tion which
produces a lasting injury to the character. Children are very sensitive
to ridicule or disgrace, and some are most acutely so. A cutting reproof
administered in public, or a punishment which exposes the individual to
the gaze of others, will often burn far more deeply into the heart than
the teacher imagines.

And it is often the cause of great and lasting injury, too. By
destroying the character of a pupil, you make him feel that he has
nothing more to lose or gain, and destroy that kind of interest in his
own moral condition which alone will allure him to virtuous conduct. To
expose children to public ridicule or contempt tends either to make them
sullen and despondent, or else to arouse their resentment and to make
them reckless and desperate. Most persons remember through life some
instances in their early childhood in which they were disgraced or
ridiculed at school, and the permanence of the recollection is a test of
the violence of the effect.

Be very careful, then, to avoid, especially at the commencement of the
school, publicly exposing those who do wrong. Sometimes you may make the
offense public, as in the case of the snapping of the lath, described
under a former head, while you kindly conceal the name of the offender.
Even if the school generally understand who he is, the injury of public
exposure is almost altogether avoided, for the sense of disgrace does
not come nearly so vividly home to the mind of a child from hearing
occasional allusions to his offense by individuals among his playmates,
as when he feels himself, at a particular time, the object of universal
attention and dishonor. And then, besides, if the pupil perceives that
the teacher is tender of his reputation, he will, by a feeling somewhere
between imitation and sympathy, begin to feel a little tender of it too.
Every exertion should be made, therefore, to lead children to value
their character, and to help them to preserve it, and especially to
avoid, at the beginning, every unnecessary sacrifice of it.

And yet there are cases where shame is the very best possible remedy for
juvenile faults. If a boy, for example, is self-conceited, bold, and
mischievous, with feelings somewhat callous, and an influence extensive
and bad, an opportunity will sometimes occur to hold up his conduct to
the just reprobation of the school with great advantage. By this means,
if it is done in such a way as to _secure_ the influence of the school
o