but only a _negative_ place. The proper punishment, administered in
the right spirit, may cure or correct a fault; _but punishment does
not make children good_. If children are punished frequently, it may
even make them _bad_.

We can all remember some of the punishments of our own childhood.
How unjust they seemed then, and do even now, after all these years
to heal the wounds! How outraged we felt! Into how unloving a mood
they put us!

The history of punishment for criminals shows us three stages. With
primitive peoples and in early times the first impulse is to "get
even" or to "strike back." "An eye for an eye"--nothing less would
do. Then comes a stage in which punishment is used to frighten
people from wrong-doing and as a warning--a deterrent for others.
Gradually, very, very slowly, as we become more civilized and
develop moral insight--develop a love for humanity--we come to
recognize that the only legitimate purpose of punishment in the
treatment of offenders is to redeem their characters, to make them
_positively_ better, not merely frighten them into a state of
apparent right-doing--that is, a state of avoiding wrong-doing.

It is said that each individual in his development lives over the
experiences of the race. How each of us passes through the three
attitudes toward punishment is very interestingly shown by a study
that was made some years ago on 3000 school children, to find out
their own ideas about punishment. Miss Margaret E. Schallenberger
sent out the following story and query and had the answers
tabulated: