oral
punishment. You say you are 'personally opposed, but that your early
training and the literal interpretation of Solomon's rod keep you
undecided.' Surely your own comment later shows that part, at least,
of the influence of your early training was _against_ corporal
punishment, because you saw and felt its evils in yourself. Such
early training may have made you unapt in thinking of other means
of discipline; but it can hardly have made you think of corporal
punishment as _right_.

"And how can anyone take Solomon's rod any more literally than she
does the Savior's cross? We are bid, on a higher authority than
Solomon's proverbs, to take up our cross and follow Him. This we all
interpret figuratively. Would you dream, for instance, of binding
heavy crosses of wood upon the backs of your children because you felt
yourselves so enjoined in the literal sense of the Scriptures? Why,
then, take the rod literally? It is as clearly used to designate any
form of orderly discipline as the cross is used to designate endurance
of necessary sorrows. 'The letter killeth, but the spirit maketh
alive.'

"As to your next question about quick results, I must recognize that
you are in a most difficult position. For not the best conceivable
intentions, nor the highest wisdom, can make the unnatural conditions
you have to meet, as good as natural ones. In any asylum many purely
artificial requirements must be made to meet the artificial situation.
Time and space, those temporal appearances, grow to be menacing
monsters, take to themselves the chief realities. Nevertheless,
_so far as you are able_, you surely want to do the natural, right,
unforced thing. And with each successful effort will come fresh wisdom
and fresh strength for the next.

"Let me suggest, in the case you mention, of insolence, that three
practical courses are open to you: one to send or lead the child
quietly from the room, with the least aggressiveness possible, so as
not further to excite her opposition, and to keep her apart from the
rest until she is sufficiently anxious for society to be willing to
make an effort to deserve it; or two, to do nothing, permitting a
large and eloquent silence to accentuate the rebellious words; or
three, to call for the condemnation of the child's mates. Speaking to
one or two whose response you are sure of first, ask each one present
for a expression of opinion. This is so severe a punishment that it
ought not often to be