Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The
offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your
administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against
you. Whatever consequences follow--such as your hesitation to accept his
word--must evidently be a part of the operation of the entire moral law.
Help him to see that lying strikes at the root of all social relations
and would make all happy and prosperous living, all friendship, and all
business impossible by destroying social confidence.

Facing the crisis, do not demand more than your training gives you a
right to expect. Often, instead of the direct categorical question as to
guilt, we must gradually draw out a narrative of the events in question;
we must patiently help the child to state the facts and to see the
values of exactitudes. Without preaching or posing we must bring the
events into the light of larger areas of time and circles of life, help
him to see them related to all his life and to all mankind and to the
very fringes of existence, to God and the eternal. That cannot be done
in a moment; it is part of a habit of our own minds or it is not really
done at all. At the moment we can, however, make the deepest impression
by insistence on the importance of the actual, the real, the exactly
true.

I. References for Study

E.L. Cabot, _Every Day Ethics_, chaps. xix, xx. Holt, $1.25.

W.B. Forbush, _On Truth Telling_. Pamphlet. American Institute of
Child Life, Philadelphia, Pa.

J. Sully, _Children's Ways_, pp. 124-33. Appleton, $1.25.

II. Further Reading

G.S. Hall, "A Study of Children's Lies," _Educational Problems_, I,
chap. vi. Appleton, $2.50.

E.P. St. John, _A Genetic Study of Veracity_. Pamphlet.

J. Sully, _Studies in Childhood_.

E.H. Griggs, _Moral Education_. Huebsch, $1.60.

III. Topics for Discussion

1. Are there degrees of lying?

2. When is a lie not a lie?

3. How can we discriminate among the statements of children?

4. How can we help them to recognize the qualities of truth?

5. In what ways are parents to blame for forcing children to
protective lying?

6. What of the relation of the thought of God to the demands for
truth?

7. Would you punish a child for lying and, if so, in what way?

CHAPTER XXII

DEALING WITH MORAL CRISES (_Concluded_)

Se