ation or anger in your mind, suspend your judgment
of the case and postpone all action until the irritation and anger have
subsided, and you can consider calmly and deliberately what to do, with
a view, not of satisfying your own resentment, but of doing good to the
child. Then, when you have decided what to do, carry your decision into
effect in a good-natured manner--firmly and inflexibly--but still without
any violence, or even harshness, of manner.

_Co-operation of the Offender_.

There are many cases in which, by the exercise of a little tact and
ingenuity, the parent can actually secure the _co-operation_ of the child
in the infliction of the punishment prescribed for the curing of a fault.
There are many advantages in this, when it can be done. It gives the child
an interest in curing himself of the fault; it makes the punishment more
effectual; and it removes almost all possibility of its producing any
irritation or resentment in his mind. To illustrate this we will give a
case. It is of no consequence, for the purpose of this article, whether it
is a real or an imaginary one.

Little Egbert, seven years old, had formed the habit so common among
children of wasting a great deal of time in dressing himself, so as not to
be ready for breakfast when the second bell rang. His mother offered him
a reward if he would himself devise any plan that would cure him of the
fault.

"I don't know what to do, exactly, to cure you," she said; "but if you will
think of any plan that will really succeed, I will give you an excursion in
a carriage."

"How far?" asked Egbert.

"Ten miles," said his mother. "I will take you in a carriage on an
excursion anywhere you say, for ten miles, if you will find out some way to
cure yourself of this fault."

"I think you ought to punish me," said Egbert, speaking in rather a timid
tone.

"That's just it," said his mother, "It is for you to think of some kind of
punishment that won't be too disagreeable for me to inflict, and which will
yet be successful in curing you of the fault. I will allow you a fortnight
to get cured. If you are not cured in a fortnight I shall think the
punishment is not enough, or that it is not of a good kind; but if it works
so well as to cure you in a fortnight, then you shall have the ride."

Egbert wished to know whether he must think of the punishment himself, or
whether his sister Mary might help him. His mother gave him leave to
ask any body to help