It is man's moral duty to act as the physician of his enemies and seek to cure them of their wrongdoing. How much more, then, should this attitude be taken toward those whom we love—toward our children, if we find their characters marred by serious faults?

In discussing the subject of punishment I do not for a moment think of covering the innumerable problems which it suggests. Many books have been written on this subject; prolonged study and the experience of a lifetime are barely sufficient for a mastery of its details. I shall content myself with suggesting a few simple rules and principles, and shall consider my object gained if I induce my hearers to enter upon a closer investigation of the delicate and manifold questions involved.

1. Never Administer Punishment in Anger

The first general rule to which I would refer is, never administer punishment in anger. A saying of Socrates deserves to be carefully borne in mind. Turning one day upon his insolent servant, Speucippus, who had subjected him to great annoyance, he exclaimed, "I should beat you now, sirrah, were I not so angry with you." The practice of most men is the very opposite; they beat and punish because they are angry.

But it is clear that we cannot trust ourselves to correct another while we are enraged. The intensity of our anger is proportional to the degree of annoyance which we have experienced, but it happens quite frequently that a great annoyance may be caused by a slight fault, just as, conversely, the greatest fault may cause us only slight annoyance, or may even contribute to our pleasure. We should administer serious punishment where the fault is serious, and slight punishment where the fault is slight. But, as I have just said, a slight fault may sometimes cause serious annoyance, just as a slight spark thrown into a powder magazine may cause a destructive explosion. And we do often resemble a powder magazine, being filled with suppressed inflammable irritations, so that a trivial naughtiness on the part of a child may cause a most absurd display of temper.

But is it the child's fault that we are in this irascible condition? To show how a slight fault may sometimes cause a most serious annoyance, let me remind you of the story of Vedius Pollio, the Roman. He was one day entertaining the Emperor Augustus at dinner. During the banquet a slave who was carrying one of the crystal goblets by which his master set great store, in his nervousness suffered the goblet to fall from his hand so that it broke into a thousand pieces on the floor. Pollio was so infuriated that he ordered the slave to be bound and thrown into a neighboring fishpond, to be devoured by the lampreys. The Emperor interfered to save the slave's life, but Pollio was too much enraged to defer even to the Emperor's wish. Thereupon Augustus ordered that every crystal goblet in the house should be broken in his presence, that the slave should be set free, and that the obnoxious fishpond should be closed.

The breaking of a goblet or vase is a good instance of how a slight fault, a mere inadvertency, may cause serious damage and great chagrin. In the same way an unseasonable word, loud conversation, a bit of pardonable mischief, which we should overlook under ordinary circumstances, may throw us into a fury when we are out of sorts. When we have urgent business and are kept waiting, we are apt, unless we keep a curb on our tempers, to break forth into violent complaints, which indeed are quite proportional to the amount of annoyance we experience, but not necessarily to the fault of the person who occasions it.

Our business is to cure faults, and in order to accomplish this end the punishment should be meted out in due proportion to the fault. Instead of following this principle, the great majority of men when they punish are not like reasonable beings, selecting right means toward a true end, but like hot springs which boil over because they cannot contain themselves.

We ought never to punish in anger. No one can trust himself when in that state; an angry man is always liable to overshoot the mark; we must wait until our angry feeling has had time to cool.

Do I then advise that we administer punishment in cold blood? No, we ought to correct the faults of others with a certain moral warmth expressed in our words and manner, a warmth which is produced by our reprehension of the fault, not by the annoyance which it causes us. This, then, is the first rule: Never punish in anger.

2. Distinguish Between the Child and the Fault

The second rule is that in correcting a child we should be careful to distinguish between the child and its fault; we should not allow the shadow of the fault to darken the whole nature of the child. We should treat the fault as something accidental which can be removed. Vulgar persons, when a child has told a falsehood, say, "You liar." They identify the child with the fault of lying, and thereby imply that this vice is ingrained in its nature. They do not say or imply, "You have told a falsehood, but you will surely not do so again; hereafter you will tell the truth"; they say, "You are a liar"; which is equivalent to saying, "Lying has become part and parcel of your nature." In the same way when a child has proved itself incapable of mastering a certain task, the thoughtless parent or teacher may exclaim, impatiently, "You are a dunce"; that is to say, "You are a hopeless case; nothing but stupidity is to be expected of you." All opprobrious epithets of this sort are to be most scrupulously avoided. Even to the worst offender one should say: "You have acted thus in one case, perhaps in many cases, but you can act otherwise; the evil has not eaten into the core of your nature. There is still a sound part in you; there is good at the bottom of your soul, and if you will only assert your better nature, you can do well." We are bound to show confidence in the transgressor. Our confidence may be disappointed a hundred times, but it must never be wholly destroyed, for it is the crutch on which the weak lean in their feeble efforts to walk.

