&gt;It’s hard now to know how consistent his use of corporal punishment was with standard practice at the time.<p>The quoted Wittgenstein biography of Monk (highly recommended!) actually has a comment on that:<p>&gt;Another girl who was weak at mathematics remembers that one day Wittgenstein pulled her hair so hard that when she later combed it a lot of it fell out. [...] It was not that the villagers disapproved of corporal punishment, nor that such methods of discipline were at all unusual, despite Glöckel’s recommendations. However, though it was accepted that an unruly boy should have his ears boxed if he misbehaved, it was not expected that a girl who could not grasp algebra should receive the same treatment.<p>Location 419.4&#x2F;1469 in my ebook copy<p>So, at least according to Monk, Wittgenstein&#x27;s methods of corporal punishment were according to the times when it came to male students, but not according to the times when it came to female students, especially when it&#x27;s about mathematics.