overnments as with
political ones, a harsh despotism itself generates a great part of the
crimes it has to repress; while on the other hand a mild and liberal
rule both avoids many causes of dissension, and so ameliorates the tone
of feeling as to diminish the tendency to transgression. As John Locke
long since remarked, "Great severity of punishment does but very little
good, nay, great harm, in education; and I believe it will be found
that, _caeteris paribus_, those children who have been most chastised
seldom make the best men." In confirmation of which opinion we may cite
the fact not long since made public by Mr. Rogers, Chaplain of the
Pentonville Prison, that those juvenile criminals who have been whipped
are those who most frequently return to prison. Conversely, the
beneficial effects of a kinder treatment are well illustrated in a fact
stated to us by a French lady, in whose house we recently stayed in
Paris. Apologising for the disturbance daily caused by a little boy who
was unmanageable both at home and at school, she expressed her fear that
there was no remedy save that which had succeeded in the case of an
elder brother; namely, sending him to an English school. She explained
that at various schools in Paris this elder brother had proved utterly
untractable; that in despair they had followed the advice to send him to
England; and that on his return home he was as good as he had before
been bad. This remarkable change she ascribed entirely to the
comparative mildness of the English discipline.

* * * * *

After the foregoing exposition of principles, our remaining space may
best be occupied by a few of the chief maxims and rules deducible from
them; and with a view to brevity we will put these in a hortatory form.

Do not expect from a child any great amount of moral goodness. During
early years every civilised man passes through that phase of character
exhibited by the barbarous race from which he is descended. As the
child's features--flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large lips,
wide-apart eyes, absent frontal sinus, etc.--resemble for a time those
of the savage, so, too, do his instincts. Hence the tendencies to
cruelty, to thieving, to lying, so general among children--tendencies
which, even without the aid of discipline, will become more or less
modified just as the features do. The popular idea that children are
"innocent," while it is true with respect to evil _