Now, such language as "You are a dunce," "You are a liar," is, to be sure, used only by the vulgar; but many parents who would not use such words imply as much by their attitude toward their child; they indicate by their manner, "Well, nothing good is to be expected of you." This attitude of the parents is born of selfishness; the child has disappointed their expectations, and the disappointment, instead of making them more tender toward the child, makes them impatient. But this is not the attitude of the physician whose business it is to cure evil. We must give the child to understand that we still have hope of his amendment; the slightest improvement should be welcomed with an expression of satisfaction.

We should never attach absolute blame to a child, never overwhelm it with a general condemnation. And in like manner we should never give absolute praise, never injure a child by unlimited approbation. The words, "excellent," "perfect," which are sometimes used in school reports, are inexcusable. I have seen the object of education thwarted in the case of particularly promising pupils by such unqualified admiration. No human being is ethically perfect, and to tell a child that he is perfect is to encourage a superficial way of looking upon life and to pamper his conceit.

The right attitude is to say or to imply by our manner, "You have done well thus far; go on as you have begun and try hereafter to do still better." Such words as these fall like sunshine into the soul, warming and fructifying every good seed.

On the other hand, to tell a child that he is perfect may induce him to relax his effort, for having reached the summit he does not feel the need of further exertion. We should correct faults in such a way as to imply that not everything is lost. And we should praise merit in such a way as to imply that not everything is yet achieved; that, on the contrary, the goal is still far, far in the distance.

Everything, as I have said, depends upon the attitude of the parent or instructor. Those who possess educational tact—a very rare and precious quality—adopt the right attitude by a sort of instinct. But those who do not possess it naturally can acquire it, at least to a certain degree, by reflecting upon the underlying principles of punishment.

3. Do Not Lecture Children

The third rule is, Do not lecture children. One feels tempted to say to some parents: "You do not succeed as well as you might in the training of your children because you talk too much. The less you say the more effective will your discipline be. Let your measures speak for you."

When punishment is necessary let it come upon the child like the action of a natural law—calm, unswerving, inevitable. Do not attempt to give reasons or to argue with the child concerning the punishment you are about to inflict. If the child is in danger of thinking your punishment unjust, it may be expedient to explain the reasons of your action, but do so after the punishment has been inflicted.

There are parents who are perpetually scolding their children. The fact that they scold so much is proof of their educational helplessness. They do not know what measures of discipline to apply, hence they scold. Often their scolding is due to momentary passion, and the child intuitively detects that this is so. If the parent is in ill humor, a mischievous prank, a naughty word, an act of disobedience sometimes puts him into a towering passion; at other times the same offense may be lightly considered, or even worse offenses passed over with meaningless "Don't do that again." The child perceives this vacillation, and learns to look upon a scolding as a mere passing shower, hiding its head under shelter until the storm has blown over.

Other parents are given to delivering lengthy homilies to their children, and then often express surprise that all their sound doctrine, all their beautiful sermons, have no effect whatever. If they would pause to consider for a moment, they could easily see why their lectures have no effect, why they pass "in at one ear and out at the other." Their lectures on right and wrong are generally too abstract for the child's comprehension, and often do not touch its case at all. Moreover, the iteration of the same dingdong has the effect of blunting the child's apprehension. A stern rebuke is occasionally necessary and does good, but it should be short, clear, incisive.

A moralizing talk with an older child sometimes does good. The parent should not, however, indulge in generalities, but, looking over the record of the child for the past weeks or months, should pick out the definite points in which it has transgressed, thus holding up a picture of the child's life to its own eyes to reenforce the memory of its faults and stimulate its conscience. In general, it may be said that the less the parent talks about moral delinquencies the better. On this rule of parsimony in respect to words particular stress is to be laid.

4. Undeviating Consistency

The next rule is quite as important as the preceding ones. It is that of undeviating consistency. Were not the subject altogether too painful, it would be amusing to observe how weak mothers—and weak fathers too—constantly eat their own words.

"How often have I told you not to do this thing, but now you have done it again." "Well, what is to follow?" secretly asks the child. "The next time you do it I shall surely punish you." The next time the story repeats itself; and so it is always "the next time." Very often foolish threats are made, which the parents know they cannot and will not carry out; and do you suppose that the children do not know as well as you that the threat you have been uttering is an idle one?

