Youth_ Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene - G. Stanley Hall

must be so individual as punishment. For some, a threat at rare intervals is
enough; while for others, however ominous threats may be, they become at once
"like scarecrows, on which the foulest birds soonest learn to perch." To scold
well and wisely is an art by itself. For some children, pardon is the worst
punishment; for others, ignoring or neglect; for others, isolation from friends,
suspension from duties; for others, seclusion—which last, however, is for certain
ages beset with extreme danger—and for still others, shame from being made
conspicuous. Mr. Spencer's "natural penalties" can be applied to but few kinds of
wrong, and those not the worst. Basedow tied boys who fell into temptation to a
strong pillar to brace them up; if stupid and careless, put on a fool's cap and
bells; if they were proud, they were suspended near the ceiling in a basket, as
Aristophanes represented Socrates. Two boys who quarreled, were made to look
into each other's eyes before the whole school till their angry expressions gave
way before the general sense of the ridiculous. This is more ingenious than wise.
The object of discipline is to avoid punishment, but even flogging should never
be forbidden. It maybe reserved, like a sword in its scabbard, but should not get
so rusted in that it can not be drawn on occasion. The law might even limit the
size and length of the rod, and place of application, as in Germany, but it should
be of no less liberal dimensions here than there. punishment should, of course,
be minatory and reformatory, and not vindictive, and we should not forget that
certainty is more effective than severity, nor that it is apt to make motives
sensuous, and delay the psychic restraint which should early preponderate over
the physical. But will-culture for boys is rarely as thorough as it should be
without more or less flogging. I would not, of course, urge the extremes of the
past. The Spartan beating as a gymnastic drill to toughen, the severity which
prevailed in Germany for a long time after its Thirty Years' Wars,[2] the former
fashion in many English schools of walking up not infrequently to take a
flogging as a plucky thing to do, and with no notion of disgrace attaching to it,
shows at least an admirable strength of will. Severe constraint gives poise,
inwardness, self-control, inhibition, and not-willingness, if not willingness,
while the now too common habit of coquetting for the child's favor, and tickling
its ego with praises and prizes, and pedagogic pettifogging for its good-will, and
sentimental fear of a judicious slap to rouse a spoiled child with no will to break,
to make it keep step with the rest in conduct, instead of delaying a whole school-
room to apply a subtle psychology of motives on it, is bad. This reminds one of
the Jain who sweeps the ground before him lest he unconsciously tread on a
worm. Possibly it may be well, as Schleiermacher suggests, not to repress some
one nascent bad act in some natures, but let it and the punishment ensue for the
sake of Dr. Spankster's tonic. Dermal pain is not the worst thing in the world,