You wait until your Dad gets home" - implying that the father would be administering punishment. I doubt if many parents took pleasure in causing their children pain, but I do think that many would have viewed it as what one had to do to bring up a child properly.  Schools certainly believed that a little pain was sometimes needed with caning routinely given in schools and other forms of punishment - thwack across the knuckles of hand with a ruler, a well thrown blackboard rubber (made of wood and fabric and used to rub the chalk off the blackboards before the wonders of electronics reached schools) and, in the case of one chemistry master, the wooden retort stand;  a cuff around the ears was also common.