Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/230

218 kind of punishment must necessarily be used now and then in the nursery; but, as far as is possible, the child should be made to feel that the punishment is the natural result of his bad action, and not the mere venting of anger and annoyance on the part of the parent or nurse. If a child once finds out that certain actions always entail unpleasant consequences, he will no more think of committing them than he would think of putting his hands in the fire, which, he has early learned, has an unpleasant habit of burning. There are no better philosophers than children, who always resign themselves to the inevitable; but let the children be certain that it is the inevitable—let the child find out that bad behavior in the drawing-room means instant banishment to the nursery; that if he knocks his brother with a stick the result is "no sticks"; that if he refuses to put away his toys one night, he must manage without toys the next night, and so on.

If the mother merely talks at the child, and says, "How often must I tell you not to do so?" or, "I shall send you up-stairs," the child soon perceives that, after all, this entails no consequences, and he very wisely acts accordingly. On the other hand, nothing should be denied to a child without some reason. A great many mothers, and most nurses, bring up children on the principle contained in "Punch's" remark, so delightfully illustrated by Du Maurier: "Maud, go and see what Baby is doing, and tell him he mustn't."

With regard to corporal punishment, I think it wholly unnecessary. Even those who assert that it is good for children can not deny that it is bad for parents. No one is virtuous enough to be judge, jury, and executioner in one. And if it is harmful for a mother to treat her child like an animal, it must no less harm the child to be treated as one, and to be governed through the feelings of pain and fear, instead of the higher ones of reason and affection. But here I can not do better than quote a few passages from Locke's "Essay on Education," which I think very wise:

The usual lazy and short way by chastisement with the rod, the only instrument of government that tutors generally know, is the most unfit of any to be used in education. For from what other motive but of sensual pleasure or pain does a child act who drudges at his book against his inclinations, or abstains from eating unwholesome fruit that he takes pleasure in only out of fear of whipping, and what is it to govern his actions and direct his conduct by such motives as these? What is it, I say, but to cherish that principle in him which it is our business to root out and destroy? And therefore I can not think any correction useful to a child where the shame of suffering for having done amiss does not work more upon him than the pain.

And again:

I am very apt to think that great severity of punishment does but very little good, nay, great harm, in education, and I believe it will be found those children which have been most chastised seldom make the best men.