New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1894-10-03
The Punishment of Children.

interest In life hlg cher than the well-being
of their children. Children furnish an
opportunity to do for them what we wish
we had done for ourselves. The perplex-
ing problems of life will remain unsolved
until we have learned how to educate the
future nell and women. The home has
been called miniature moral empire.
which suggests the idea of order. Order
is born of authority and obedience. There
can be no order without law, and a law
must have sanction, else it is void.
Penalty or punishment suggests suffer-
ing. All punishment is painful. But
pain and pleasure, however. are the two
educators of life. The discipline of the
one is negative, that of the other positive.
The one attracts to virtue, the other re-
pels from vice. This is not capricious
arrangement of man, but the method of
nature. The hands that caress can also
hurt, the voice that sings can also rebuke'
The little child must know the mother
that gives and the mother that denies.
There are those who would make edu-
cation stand only on one foot. They
argue against all punishment. Not
authority without freedom, nor freedom
without authority, but authority recon-
ciled to freedom should be the aim of
education. The instinct of liberty in
the child accounts for it's resistance to
authority, the instinct of love explains
its willingness to obey. We cannot live
on equal terms with our children, for, as
Perez has said, if we treat them as our
equals, they will treat us as their inferl-
ors, There is nothing more humilating
than the spectacle of parent helpless
in the presence of child. Reliance
upon the principle OF natural consequence
es will frequently lead US astray. Will
Nature always adjust the effect to the
act? Will the adjustment be always
moral? 1t is matter of EXP erience that
sometimes the natural consequence of an
act comes 50 late that it is hardly recogn-
lied as having any relation to the act
which provoked it. Then, again, it
comes with such haste and suddenness
that it leaves no time for reflection. It
ought to be the aim of parents to prevent
their children from being thus marred
and manned for life. In fact, this is the
mission of the parent-to stand between
the child and danger, physical as we'll as
moral. Children are impulsive; we must
counteract this quality by our constancy.
They are impatient; we must be calm.
They are tickle; we must be firm. Child
rem must grapple with the future; we
must make the page of the past clear to
them.
In order to be successful in the admin
istration of discipline, two things must
w udN1OloCOOu, Ou0 Cll4u duu Luc ucGuOu
of Nature. Every short-coming in the
child should be traced to its beginnings.
Why is the child untruthful? Who teach
es the child to dissimulate? Nature?
There is difference between the moral
and the physical nature of man. We
can treat the finger or the eye without
very much affecting the entire body.
There can be local physical treatment,
but no local moral treatment. All moral
weakness is organic. Moral education,
therefore, must not be limited or local.
it must be comprehensive. It must begin
with the heart, out of which are the issues
of life. What does it mean to punlsE?
It means to direct disobedience to its
natural result-pain. The purpose of
punishment is to associate in the mind
of the child sin with suffering. It Is t.
intensity the hatred of wrong and to
provoke repentance. Our aim should
not be merely to make the child do right:
but to make it love to do right. He
who Furnishes must assume all the digni-
ty and ..impartiality of an instrument of
justice. He must act not from passion
but from principle.
The abuse of punishment is more dang
erous than the greatest indulgence. At
the present day we have outgrown the
harsh methods of the past. Corporal
punishment is almost entirely excluded
from our schools. The arguments in
favor of it were ingenious but not con-
viucing. The hurt occasioned by corpor-
al punishment is not to the body but to
the mind. It is after all the mind that
is struck. But this is not all. In an
pealing to the mind, we treat the child
as rational creature. This is a clam
of the child which we cannot ignore.
Corporal punishment is one-sided. Be