Wrongdoing followed by its own Penalties––The light smart slap with which the mother visits the little child when he is naughty, is often both effective and educative. It changes the current of baby’s thoughts, and he no longer wishes to pull his sister’s hair. But should not the slap be a last resort when no other way is left of changing his thoughts? With the older child a theory of punishment rests less upon the necessity to change the culprit’s thoughts than upon the hope of forming a new association of ideas, that is, of certain pains and penalties inevitably attached to certain forms of wrongdoing. This, we know too well, is a teaching of life, and is not to be overlooked in education. The experience of each of us goes to prove that every breach of law, in thought, or deed, is attended by its own penalties, immediate or remote, and the child who is not brought up to know that ‘due follows deed, in course,’ is sent out to his first campaign undrilled and untrained, a raw recruit.
Our contention is twofold: (a), that the need for punishment is mostly preventable; and (b), that the fear of punishment is hardly ever so strong a motive as the delight of the particular wrongdoing in view.