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This stress on physical punishment was an important part of education was center to the education system of Ancient Rome and Greece. When the Roman Empire turned Christian, this tradition continued. The first opposition to it was in the early 1800s when peasants and working class children were first FORCED to go to school, their parents objected to the physical punishment that was inherent in such school systems (Adopted from traditional upper class schools and collages where physical punishment had been the norm since Roman times). This first attack on physical punishment of children was beaten back by the educational system, but the concept that education can occur WITHOUT physical punishment came back, in some educational circles, in the early 1900s. This movement against physical punishment increased throughout the 20th century till by the 1960s when it finally went out of style in the US Public School System (It survives in some public school systems to this day, but those districts are considered backward at best).
Now, the Catholic system was a little slower at converting then the public school system, probably because people who objected to physical punishment would opt out of the Catholic System and into the Public System and thus less pressure on Catholic Schools to change. Even given this reluctance to change, most Catholic Schools ended physical punishment long before the 1980s, abut a generation behind the Public School System in the US.
Thus it was NOT the fact physical punishment was attractive to some people, but that it had a long history is why the Catholic Schools used them.
A second factor, is that the nuns and priests in charge of these Irish Schools were told that one of their job was to "Reform" these children (I will ignore the sexual abuse, no one ever claim that was part of the efforts to "Reform" and as such a different subject, through in the report both are treated together). In the 1800s the US adopted two "Reform" systems, copied in much of the rest of the world as the first attempt to "reform" felons other then by executing or physically punishing them (Both had a long tradition going back to Roman times). The Pennsylvania system was isolation. It failed do to the fact it tended to make people insane (People need human interaction, without it we go insane). Through Pennsylvania dropped it NOT do to the affect it had on felons, but that it cost to much. New York Adopted the "Auburn" system of complete silence but convicted felons working together (thus interacting) with harsh physical punishment for any infraction of any rule. This system, basically a continuation of tradition efforts at reform of felons through physical punishment was extended to the Child Reform Schools in the US, and then the rest of the world.
Now, by 1900, such harsh physical punishment was showing it did NOT work and most of the World slowly abandon it (Especially after WWII). The US and England were two countries where alternative prison system were politically unpopular, so variation of the Auburn System was adopted and implemented instead (for example, the rule of compete silence was abolished when it was found most prisoners worked out a way around it).
Nw this brings me to these Catholic Schools in Ireland. Remember these are "Reform" schools in the tradition of US Reformatories. Harsh discipline was considered not only normal but REQUIRED as part of the duty to "Reform" these children. Even today, many (but not all) US "Reformatories" (And the US Military Prison System) consider physical punishment as an essential part of reforming a person (In the case of the US Military, the Physical Punishment has NOT meant actual beatings since the 1960s, but forcing someone to carry a 100 pound weight and do 50 push-ups is regularly done to this day).
Ireland was a little slower then the US at switching from physical punishment to more sentence education in such reformatories (But not by much, similar stories of abuse can be found in almost any reformatories in the US during the same period in question i.e the 1930s through the 1990s, through in the US reforms of the Reformatories started in the 1960s, about the same time as the Catholic run Schools started to be closed down in Ireland. The Catholic Reform Schools seems to have been replaced by US Style Reformatories of the 1960 era, so you can make the comment the reform was occurring at the same time in both places).
I wrote this to try to place these schools in the right environment. To look at them from today's point of view is wrong, especially given that similar Reformatories abuse in the US has been ignored (And the Reformatories in the US have NEVER Been religious based). Was the abuse wrong, yes, but it was NOT only the norm to relatively recently, it was EXPECTED by the people PAYING for these Schools (i.e. the Irish Government in this case, US States in the Case of US Reformatories). This report has the good affect of bring such abuse to out attention so we can set up a system where such abuse can be minimized, but keep it is context of its time and the expectation of Society at the time these schools were in operation.
