Punishments that are the Natural Consequence of the Offense.

There is great advantage in adapting the character of the punishment to that of the fault—­making it, as far as possible, the natural and proper consequence of it.  For instance, if the boys of a school do not come in promptly at the close of the twenty minutes’ recess, but waste five minutes by their dilatoriness in obeying the summons of the bell, and the teacher keeps them for five minutes beyond the usual hour of dismissal, to make up for the lost time, the punishment may be felt by them to be deserved, and it may have a good effect in diminishing the evil it is intended to remedy; but it will probably excite a considerable degree of mental irritation, if not of resentment, on the part of the children, which will diminish the good effect, or is, at any rate, an evil which is to be avoided if possible.

If now, on the other hand, he assigns precisely the same penalty in another form, the whole of the good effect may be secured without the evil.  Suppose he addresses the boys just before they are to go out at the next recess, as follows: 

“I think, boys, that twenty minutes is about the right length of time for the recess, all told—­that is, from the time you go out to the time when you are all back in your seats again, quiet and ready to resume your studies.  I found yesterday that it took five minutes for you all to come in—­that is, that it was five minutes from the time the bell was rung before all were in their seats; and to-day I shall ring the bell after fifteen minutes, so as to give you time to come in.  If I find to-day that it takes ten minutes, then I will give you more time to come in to-morrow, by ringing the bell after you have been out ten minutes.”

“I am sorry to have you lose so much of your recess, and if you can make the time for coming in shorter, then, of course, your recess can be longer.  I should not wonder if, after a few trials, you should find that you could all come in and get into your places in one minute; and if so, I shall be very glad, for then you can have an uninterrupted recess of nineteen minutes, which will be a great gain.”

Every one who has had any considerable experience in the management of boys will readily understand how different the effect of this measure will be from that of the other, while yet the penalty is in both cases precisely the same—­namely, the loss, for the boys, of five minutes of their play.

The Little Runaway.

In the same manner, where a child three or four years old was in the habit, when allowed to go out by himself in the yard to play, of running off into the street, a very appropriate punishment would be to require him, for the remainder of the day, to stay in the house and keep in sight of his mother, on the ground that it was not safe to trust him by himself in the yard.  This would be much better than sending him to bed an