I just wanted to comment on school canings - my brother went through the same thing with the deputy head at his preparatory school - 8 years old sent to boarding school and caned almost daily.  My father thought this was a good thing.  I thought it was terrible.  I always thought it had more to do with the good looks and irrepressible nature than infractions of rules.

There was a swimming pool at that school.  We were there and there was a sports day going on and it was after the swimming when some boys were playing in the pool that they discovered a dead cow on the bottom.  Even back then and I must have been very young at the time, but I remember thinking how dark the water was that we didn't see it.

Talk about Dickensian.  

I admired the teenagers in our generation who challenged that whole system after being subjected to it as boys.