Even the very frenzy of rage does not long dim or depress the boy.  It is his repentance that makes him pale, and Nature here has been rather forced, perhaps—­with no very good result.  Often must a mother wish that she might for a few years govern her child (as far as he is governable) by the lowest motives—­trivial punishments and paltry rewards—­rather than by any kind of appeal to his sensibilities.  She would wish to keep the words “right” and “wrong” away from his childish ears, but in this she is not seconded by her lieutenants.  The child himself is quite willing to close with her plans, in so far as he is able, and is reasonably interested in the results of her experiments.  He wishes her attempts in his regard to have a fair chance.  “Let’s hope I’ll be good all to-morrow,” he says with the peculiar cheerfulness of his ordinary voice.  “I do hope so, old man.”  “Then I’ll get my penny.  Mother, I was only naughty once yesterday; if I have only one naughtiness to-morrow, will you give me a halfpenny?” “No reward except for real goodness all day long.”  “All right.”

It is only too probable that this system (adopted only after the failure of other ways of reform) will be greatly disapproved as one of bribery.  It may, however, be curiously inquired whether all kinds of reward might not equally be burlesqued by that word, and whether any government, spiritual or civil, has ever even professed to deny rewards.  Moreover, those who would not give a child a penny for being good will not hesitate to fine him a penny for being naughty, and rewards and punishments must stand or fall together.  The more logical objection will be that goodness is ideally the normal condition, and that it should have, therefore, no explicit extraordinary result, whereas naughtiness, being abnormal, should have a visible and unusual sequel.  To this the rewarding mother may reply that it is not reasonable to take “goodness” in a little child of strong passions as the normal condition.  The natural thing for him is to give full sway to impulses that are so violent as to overbear his powers.

But, after all, the controversy returns to the point of practice.  What is the thought, or threat, or promise that will stimulate the weak will of the child, in the moment of rage and anger, to make a sufficient resistance?  If the will were naturally as well developed as the passions, the stand would be soon made and soon successful; but as it is there must needs be a bracing by the suggestion of joy or fear.  Let, then, the stimulus be of a mild and strong kind at once, and mingled with the thought of distant pleasure.  To meet the suffering of rage and frenzy by the suffering of fear is assuredly to make of the little unquiet mind a battle-place of feelings too hurtfully tragic.  The penny is mild and strong at once, with its still distant but certain joys of purchase; the promise and hope break the mood of misery, and the will takes heart to resist and conquer.