must be regulated with
a view to the individual pupil and his peculiar circumstances. What it
shall be, and how and when administered, are problems which call for
great ingenuity and tact on the part of the educator. It must never be
forgotten that punishments vary in intensity at the will of the
educator. He fixes the standard by which they are measured in the
child's mind. Whipping is actual physical pain, and an evil in itself to
the child. But there are many other punishments which involve no
physical pain, and the intensity of which, as felt by the child, varies
according to an artificial standard in different schools. "To sit under
the clock" was a great punishment in one of our public schools--not that
the seat was not perfectly comfortable, but that one was never sent
there to sit unless for some grave misdemeanor. The teacher has the
matter in his own hands, and it is well to remember this and to grade
his punishments with much caution, so as to make all pass for their full
value. In some schools even suspension is so common that it does not
seem to the pupil a very terrible thing. "Familiarity breeds contempt,"
and frequency implies familiarity. A punishment seldom resorted to will
always seem to the pupil to be severe. As we weaken, and in fact
bankrupt, language by an inordinate use of superlatives, so, also, do we
weaken any punishment by its frequent repetition. Economy of resources
should be always practiced.

Sec. 41. In general, we might say that, for very young children, corporal
punishment is most appropriate; for boys and girls, isolation; and for
older youth, something which appeals to the sense of honor.

Sec. 42. (1) Corporal punishment implies physical pain. Generally it
consists of a whipping, and this is perfectly justifiable in case of
persistent defiance of authority, of obstinate carelessness, or of
malicious evil-doing, so long or so often as the higher perceptions of
the offender are closed against appeal. But it must not be administered
too often, or with undue severity. To resort to deprivation of food is
cruel. But, while we condemn the false view of seeing in the rod the
only panacea for all embarrassing questions of discipline on the
teacher's part, we can have no sympathy for the sentimentality which
assumes that the dignity of humanity is affected by a blow given to a
child. It is wrong thus to confound self-conscious humanity with
child-humanity, for to the average child himself