and
thoughtless parents and guardians. These people seem to classify
children in the matter of discipline as grown ups, thinking (or,
rather, not thinking) that children's undeveloped minds should be as
strong as theirs, when they themselves are unable to practice the
self-denial that they expect from mere infants.

How often does a child receive a slap in the face from a parent for the
asking of only a simple question, when the parent is not in the "humor"
to "bother" with him?

What a painful and terrifying beating does a child often get for
disobeying some arbitrary command uttered by the one over him. To the
child, "Don't do this," "Don't go there," "Stand up straight," and "Say
this" are commands that carry with them court martial and its severe and
unrelenting punishment.

Remember this: The child will respond to kindness and love more readily
and directly than to force and unwarranted discipline. It is purely a
question of whether your feelings are actuated by these impulses.

If you have become mentally strong enough to restrain your impulses to
strike your child, do not substitute other means to "punish" him.
Changing the method of brutally inflicting physical pain upon your child
to some other means, though less repulsive, is still obnoxious and
harmful.

If you are unable to convince your child, by persuasion, example or
otherwise, that you are right and that the child should follow your
instruction, then by all means, let it become the victor in the contest.

Fear--fear of pain, fear in every form--controls our lives, and shapes
the courses of our puny destinies.

VIII

The mind, through fear of death, is capable of suffering, within a few
moments, the tortures of an eternity, although to accomplish death,
Nature may require only a few minutes. The extent of the mind's
capability for suffering is beyond compare.

Nature has been distinctly conspicuous in imbuing us not only with grave
doubts and uncertainties, but also with an unshakable fear regarding
death. In the deepest moments of despair, when living has absolutely no
attraction and life becomes a burden and a menace, we fight desperately,
and without abatement, for this narrow, worthless thread of existence.

Possibly the fear that we have in the face of death is caused by the
fact that we must suffer pain before death is accomplished. And a great
deal of the theory of "self-preservation" is due merely to our great
horror of pain.