Among the first to give serious attention to the use of discipline as an educational tool was Philippe Aries in Centuries of Childhood. Aries believes the systematic application of discipline in schools and colleges was a crucial factor in the transition from medieval to modern education. While others who have investigated student life during the fourteenth to eighteenth centuries have not accorded discipline such an important role, scholars such as Rashdall, Rait, Thorndike and Mullinger have acknowledged its anecdotal utility for conveying the style and flavor of education at a given institution. A midpoint in assessing the importance and meaning of student discipline is to view it as that part of the educative process whose form and function reflect the values and attitudes concerning student conduct that are held by the educational authorities of the time. The present paper is written in this latter vein in an attempt to understand the use of a particular form of discipline, namely corporal punishment, in light of the circumstances at a specific institution, Harvard College, during its founding century.