We should be extremely careful in deciding what to demand of a child. Our demands should be determined by a scrupulous regard for the child's own good, but when the word has gone forth, especially in the case of young children, we should insist on unquestioning obedience. Our will must be recognized by the child as its law; it must not suspect that we are governed by passion or caprice.

There are those that protest that this is too stern a method, that gentle treatment, persuasion, and love ought to suffice to induce the child to obey. Love and persuasion do suffice in many cases, but they do not answer in all; and, besides, I hold it to be important that the child should sometimes be brought face to face with a law which is superior to the law of its own will, and should be compelled to bend to the higher law, as expressed in its parent's wishes, merely because it is a higher law.

And so far from believing this is to be a cruel method, I believe that the opposite method of always wheedling and coaxing children into obedience is really cruel. Many a time later on in life its self-love will beat in vain against the immutable barriers of law, and if the child has not learned to yield to rightful authority in youth, the necessity of doing so later on will only be the more bitterly felt. The child should sometimes be compelled to yield to the parent's authority simply because the parental authority expresses a higher law than that of its own will.

And this leads me to speak incidentally of a subject which is nearly allied to the one we are now discussing.

It is a well-known trick of the nursery to divert the child from some object which it is not to have by quickly directing its attention to another object. If a child cries for the moon, amuse it with the light of a candle; if it insists upon handling a fragile vase, attract its attention to the doll; if it demands a knife with which it might injure itself, call in the rattle to the rescue.

This method is quite proper for baby children, but it is often continued to a much later age with harmful results. As soon as the self-consciousness of the child is fairly developed, that is, about the third year, this method should no longer be employed. It is important that the will power of the young be strengthened. Now, the more the will is accustomed to fasten upon the objects of desire the stronger does it become, while, by rapidly introducing new objects the will is distracted and a certain shiftlessness is induced, the will being made to glide from one object to another without fixing itself definitely upon any one. It is far better to allow a child to develop a will of its own, but to make it understand that it must at times yield this will to the will of the parent, than thus to distract its attention. If it wants a knife which it ought not to have, make it understand firmly, though never harshly, that it cannot have what it wants, that it must yield its wish to the parent's wish. Nor is it at all necessary every time to give the reasons why. The fact that the parent commands is a sufficient reason.

The rules thus far mentioned are, that we shall not punish in anger, that we shall not identify the child with its fault, that we shall be sparing with admonitions and let positive discipline speak for itself, and that, while demanding nothing which is unreasonable, we should insist on implicit obedience.

5. Physical Pleasure as a Reward of Virtue

There is one question that touches the general subject of punishment and reward which is in some sense the most important and vital of all the questions we are considering. It throws a bright light or a deep shadow on the whole theory of life, according to the point of view we take.

I allude to the question whether the pleasures of the senses should be treated as a reward for the performance of duty. A parent says to his child: "You have been good to-day; you have studied your lessons; your deportment has been satisfactory: I will reward you by giving you sweetmeats, or by taking you on a holiday into the country." But what connection can there possibly be between the performance of duty and the physical pleasure enjoyed in eating sweetmeats? Is not the connection a purely arbitrary one? Does it not depend upon the notion that there is no intrinsic satisfaction in a moral act? We ought to see that it is radically wrong to make such enjoyments the reward of virtue; we ought to have the courage to make application of our better theories to the education of our children if we would develop in them the germs of a nobler, freer manhood and womanhood. I admit, indeed, that a child is not yet sufficiently developed to stand on its own feet morally, and that its virtuous inclinations need to be supported and assisted; but we can give it this assistance by means of our approbation or disapprobation.

To be in disgrace with its parents ought to be for a child the heaviest penalty. To have their favor should be its highest reward. But simply because a child is most easily taken on the side of its animal instincts, are we to appeal to it on that side? Should it not be our aim to raise the young child above the mere desire for physical gratification, to prevent it from attaching too much importance to such pleasures?

The conduct of many parents, however, I fear, tends to foster artificially that lower nature in their offspring which it should rather be their aim to repress. By their method of bestowing extraneous rewards, parents contribute to pervert the character of their children in earliest infancy, giving it a wrong direction from the start.

But, it may be objected, is there not a wholesome truth contained in Saint Paul's saying that "he who will not work, neither shall he eat"? Is not our conscience offended when we see a person enjoying the pleasures of life who will perform none of its more serious duties? And should we not all agree that, in a certain sense, virtue entitles one to pleasure, and the absence of virtue ought to preclude one from pleasure?

