The cane helped shape better citizens

THE passing of the last Malayan Colonial Education Service headmaster, the late J.M.B. Huges of Penang Free School, at his home in Britain, rekindles images of those good British headmasters who ran most of the then Malayan schools with a firm hand by using the cane.

Many students, including my father and two brothers, remember him walking around with a cane in his hand; a very common sight in all boys’ schools then.