But dancairo, I was never treated to corporal punishment at school and I have all the same qualities as you, how can you put down your perfect character to having been hit a couple of times as a child? Society at the time of corporal punishment also had the workhouse, slavery and voting restricted to men, would you bring back those too just because you percieve that society was better at that time. I think you are viewing the past through rose tinted glasses to some extent, not that that is through any fault of your own, Socrates was probably doing the same when he said-
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."