“In those times, teachers were more severe and more feared than devils.”Ion Creangă · Amintiri din copilărie · 1881 · partea II
Teachers in the past were more feared than the devil, because education was based on fear, not understanding.
Creangă uses a hyperbolic comparison to illustrate the rigors of traditional education. In his time, school was based on harsh discipline and physical punishment, and teachers were authoritarian figures. The mechanism is socialization through fear: students learned not from a love of knowledge but from fear of punishment. For example, a student who made a mistake in a lesson could be beaten with a switch, making the teacher seem scarier than any storybook character.
Why it matters It makes us appreciate modern educational methods, based on encouragement and understanding, not fear.