_Case supposed_.

One day Louisa, four years old, asked her mother for an apple. "Have you
had any already?" asked her mother.

"Only one," replied Louisa. "Then Bridget may give you another," said the
mother.

What Louisa said was not true. She had already eaten two apples. Bridget
heard the falsehood, but she did not consider it her duty to betray the
child, so she said nothing. The mother, however, afterwards, in the course
of the day, accidentally ascertained the truth.

Now, as we have said, there are three grades in the kind and character of
the measures which may be considered violent that a mother may resort to in
a case like this.

_Bodily Punishment_.

1. First, there is the infliction of bodily pain. The child may be whipped,
or tied to the bed-post, and kept in a constrained and uncomfortable
position for a long time, or shut up in solitude and darkness, or punished
by the infliction of bodily suffering in other ways.

And there is no doubt that there is a tendency in such treatment to correct
or cure the fault. But measures like these, whether successful or not, are
certainly violent measures. They shock the whole nervous system, sometimes
with the excitement of pain and terror, and always, probably, with that
of resentment and anger. In some cases this excitement is extreme. The
excessively delicate organization of the brain, through which such