don't think it would be quite safe for me to trust
to your promises, though I have no doubt you honestly mean to keep them.
But you remember you promised me that you would keep in the path when we
planned this walk; and yet when the time of temptation came you could not
keep the promise; but you will learn. When I am going on some perfectly
safe walk I will take you with me again; and if I stay here some time you
will learn to obey me so perfectly that I can take you with me to any
place, no matter how dangerous it may be."

Aunt Jane thus gently, but firmly, persisted in abandoning the walk to the
village, and returning home; but she immediately turned the conversation
away from the subject of Mary's fault, and amused her with stories and
aided her in gathering flowers, just as if nothing had happened; and when
she arrived at home she said nothing to any one of Mary's disobedience.
Here now was punishment calculated to make a very strong impression--but
still without scolding, without anger, almost, in fact, without even any
manifestations of displeasure. And yet how long can any reasonable person
suppose it would be before Mary would learn, if her aunt acted invariably
on the same principles, to submit implicitly to her will?

_A Different Management_.

Compare the probable result of this mode of management with the scolding
and threatening policy. Suppose Aunt Jane had called to Mary angrily,

"Mary! Mary! come directly back into the path. I told you not to go out of
the path, and you are a very naughty child to disobey me. The next time you
disobey me in that way I will send you directly home."

Mary would have been vexed and irritated, perhaps, and would have said to
herself, "How cross Aunt Jane is to-day!" but the "next time" she would
have been as disobedient as ever.

If mothers, instead of scowling, scolding, and threatening now, and putting
off doing the thing that ought to be done to the "next time," would do
that thing at once, and give up the scowling, scolding, and threatening
altogether, they would find all parties immensely benefited by the change.

It is evident, moreover, that by this mode of management the punishment is
employed not in the way of retribution, but as a remedy. Mary loses her
walk not on the ground that she deserved to lose it, but because it was not
safe to continue it.

_An Objection_.

Some mother may perhaps say, in reference to the case of Mary and her aunt,
that it may b