[Sidenote: Natural Punishment]

Punishment, as Herbert Spencer[B] agrees with Froebel[C] in pointing
out, should be as nearly as possible a representation of the natural
result of the child's action; that is, the fault should be made to
punish itself as much as possible without the interference of any
outside person; for the object is not to make the child bend his
will to the will of another, but make him see the fault itself as an
undesirable thing.

[Sidenote: Breaking the Will]

The effort to break the child's will has long been recognized as
disastrous by all educators. A broken will is worse misfortune than a
broken back. In the latter case the man is physically crippled; in
the former, he is morally crippled. It is only a strong, unbroken,
persistent will that is adequate to achieve self-mastery, and mastery
of the difficulties of life. The child who is too yielding and
obedient in his early days is only too likely to be weak and
incompetent in his later days. The habit of submission to a more
mature judgment is a bad habit to insist upon. The child should be
encouraged to think out things for himself; to experiment and discover
for himself why his ideas do not work; and to refuse to give them up
until he is genuinely convinced of their impracticability.

[Sidenote: Emergencies]

It is true that there are emergencies in which his immature judgment
and undisciplined will must yield to wiser judgment and steadier will;