“Well,” said Gilbert slowly, torn between his real convictions and his wish to measure up to Anne’s ideal, “there’s something to be said on both sides.  I don’t believe in whipping children much.  I think, as you say, Anne, that there are better ways of managing as a rule, and that corporal punishment should be a last resort.  But on the other hand, as Jane says, I believe there is an occasional child who can’t be influenced in any other way and who, in short, needs a whipping and would be improved by it.  Corporal punishment as a last resort is to be my rule.”

Gilbert, having tried to please both sides, succeeded, as is usual and eminently right, in pleasing neither.  Jane tossed her head.

“I’ll whip my pupils when they’re naughty.  It’s the shortest and easiest way of convincing them.”

Anne gave Gilbert a disappointed glance.

“I shall never whip a child,” she repeated firmly.  “I feel sure it isn’t either right or necessary.”

“Suppose a boy sauced you back when you told him to do something?” said Jane.

“I’d keep him in after school and talk kindly and firmly to him,” said Anne.  “There is some good in every person if you can find it.  It is a teacher’s duty to find and develop it.  That is what our School Management professor at Queen’s told us, you know.  Do you suppose you could find any good in a child by whipping him?  It’s far more important to influence the children aright than it is even to teach them the three R’s, Professor Rennie says.”

“But the Inspector examines them in the three R’s, mind you, and he won’t give you a good report if they don’t come up to his standard,” protested Jane.

“I’d rather have my pupils love me and look back to me in after years as a real helper than be on the roll of honor,” asserted Anne decidedly.

“Wouldn’t you punish children at all, when they misbehaved?” asked Gilbert.

“Oh, yes, I suppose I shall have to, although I know I’ll hate to do it.  But you can keep them in at recess or stand them on the floor or give them lines to write.”

“I suppose you won’t punish the girls by making them sit with the boys?” said Jane slyly.

Gilbert and Anne looked at each other and smiled rather foolishly.  Once upon a time, Anne had been made to sit with Gilbert for punishment and sad and bitter had been the consequences thereof.

“Well, time will tell which is the best way,” said Jane philosophically as they parted.

Anne went back to Green Gables by way of Birch Path, shadowy, rustling, fern-scented, through Violet Vale and past Willowmere, where dark and light kissed each other under the firs, and down through Lover’s Lane . . . spots she and Diana had so named long ago.  She walked slowly, enjoying the sweetness of wood and field and the starry summer twilight, and thinking soberly about the new duties she was to take up on the morrow.  When she reached the yard at Green Gables Mrs. Lynde’s loud, decided tones floated out through the open kitchen window.