Sir:

I am particularly interested in the letters from a lady named "Ruth," as she stresses the great importance of pinafores and petticoats for boys.  I can testify to her statments regarding the disciplinary value of a prettily embroidered, white startched pinafore for a boy, especially if he is inclined to be unruly.

I myself am a widow with two girls, aged 14 and 16, and an adopted nephew, who will be 13 in August.  Both girls attend a local private school.  They are clever for their age, and have also won prizes for dressmaking and needlework generally. The boy used to attend the same school.   Two years ago I adopted him after his widowed mother died.  I arranged through the headmistress of the school to have him taught at home by a strict and competent elderly governess, an old friend of mine who now lives with us as one of the family.

Most happily she happened to be available at the time, and seemed to fall in love with the idea of having a boy under her control, as she had always been accustomed to teaching and training girls.  She entered into the spirit of the whole thing and completed all the necessary arrangements for having him taught and disciplined properly at home.  Naturally, the boy resented all this, but his wishes in the matter were not considered, and as he showed and displayed his terrible temper and annoyance, many a good smacked bottom and a caning had to be administered to bring him to his knees, so to speak.  A woman after my own heart, and much like myself, the governess possesses a very self-willed and determined character, two qualities that are essential when one has charge of a boy such as this one.

Miss B. is a very old fashioned woman.  She wears long velvet dresses, which cling to her severely corseted figure.  Her long greying hair is always worn parted in the center and drawn back to form a bun at the nape of her neck.  Her pale, thin features and tightly compressed lips denote a woman who will not put up with any nonsense from those over whom she has control. She had been here only a month when she decided that as the boy, Wilfred, was always to be educated at home, he should be put into a gym tunic for day wear during the week, and a simple little tartan or plain clothes kilt and white blouse for evenings and weekends, and special occasions.  His underwear was to consist of little girls' white frilled petticoats and knickers.  I fully agreed with these suggestions and have never regretted it.

As the two girls had always been taught to keep their clothes neat, I was able to utilize some of their old clothes for Wilfred until some new ones had been made.  Only a few slight alterations were necessary, he being much the same build as the girls.
Here I must pay great tribute to both my daughters, Millicent and Agnes, who are spending all their spare time in my work room, machining and sewing.  They are making for Wilfred some lacy and embroidered little girl petticoats, knickers, and pinafores.  But until these new pretty garments are ready, the boy will still have to put up with his girl cousins' left-off petticoats and pinnies.

As soon as Miss B. set eyes on the boy, she was quick to sum him up as a child who really needs good firm discipline.  So to save Wilfred from becoming an odious teenager, I had no hesitation in supporting Miss B.'s desire to bring up the boy at home like a girl.
Although Governess has to chastise him now and again by smacking his bare bottom, or by caning the palms of his hands, her favorite instrument of correction is what she calls the "ferula", a short leather strap, 22 inches in length and two inches wide.  She assures me it has reddened the bare bottoms of scores of girls from the age of nine to nineteen.

Every Saturday morning the boy has to fetch the strap from the small, schoolroom at the top of the house, take it down to the kitchen, and under the maid's supervision rub linseed oil into the strap to preserve the leather, and keep it nice and supple.  Necessary, but by no means pleasant, for a child to keep in a good state of preservation the strap which brings forth his tears and supplications when he has misbehaved, and with knickers down and petties turned up, warms his posterior.

Governess told me that it originally belonged to her mother, and that she herself as a young girl had her bottom reddened with it when she was naughty.  So this "bottom warmer" is in reality a family heirloom of Miss B's, and yet it looks as good as new. It is very humiliating to Wilfred to realize that he has to be taught and discplined properly at home by a governess - and will be for some years to come - while his two girl cousins attend school, and in their spare time at home are doing their best to dress him like a dolly in frilly, prettily embroidered little petticoats, knickers, and pinnies.  The baby ribbons they are utilizing for the insertion in the lace embroidery work on the petticoats and the pinafores, as well as the knicker frills, are colored mauve, pink, pale blue, and heliotrope, so we shall see the child display plenty of variety in colour.

My younger girl, Mildred, who is only 14, asked Governess if she had ever heard of naughty boys being put into baby clothes as a punishment after they had been chastised.  Amusing really, because one never knows what such an idea might lead to!  Miss B. merely smiled and said nothing.
Yours truly,

Mrs. Sonia M.K.

Miss B. sounds like a governess of the old school, and I would not agree with her obvious belief in the value of painful spanking. In fact, this reminds me of an interesting historical aside regarding petticoat discipline which I forgot to include in my essay on the subject in our very first issue. Up to the mid 19th century, it was quite normal for boys especially to be beaten very savagely for infractions of the rules laid down by their parents or teachers. The Bronte sisters were very keen enthusiasts for the heavy physical punishment of misbehaving boys.

When petticoating was discovered as a means of subduing male children, and rendering them much more docile and well-mannered towards girls and others (thus civilising and equalising relations between the sexes), it was viewed as a very 'progressive' and non-violent form of discipline, the sort of discipline that the most fashionably 'advanced' parents might employ instead of thrashing their children.

Today it would not be seen as 'progressive' at all. Today's political correctness will be tomorrow's unspeakable wrongdoing, mark my words. It has always been the way, and is one of those facts of life which make liberal conservatism the most realistic of political philosophies ('liberal conservatism' may mean nothing to an American reader, because their form of English has totally corrupted and reversed the meaning of the word 'liberal'. Correctly, the word refers to freedom, and Barry Goldwater would have been a liberal in the correct English sense of the word).
Susan