A few days after she was present in the morning, when Migner called for her excuse for absence the previous afternoon, to which Ada replied she had brought an excuse for all afternoons. He replied that she must bring an excuse. She responded: "I brought you an excuse for all afternoons from my father." He replied: "None of your sass, or I will take the hickory to you," reaching for it. She said: "Don't strike me." He thereupon gave her severe punishment, producing marks which remained two months. He sent her to her seat, saying: "Do you understand me now?" She replied: "No, Sir, I do not," not knowing for what she was punished. On the day previous he compelled her to appear in the algebra class. She said she supposed she supposed she was excused from algebra, and had not prepared for the lesson. He told her she was not excused.

Migner was arrested for assault and battery, and before a Justice of the Peace was fined. He appealed to the District Court, where the decision of the Justice was affirmed. He appealed to the Supreme Court, where the cause was determined at the December term, 1878, and remanded for rehearing. It came back to the Supreme Court, at the recent term, where the decision of the lower courts was affirmed. The Court holds:
-That punishment with a rod, which leaves marks or welts on the person of the pupil two months, or much less time, is immoderate and excessive.
-In no case can the punishment be justifiable unless it is inflicted for some definite offense which the pupil has committed, and the pupil must understand for what the punishment is inflicted.
-If the rules of school require certain studies at particular hours, and the parent may not excuse therefrom, the teacher can not resort to whipping for failure of a pupil to pursue such studies at the hours fixed.

The remedy is by expulsion. Flogging girls 21 years old by big men veated with a little brief authority will not find much favor in the Supreme Court of Iowa, or any other Court. A big whip hung up in a school-room is the best evidence in the world that the teacher is not fit to teach school and govern pupils. The time has passed for attempting to educate the mind by brute force.