2.  How often is this the case in the punishment of children all over this broad land!  Death is not often the immediate consequence of this brutality as in the above stated case, but the punishment is often as unjust, and the physical constitution of children is often ruined and the mind by fright seriously injured.

3.  Everyone knows the sudden sense of pain, and sometimes dizziness and nausea follow, as the results of an accidental hitting of the ankle, knee or elbow against a hard substance, and involuntary tears are brought to the eyes; but what is such a pain as this compared with the pains of a dozen or more quick blows on the body of a little helpless child from the strong arm of a parent in a passion?  Add to this overwhelming terror of fright, the strangulating effects of sighing and shrieking, and you have a complete picture of child-torture.

4.  Who has not often seen a child receive, within an hour or two of the first whipping, a second one, for some small ebullition of nervous irritability, which was simply inevitable from its spent and worn condition?

5.  Would not all mankind cry out at the inhumanity of one who, as things are to-day, should propose the substitution of pricking or cutting or burning for whipping?  It would, however, be easy to show that small jabs or pricks or cuts are more human than the blows many children receive.  Why may not lying be as legitimately cured by blisters made with hot coals as by black and blue spots made with a ruler or whip?  The principle is the same; and if the principle is right, why not multiply methods?

6.  How many loving mothers will, without any thought of cruelty, inflict half a dozen quick blows on the little hand of her child and when she could no more take a pin and make the same number of thrusts into the tender flesh, than she could bind the baby on a rack.  Yet the pin-thrust would hurt far less, and would probably make a deeper impression on the child’s mind.

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7.  We do not intend to be understood that a child must have everything that it desires and every whim and wish to receive special recognition by the parents.  Children can soon be made to understand the necessity of obedience, and punishment can easily be brought about by teaching them self-denial.  Deny them the use of a certain plaything, deny them the privilege of visiting certain of their little friends, deny them the privilege of the table, etc., and these self-denials can be applied according to the age and condition of the child, with firmness and without any yielding.  Children will soon learn obedience if they see the parents are sincere.  Lessons of home government can be learned by the children at home as well as they can learn lessons at school.

8.  The trouble is, many parents need more government, more training and more discipline than the little ones under their control.