tions that is sure to confront her is the question
of discipline and obedience. On the one hand, is the traditional idea of
the past--"Spare the rod and spoil the child." She is familiar with this
and there is nearly always someone near her who advocates it
firmly--very possibly her own husband. On the other hand, she has read
and heard and seen a lot which is directly opposed to that. Children
should not be controlled by fear, like animals. There is something mean
and ugly and revolting in the very idea. It is better to be loved than
feared--better for the mother and better for the child.

Between these two contradictory principles, even if she has the best
intentions in the world, what is she to do? Is it to be wondered at, if
many a modern mother, in this predicament, vacillates between the two?
She doesn't like to punish the child and most of the time she avoids
doing it; but now and then, when things have gone too far, or she is
tired and irritable, she makes up for it by losing her temper and going
to extremes. And the effect of this kind of treatment on the forming of
a child's character is about as bad as could be. It doesn't produce
discipline and it doesn't produce obedience; and it doesn't lead the way
to any moral conception or principle. What it does inculcate in the
child spirit very quickly is a feeling that the attitude of mother is
largely a matter of mood, a very uncertain and variable quantity, which
for the time being has to be put up with. And as the child cares more
for mother, presumably, than anybody else in the world, it is no more
than natural for it to apply this same point-of-view to other people
with whom it comes into contact. There may be a certain amount of
precocious wisdom in this, but it does not help the growth of moral
feeling. And so it happens, in many cases, that at the very start, the
twig is given a bend in the wrong direction.

No mother really wants to spoil her child. She may say, with a loving
and enigmatical smile, that she prefers to "spoil" it; but that is only
her way of saying that she knows better than some stern and misguided
people what is best for its tender wants. If she thought for a moment
she was really spoiling the child's character, she would stop smiling at
once and become very much exercised.

As we have started with this question of discipline, let us not leave it
until we have followed it out to the full limit of our reflections.

If the choice necessar