Teach it to the teachers.

A teacher who is principal of a school asks, “What can I substitute for corporal punishment in school when the teachers appeal to me for assistance? They expect and want me to use it."

Substitute love, of course! Teach it to the teachers.

When a teacher tries to compel a child to do a thing that it does not want to do, it is generally because she wants to be obeyed, and not that she has the good of the child at heart; if she had the good of the child at heart she would not think of compelling it to do a thing it did not want to do, but she would reason with it either audibly or silently.

She would tell it that it is a good child (which it is) ; that it loves to do right (which it does, I assure you); that it has no other intention or wish; that it loves to be good; that it is so happy in being good; that it cannot be anything else but good, and that it knows that it cannot be anything else but good.

She would tell it that it is free from all false beliefs of the race about children ever being naughty; that it is not deceived by any such false notions; that it knows the Truth; that it is a wise and sensible and intelligent child, and the best and most loving child in all the world, and she would find that the little thing would try its very best to please her, and that at these few spoken words of Truth, its little heart would swell and overflow with love and gratitude because it was being rightly judged and spoken truly of.

If teachers and parents would think and speak as they should, it would help the children to do as they should.

To this teacher who does not know how to apply true thinking in her school, I must say—when you are sent for to discipline a child, take him into a class room alone and reason with him there; let him see that you want to be his friend; if you cannot take him alone, drop the matter with the request that he remain after school; nobody need know whether you whipped him or not; if you are called upon to do the punishing, you have a right to do it your own way. Never, never punish or reprimand a pupil before any one else; nothing takes away the self-respect of any one so much as to be punished in the presence of other people. HEILBRDUN;  OR, DROPS FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF HEALTH. BY FANNY M. HARLEY 1898