My answer is that it will not have to be done every time, but only very seldom.  The effect of acting once or twice on this principle, with the certainty on the part of the child that the mother or the aunt will always act so when the occasion calls for it, very soon puts an end to all necessity for such action.  Indeed, if Mary, in the instance above given, had been managed in this way from infancy, she would not have thought of leaving the path when forbidden to do so.  It is only in some such case as that of an aunt who knows how to manage right, coming as a visitor into the family of a mother who manages wrong, that such an incident as this could occur.

Still it must be admitted that the gentle methods of discipline, which reason and common sense indicate as the true ones for permanently influencing the minds of children and forming their characters, do, in each individual case, require more time and care than the cuffs and slaps dictated by passion.  A box on the ear, such as a cat gives to a rebellious kitten, is certainly the quickest application that can be made.  The measures that are calculated to reach and affect the heart can not vie with blows and scoldings in respect to the promptness of their action.  Still, the parent or the teacher who will begin to act on the principles here recommended with children while they are young will find that such methods are far more prompt in their action and more effectual in immediate results than they would suppose, and that they will be the means of establishing the only kind of authority that is really worthy of the name more rapidly than any other.

The special point, however, with a view to which these illustrations are introduced, is, as has been already remarked, that penalties of this nature, and imposed in this spirit, are not vindictive, but simply remedial and reformatory.  They are not intended to satisfy the sense of justice for what is past, but only to secure greater safety and happiness in time to come.

The Element of Invariableness.

Punishments may be very light and gentle in their character, provided they are certain to follow the offense.  It is in their certainty, and not in their severity, that the efficiency of them lies.  Very few children are ever severely burnt by putting their fingers into the flame of a candle.  They are effectually taught not to put them in by very slight burnings, on account of the absolute invariableness of the result produced by the contact.

Mothers often do not understand this.  They attempt to cure some habitual fault by scoldings and threats, and declarations of what they will certainly do “next time,” and perhaps by occasional acts of real severity in cases of peculiar aggravation, instead of a quiet, gentle, and comparatively trifling infliction in every instance of the fault, which would be altogether more effectual.