A. F. Leach divines from stray passages in Horace and Juvenalthat schools were almost defined by its presence: ‘The edification or cult ofcharacter...was effected by beginning school at dawn and shouting at andflogging the boys with the rod or cane (ferula), the tawse (scutica), and the birch(flagellum), very much as in the English schools down to 1850.’