command. They can not govern their children because they can not govern
themselves.

Still, if the mother possess these qualities in any tolerable degree, or is
able to acquire them, this method of training her children to the habit of
submitting implicitly to her authority, by calmly and good-naturedly, but
firmly and invariably, affixing some slight privation or penalty to every
act of resistance to her will, is the easiest to practice, and will
certainly be successful. It requires no ingenuity, no skill, no
contrivance, no thought--nothing but steady persistence in a simple
routine. This was the first of the three modes of action enumerated at the
commencement of this discussion. There were two others named, which, though
requiring higher qualities in the mother than simple steadiness of purpose,
will make the work far more easy and agreeable, where these qualities are
possessed.

Some further consideration of the subject of punishment, with special
reference to the light in which it is to be regarded in respect to its
nature and its true mode of action, will occupy the next chapter.




CHAPTER V.


THE PHILOSOPHY OF PUNISHMENT.

It is very desirable that every parent and teacher should have a distinct
and clear conception of the true nature of punishment, and of the precise