(3.) The most fertile cause of impudence is assumption of a double standard of morality, one for the child and another for the adult.  Impudence is, at bottom, the child’s perception of this injustice, and his rebellion against it.  When to this double standard,—­a standard that measures up gossip, for instance, right for the adult and listening to gossip as wrong for the child—­when to this is added the assumption of infallibility, it is no wonder that the child fairly rages.

For, if we come to analyze them, what are the speeches which find so objectionable?  “Do it yourself, if you are so smart.”  “Maybe, I am rude, but I’m not any ruder than you are.”  “I think you are just as mean as mean can be; I wouldn’t be so mean!” Is this last speech any worse in reality than “You are a very naughty little girl, and I am ashamed of you,” and all sorts of other expressions of candid adverse opinion?  Besides these forms of impudence, there is the peculiarly irritating:  “Well, you do it yourself; I guess I can if you can.”

In all these cases the child is partly it the right.  He is stating the feet as he sees it, and violently asserting that you are not privileged to demand more of him than of yourself.  The evil comes in through the fact that he is doing it in an ugly spirit.  He is not only desirous of stating the truth, but of putting you in the wrong and himself in the right, and if this hurts you, so much the better.  All this is because he is angry, and therefor, in impudence, the true evil to be overcome is the evil of anger.

[Sidenote:  Example]

Show him, then, that you are open to correction.  Admit the justice of the rebuke as far as you can, and set him an example of careful courtesy and forbearance at the very moment when these traits are most conspicuously lacking in him.  If some special point is involved, some question of privilege, quietly, but very firmly, defer the consideration of it until he is master of himself and can discuss the situation with an open mind and in a courteous manner.

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT.

In all these examples, which are merely suggestive, it is impossible to lay down an absolute moral recipe, because circumstances so truly alter cases—­in all these no mention is made of corporal punishment.  This is because corporal punishment is never necessary, never right, but is always harmful.

[Sidenote:  Moral Confusion]

There are three principal reasons why it should not be resorted to:  First, because it is indiscriminate.  To inflict bodily pain as a consequence of widely various faults, leads to moral confusion.  The child who is spanked for lying, spanked for disobedience, and spanked again for tearing his clothes, is likely enough to consider these three things as much the same, as, at any rate, of equal importance, because they all lead to the same result.  This is to lay the foundation for a permanent moral confusion, and a man who cannot see the nature of a wrong deed, and its relative importance, is incapable of guiding himself or others.  Corporal punishment teaches a child nothing of the reason why what he does is wrong.  Wrong must seem to him to be dependent upon the will of another, and its disagreeable consequences to be escapable if only he can evade the will of that other.