Word: blocking
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Eton's Black Block...
...informed, through the intermediary of the prepositor of the week, that "The headmaster wishes to see him after twelve . . ." He will be met by the school messenger (usually an ex-soldier of the regular army), who leads him up to the ancient, oak-paneled room where stands the famous block...
...block is centuries old, black with age . . . and looks like the first two steps of a staircase...
...school messenger, having loosened the offender's braces and lowered his trousers, causes him to kneel on the block. Two pre-positors then step forward and place their hands on the victim's shoulders. This is called "holding down," and is supposed to prevent the flogged one from rising to defend himself from the headmaster's assault. The school messenger now opens the door of the sixth form room, and the headmaster rustles in in his robes of office. A third prepositor goes to a cupboard, from which he takes the birch rod and ceremoniously hands...
Perhaps the biggest stumbling-block for federal aid is the fear--honest or not--of federal control. Everybody wants to get a slice of the federal pie; few prospective beneficiaries want the government to set up uncomfortable standards and stringent conditions. That accounts for a good deal of the hot air about, "federal dictation." The more imaginative opponents (not of aid, necessarily, but of controls) picture a gigantic Washington bureau sending out hatchet-men by the score to bulldoze teachers into pumping unconstitutional propaganda down the maw of American Youth...