ar to have inspired the children with insurmountable awe, for
laws are found both in Numbers and Deuteronomy fixing the penalty of
disobedience, and of the striking of a parent by a child.

Still later, the Roman father possessed arbitrary powers of life and
death over his children; but it is probable that natural affection and
a more advanced civilization commonly made the law a dead letter.

Though the world in time grew to feel that life belonged to the being
who held it, not to those who gave it birth, still discipline has for
ages been directed more to the body than to the mind, with an idea
apparently that the pains of the flesh will save the soul. Pious
parents until within recent dates have regarded the flogging of
children as absolutely a religious obligation, and many a tender
mother has steeled her heart and strengthened her arm to give the
blows which she regarded as essential to the spiritual well-being of
her child.

The birch rod and the Bible were the Parents' Complete Guide to
domestic management in Puritan days, and no one can deny that this
treatment, though rather a heroic one, seems to have produced fine,
strong, self-denying men and women.

Governor Bradford, in 1648, speaks feelingly of the godliness of a
Puritan woman whose office it was to "sit in a convenient place in
the congregation, with a little birchen rod in her hand, and keep
the children in great awe;" and, from the frequency with which
chastisement is mentioned in early Puritan records, it seems pretty
clear that the sober little lads and lasses of the day did not suffer
from over-indulgence.

When this wholesale whipping began to fall into disuse, many
philosophers prophesied the ruin of the race, but these gloomy
predictions have scarcely found their fulfillment as yet.

There has been, however, a colossal change in discipline, from the
days when disobedience was punishable with death to the agreeable
moral suasion of the nineteenth century, as exemplified in the "fin de
siecle" nonsense rhyme:--

"There once was a hopeful young horse
Who was brought up on love, without force:
He had his own way, and they sugared his hay;
So he never was naughty, of course."

The results of this delightful method of treatment seem rather
problematic, and the modern child is universally acknowledged to be no
improvement upon his predecessors in point of respect and filial piety
at least.

A superintendent's report, written thirty