layed to
perfection by little children when the environment is at fault and
when grown-up people have too freely exercised authority. A mother,
anxious to induce her little son to come to the doctor, and knowing
well that her call to him to enter the room, as he stands hesitating
at the door, will at once determine his retreat to the nursery, has
been heard to say, "Run away, darling, we don't want _you_ here," with
the expected result that the docile child immediately comes forward.
To the doctor, that such a device should be practised almost as a
matter of course and that its success should be so confidently
anticipated, should give food for thought. It may shed light on much
that is to follow later in the interview.

The question of punishment, like that of reproof, is beset with
difficulty. There are fortunately nowadays few educated mothers who
are so foolish as to threaten punishment which they obviously do not
intend to administer and which the child knows they will not
administer. It is clear that punishment must be rare or else the child
will grow habituated to it, and with little children we cannot be
brutal or push punishment to the point of extreme physical pain. It is
more difficult to say, as one is tempted to say, that all punishment
is futile and should be discarded. Probably mothers are like
schoolmasters in that no two schoolmasters and no two mothers obtain
their effects in exactly the same way or by precisely the same means.
Nor do all children accept reproof or submit to punishment in the same
way. Some make light of it and take a pleasure in defying authority.
Others are unduly cast down by the slightest adverse criticism. It is
generally true that extreme sensitiveness to reproof is a sign of a
certain elevation of character. Always we must remember that for a
mother to inflict punishment, whether by causing physical pain or
mental suffering, is to take on her shoulders a certain
responsibility. It is a serious matter if she has misapprehended the
child's act--if the sin was not really a sin, but only some perverted
action, the intention of which was not sinful, but designed for good
in the faulty reasoning of the child. A little girl, in bed with a
feverish cold, was found shivering, with her night-dress wet and
muddy. It was an understanding mother who found that her little
brother, having heard somehow that ice was good for fevered heads, had
brought in several handfuls of snow from the garden