As to the work that was NOT training, but money maker for the Church. In the US the US Prison system does the same to this day, train prisoners to make license plates for example. This is a skill that is hard to transfer to an outside employment (About 20 years ago, an ex-felon did use his training in prison, he set up his own license plate stamping center and did a good bit of business before the state arrested him for it). Under the doctrine of the time period (We are talking 1930s-1990) work was viewed as part of you being "reformed". Even if the work was NOT training for work outside the school. Work for work sake was considered "Good" and a way to minimize the cost of running such Reformatories in the US (And apparently these reform schools in Ireland). Yes, such work made money for the Church, but the cost of the Schools exceeded the profits from the work product. In the US this was also the norm till the 1960s (and for adult prison to this day). Sad reflection of the time period, but a view NOT only held by the Catholic Church but by the vast majority of people in Ireland and the US. If you want to condemn it, fine, but also understand such practices was NOT done only by the Catholic Church.
One side comment on the sex abuse. Such sex abuse occurs in US reformatories at roughly the same level as these Catholic Run Schools. This does NOT make what these priests did right, but it happens. In the US we do NOT hear of it for most states considered such acts as coming under laws protecting the privacy of Children (Such privacy acts are almost always used to protect Adults not Children, but the intention was to protect Children, my position is, given that no one hears of such cases, do to the fact they are tried in private, most people do NOT understand that such acts occur on a more frequent base then most people think). The Church should be punished for permitting such people to CONTINUE in such schools after it became clear that such priests had abused Children, that is one of the cost of running such schools. If the priest was removed and NEVER given the opportunity to harm another child, that is a different set of facts. In such situations the Church had no grounds to deny that priest access to children until after the abuse occurred. After the abuse occurred such priest should have been kept away from children. We have to accept that fact that individuals with the tendency to abuse children will get into positions of power over children and abuse that power. Once that power is abuse and becomes known to the Church, the Church (Or Government agency running a non-church related reformatory) MUST protect its charges and remove the abuser.
Lets all agree to condemn the Church for NOT doing its duty to remove such abusers, like we should abuse a Government Agency that does the same thing. At the same time accept the unpleasant fact such abuse will occur and all we can do is to set up system to minimize the opportunities for such abuse. As an Accountant once told me, trust SYSTEMS not PEOPLE. If you have a good systems to detect such abuse and to keep such abusers away from potential victims, you can minimize abuse. Such a System can NOT rely everyone being angels, for devils had been angels before the fall of Lucifer (Catholic Doctrine). The system can assume most people was good, for most people in the presence of other will try to be good. On the other hand, the system can NOT leave people be one on one with potential victims (And that is the case in most cases of Abuse). The Church's (and most Government agencies for it is cheaper then the alternative) problem was it assumes its Priests were good, until shown to be bad. The alternative is to make sure no one person is ever left with a potential victim alone but such a system cost twice as much for it requires the presence of two people other then the potential victim. As I said, the Church and most Government agencies running similar reformatories have a long history of going cheap, i.e having one person instead of two (and to make sure you always have two, you end up with either three people to a group, which triples the cost of doing the job).
Now, I must apologize to anyone who takes the above as an attempt to make excuses for the Church, That is NOT what I am trying to do. This later section as to Sexual Abuse is to address HOW to solve the problem and the cost involved with that solution. Just to Condemn the Church (or other institution is a similar situation) is useless, unless you have a solution. Switching to a Government run School is NOT a solution if the same one on one situation is permitted to exist (Priest no longer have the opportunities but other pedophiles get a opportunities). Lets not only condemn the Church for its failure but propose and discuss HOW it occurred and how to solve the problem. I separate the Sexual Abuse from the physical abuse, for the two types of abuse have two different set of causation. The Physical abuse do to the long history of physical abuse in education (dating back to Roman times) AND the increase use of such physical abuse in reformatories starting in the 1800s and lasting while into the 1980s in the US let alone Ireland. The sexual abuse was NOT part of the Physical Abuse expected in an educational or reformatory setting till the 1960s, its causation is different. Most sexual abuse is based on the ability and power to abuse a child and put the child in an inferior position to the abuser, as oppose to the Physical abuse which as part of the established education system. Lets try to be fair to the Catholic Church (and other institutions in such situations) and try to keep these two set of abuses separate. To a degree that is impossible, but lets condemn the church for NOT doing what was expected of it (i.e. the Sexual abuse part, i.e the Church NOT protecting the Children from being sexual abused) AND understand that the church was doing what society expected of it when it came to the Physical abuse of such children in the education area.
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