Mary was, of course, now ready to make profuse promises that she would obey her aunt in future on all occasions and began to beg that she would continue her walk to the village.

“No,” said her aunt, “I don’t think it would be quite safe for me to trust to your promises, though I have no doubt you honestly mean to keep them.  But you remember you promised me that you would keep in the path when we planned this walk; and yet when the time of temptation came you could not keep the promise; but you will learn.  When I am going on some perfectly safe walk I will take you with me again; and if I stay here some time you will learn to obey me so perfectly that I can take you with me to any place, no matter how dangerous it may be.”

Aunt Jane thus gently, but firmly, persisted in abandoning the walk to the village, and returning home; but she immediately turned the conversation away from the subject of Mary’s fault, and amused her with stories and aided her in gathering flowers, just as if nothing had happened; and when she arrived at home she said nothing to any one of Mary’s disobedience.  Here now was punishment calculated to make a very strong impression—­but still without scolding, without anger, almost, in fact, without even any manifestations of displeasure.  And yet how long can any reasonable person suppose it would be before Mary would learn, if her aunt acted invariably on the same principles, to submit implicitly to her will?

A Different Management.

Compare the probable result of this mode of management with the scolding and threatening policy.  Suppose Aunt Jane had called to Mary angrily,

“Mary!  Mary! come directly back into the path.  I told you not to go out of the path, and you are a very naughty child to disobey me.  The next time you disobey me in that way I will send you directly home.”

Mary would have been vexed and irritated, perhaps, and would have said to herself, “How cross Aunt Jane is to-day!” but the “next time” she would have been as disobedient as ever.

If mothers, instead of scowling, scolding, and threatening now, and putting off doing the thing that ought to be done to the “next time,” would do that thing at once, and give up the scowling, scolding, and threatening altogether, they would find all parties immensely benefited by the change.

It is evident, moreover, that by this mode of management the punishment is employed not in the way of retribution, but as a remedy.  Mary loses her walk not on the ground that she deserved to lose it, but because it was not safe to continue it.

An Objection.

Some mother may perhaps say, in reference to the case of Mary and her aunt, that it may be all very well in theory, but that practically mothers have not the leisure and the means for adopting such moderate measures.  We can not stop, she may say, every time we are going to the village, on important business perhaps, and turn back and lose the afternoon on account of the waywardness of a disobedient child.