life may become a second nature. But it is not possible in all
cases to apply Spencer's method. The natural consequences
occasionally endanger the health of the child, or sometimes are
too slow in their action. If it seems necessary to interfere
directly, such action must be consistent, quick, and immutable.
How is it that the child learns very soon that fire burns?
Because fire does so always. But the mother who at one time
strikes, at another threatens, at another bribes the child,
first forbids and then immediately after permits some action;
who does not carry out her threat, does not compel obedience,
but constantly gabbles and scolds; who sometimes acts in one
way and just as often in another, has not learned the effective
educational methods of the fire.

The old-fashioned strict training that in its crude way gave to
the character a fixed type rested on its consistent qualities.
It was consistently strict, not as at present a lax hesitation
between all kinds of pedagogical methods and psychological
opinions, in which the child is thrown about here and there
like a ball, in the hands of grown people; at one time pushed
forward, then laughed at, then pushed aside, only to be brought
back again, kissed till it, is disgusted, first ordered about,
and then coaxed. A grown man would become insane if joking
Titans treated him for a single day as a child is treated for a
year. A child should not be ordered about, but should be just
as courteously addressed as a grown person in order that he may
learn courtesy. A child should never be pushed into notice,
never compelled to endure caresses, never overwhelmed with
kisses, which ordinarily torment him and are often the cause of
sexual hyperaesthesia. The child's demonstrations of affection