The official view of the achievements of the Park Place Harris is recorded in the regular reports of H.M. Inspectors which lay great stress on the "general tone... of earnest and sustained application" and are full of praise for the "excellent order and discipline" which was observed. Such descriptions may well provoke the often-heard lament from some readers that "schools aren't what they used to be". Pupils of the present generation and, for that matter, many of their teachers will have heard tales of the golden days when "pupils did what they were told" and had "respect for their teachers" - days when any minor breach of discipline was sure to result in swift, salutary and painful punishment. Is this, however, an accurate reflection of the experiences of Harris pupils of the time?

At first glance, the Harris of Park Place appears to confirm this traditional picture of austere discipline. Parents were assured that the school staff would endeavour to "bring up the children in habits of punctuality, of good manners and language, of cleanliness and neatness, and also to impress on them the importance of cheerful obedience to duty, of consideration and respect for others, and of honour and truthfulness in word and act". Such moral training was considered to be of the greatest importance, as the Chairman of the School Board was eager to point out:

Will the Rector and staff bear with me whilst I remind them that the whole of their duty is not fulfilled by imparting secular instruction to the scholars? It should be your aim to form the character as well as to inform the mind, to check and control the waywardness of youth, to repress and eradicate sinful dispositions, to cherish right principles and conduct.

To help teachers in this task, formal rules were laid down covering every eventuality ranging from poor attendance to defacing school property.

The recollections of former pupils also suggest that they were subject to a harsh regime. A first-day pupil, for example, had vivid memories of Mr Paterson, the first Science master:

His tawse he called an oxide (ox-hide), and the amount of oxygen some of us absorbed on occasion through its medium had a powerfully clarifying effect on the cerebral cells.

Equally painful thoughts were aroused by the memory of Mr Wilson, the Classical master, who also taught German and shorthand:

I had the misfortune, as I then thought, to be in both these classes and many were the stripes inflicted upon my unfortunate hands, for he was the champion flogger of the school, and no boy escaped his attentions at some stage or other of the year's progress.

The following generation of pupils had no easier a passage. A pupil from the First World War period has testified to the consequences of indiscipline at that time:

One day when I was misbehaving in class, I was caught by my teacher, a Miss Duncan, who promptly despatched me to the Rector's office. As I knocked nervously at the door, I heard the familiar invitation to "enter". Inside the office, I found Barry Robb examining pupils' record cards. On hearing my explana­tion, he immediately referred to my pupil's record and, seeing that the marks were not particularly good, had no hesitation in increasing the punishment from two strokes of the belt to four. Whenever Barry Robb was about to belt a pupil, he used a phrase which became famous throughout the school, saying "I'll make you a belted knight".

Such descriptions suggest that pupils of the time were subject to a harsh and unsympathetic environment. Other evidence, however, seems to indicate that this is far from a complete picture. As long ago as 1894, for example, the Chief Inspector for Northern Schools counselled the school staff to ex­ercise moderation in their treatment of their charges:

Fear of pain must be banished from the schoolroom unless for vice and insubordination, and the pupils should be influenced by love for knowledge, progress and self-improvement, and a desire to make themselves good and useful citizens.

For the time, such sentiments were unfashionable and somewhat idealistic but they were nonetheless shared by some members of staff. An outstanding example of this is provided by Hugh Holburn (affectionately remembered as "Holly"), a member of the teaching staff at Park Place for almost forty years. His methods of class control were rather less severe than those employed by many of his contemporaries:

He would look very fierce, bluster, and talk of giving some of us a "horrible flogging"; but there was always the suspicion of a wink in his eye, and nothing ever happened.

A female pupil in the early 1900s also recalls his unconventional teaching methods:

Once, when we had been very good, and had got all our sums right, I remember being sent out to Shepherd's sweetie shop with a shilling to buy caramels. They were Russian caramels, eight a penny, and we ate them in class and never before nor since have caramels tasted so good.

