Spencer's method undoubtedly will be found unsuitable after the
child is older and his caprice disagreeable.

With a very small child, one should not argue, but act
consistently and immediately. The effort of training should be
directed at an early period to arrange the experiences in a
consistent whole of impressions according to Rousseau and
Spencer's recommendation. So certain habits will become
impressed in the flesh and blood of the child.

Constant crying on the part of small children must be corrected
when it has become clear that the crying is not caused by
illness or some other discomfort,--discomforts against which
crying is the child's only weapon. Crying is now ordinarily
corrected by blows. But this does not master the will of the
child, and only produces in his soul the idea that older people
strike small children, when small children cry. This is not an
ethical idea. But when the crying child is immediately
isolated, and it is explained to him at the same time that
whoever annoys others must not be with them; if this isolation
is the absolute result, and cannot be avoided, in the child's
mind a basis is laid for the experience that one must be alone
when one makes oneself unpleasant or disagreeable. In both
cases the child is silenced by interfering with his comfort;
but one type of discomfort is the exercise of force on his
will; the other produces slowly the self-mastery of the will,
and accomplishes this by a good motive. One method encourages a
base emotion, fear. The other corrects the will in a way that
combines it with one of the most important experiences of life.
The one punishment keeps the child on the level of the animal.