To meet this point let us dwell for a moment on the following considerations. Man is endowed with a variety of faculties, and a different type of pleasure or satisfaction arises from the exercise of each. Pleasure, in general, may be defined as the feeling which results from successful exercise of any of our faculties—physical, mental or moral. A successful rider takes pleasure in horsemanship, an athlete in the lifting of weights. The greater an artist's mastery over his art, the greater the pleasure he derives from it. The more complex and difficult the problems which a scholar is able to resolve, the more delight does he find in study. The same is true of the moral nature. The more a man succeeds in harmonizing his inner life, and in helping to make the principles of social harmony prevail in the world about him, the more satisfaction will he derive from the exercise of virtue.

But the main fact which we are bound to remember is that it is impossible to pay for the exercise of any one faculty by the pleasure derived from the exercise of another; that each faculty is legitimately paid only in its own coin. If you ask a horseman who has just returned from an exhilarating ride what compensation he expects to receive for the exercise he has taken, he will probably look at you in blank amazement, with grave misgivings as to your sanity. If you ask a scientist what reward he expects to receive for the pursuit of knowledge, he will answer you, if he is an expert in the use of his intellect, that he expects no ulterior reward of any kind; that not positive knowledge so much as the sense of growth in the attainment of knowledge is the highest reward which he can imagine. And the same answer you will get from a person who is expert in the use of his moral faculty, namely, that not virtue so much as growth in virtue, not the results achieved by the exercise of the faculty, but the successful exercise itself is the supreme compensation.

I have used the word "expert" in all these cases, and precisely "there's the rub." The reason why many persons cannot get themselves to believe that the exercise of the mental and moral faculties is a sufficient reward is because they are not expert, because they have not penetrated far enough along the lines of knowledge and virtue to obtain the satisfactions of them. But the same applies to the tyro in any pursuit. A rider who has not yet acquired a firm seat in the saddle will hardly derive much pleasure from horseback exercise. An awkward, clumsy dancer, who cannot keep step, will get no pleasure from dancing. There is no help for the tyro, no matter in what direction he aims at excellence, except to go on trying until he becomes expert.

I have said that each faculty is sovereign in its own sphere, that each provides its proper satisfactions within itself and does not borrow them from the domain of any of the others. Nevertheless we are constrained to admit the important truth that is contained in the saying of Saint Paul. And this truth, it seems to me, may be formulated in the words that, while physical pleasure is not the reward of virtue, virtue ought to be regarded as the condition sine qua non of the enjoyment of physical pleasures—at least, so far as the distribution of such pleasures is within the power of the educator or of society.

This proposition depends on the difference in rank that subsists between our faculties, of which some are superior and others inferior, the moral and intellectual faculties rightfully occupying the top of the scale. We inwardly rebel when we see the indolent and self-indulgent living in luxury and affluence. And this not because the enjoyments which such persons command are the proper compensations of virtue, or because physical pain would be the proper punishment of their moral faults, but because we demand that the lower faculties shall not be exercised at the expense and to the neglect of the higher, that the legitimate rank and order of our faculties shall not be subverted.

Applying this idea to the case of children, I think it would be perfectly proper to deny a child that has failed to study its lessons or has given other occasion for serious displeasure, the privilege of going on a holiday to the country or enjoying its favorite sports. Everything, however, will depend—as so much in education does depend—on the manner; in this instance on what we imply in our denial rather than on what we expressly state.

The denial, it seems to me, should be made on the ground that there is a proper order in which the faculties are to be exercised; that the higher, the mental, faculties should be exercised first, and that he who will not aim at the higher satisfactions, neither shall he, so far as we can prevent, enjoy the lower. On the other hand, by making physical pleasures—sports, games and the like—the reward of study, we exalt these satisfactions so as to make them seem the higher, so as to make the satisfactions of knowledge appear of lesser value compared with the satisfactions of the senses.

In an ideal community every one of our faculties would be brought into play in turn, without our ever being tempted to regard the pleasures of the one as compensation for the exercise of the other. The human soul has often been compared to an instrument with many strings. Perhaps it may not be amiss to compare it to an orchestra. In this orchestra the violins represent the intellectual faculties. They lead the rest. Then there are the flute-notes of love, the trumpet tones of ambition, the rattling drums and cymbals of the passions and appetites. Each of these instruments is to come in its proper place, while the moral plan of life is the musical composition which they all assist in rendering.

What we should try to banish is the vicious idea of extraneous reward, the notion that man is an animal whose object in life is to eat and drink, to possess gold and fine garments, and to gratify every lower desire, and that he can be brought to labor only on condition that he may obtain such pleasures. What we should impress instead is the notion that labor itself is satisfying—manual labor, mental labor, moral labor—and that the more difficult the labor, the higher the compensating satisfactions.

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