Unfashionable though such methods might have been, they seem to have been highly successful for, on Mr Holburn's retirement in 1922, H.M. In­spectors paid tribute to "his unremitting zeal, to the uniform success which has characterised his work, and to the excellent relations which have existed between himself and his pupils during his long service".

Such methods were exceptional, however. The use of corporal punishment was the norm although other sanctions were also invoked against miscreants. Non-preparation of homework or unsatisfactory work during the day could result in a pupil being detained after school hours until the prescribed tasks were completed. Lines were frequently set with the result that many pupils took to copying up a reserve for future needs. One pupil was even resourceful enough to amass such a surplus of lines that he was able to lend them to his classmates, charging ten per cent interest on each transaction. Fortunately for those involved the handwriting was rarely scrutinised too closely! Poor attendance throughout the year might mean a delay in promotion to the next class while truancy could result in the ultimate penalty of expulsion. A more novel form of punishment for this offence was suffered by the pupils of the 1890s, however, as Sinclair Laird recalls:

In company with all the pupils of Harris Academy, I once played truant by staying away from afternoon classes on account of an announced passage through the city of the "Scots Greys", the famous cavalry regiment. They were scheduled to pass along the Nethergate at one o'clock, and all the scholars lined the street to await their arrival, which was so long delayed that the afternoon classes would have been nearly over, had we returned to our classrooms. The Rector and teachers were extremely angry at this insubordination, with which they probably sympathised but could not overlook, and in consequence decreed that we all had to be punished by being required to recite by heart a long extract from "Hamlet". Most of us worked off this punishment at the rate of one hundred lines at a time; but, ever since, I have hated this and the other tragedies written by Shakespeare, who, I am sure, had no idea that his immortal works would be a substitute for corporal punishment in a Scottish High School.

While discipline was undoubtedly firm, the pupils do not appear to have found it repressive, describing the school regime as "strict but without undue harshness", "firm but fair" and "kindly but strict".

Despite this strictness, school life was not always characterised by iron control and perfect obedience. Pupils, then as now, were capable of getting up to mischief of a major or minor sort. The pupils of Park Place, though generally industrious and well-behaved, were far from the angelic breed that is sometimes portrayed. A favourite pastime was to sound a tuning fork at various points in the classroom to irritate an already harassed teacher and disturb the lesson. Windows were broken due to children's high spirits. Given the opportunity, classes were more than willing to forsake work for a brief interlude of playfulness:

In our time was introduced what was known as modelling in clay. We called it "muddling", and in our hands it became "puddling" - and worse. Wet clay, as we presently discovered, made admirable missiles. I still remember one afternoon when we had been making excellent practice with our small artillery. The battle was in full swing when suddenly a polished head appeared in the doorway and received a stray shot just where the protective thatch was thinnest. Of the sequel, perhaps the less said the better.

While such incidents were relatively harmless, more serious breaches of discipline also occurred. Truancy was a frequent problem. As early as 1901, for example, the Rector was alarmed to note "an epidemic of truancy among the boys". One particular case demonstrates that stubborn defiance of authority is not a new development:

Claude Grieve left school without my knowledge or permission at 2 o'clock on January 14, 16, 21, 23, 28, 30 and February 4 instead of going to the laboratory. On discovering this breach of regulations, I sent a note to his father by post pointing out the serious nature of this offence and suspending the boy until I had an opportunity of seeing both of them. This letter, which was marked "Private", Claude intercepted and destroyed, thus committing a criminal offence. Today the boy was brought to school by his father but, as he declined either to be punished by me or to express his penitence in the presence of his school-mates, I declined to allow him to join his class in the meantime.

Such incidents were far from typical of a school which H.M. Inspectors found to be "in a commendable state of order, discipline and efficiency". As today, most pupils were well-behaved and conscientious but they were not the paragons of popular myth. When criticised for a thoughtless action, a present-day pupil might draw some consolation from the temerity of the members of the Literary Society of the 1890s. When refused permission to hold a particular function, they went ahead anyway and were rash enough to pass a vote of censure against the Rector - not a wise action, then or now.