From the October 23, 1924 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Barnesville, Mass. (By the Associated Press) — Excitement which had prevailed with the first announcement that H.T. Opsahi, science teacher in the Barnesville High School, had been arrested and released on $2000 bonds in connection with charges that he used an “electric chair” to punish insubordinate students, had abated today with parents, members of the school board and Opsahi all apparently content to await the outcome of the preliminary hearing next Saturday. …

The use of the “electric chair,” according to Opsahi, was the outcome of a method to “scare” the students who since the beginning of school would not subject themselves to discipline. It was made from a standard office chair to which a high frequency coil had been attached, Opsahl said, and under the most favorable conditions to the transmission of the current, it “would merely cause a tingling sensation to the student being punished.”•