_Amiel's Journal._ Moral Education DECEMBER 13 "All wise teachers, I believe, recognise now that the best way of dealing with naughty children is to absorb their whole attention with some _interest_, which will not only leave no energy to spare for naughtiness, but will of itself tend to organise their minds, to subordinate mental elements to a _purpose_, and so to develop character." _The Standard of Life_, Mrs. BERNARD BOSANQUET. "Discipline, like the bridle in the hand of a good rider, should exercise its influence without appearing to do so, should be ever active, both as a support and as a restraint, yet seem to lie easily in hand. It must be always ready to check or to pull up, as occasion may require; and only when the horse is a runaway, should the action of the curb be perceptible." _Guesses at Truth_, edited by Archdeacon HARE. "If 'Pas trop gouverner' is the best rule in politics, it is equally true of discipline." _Children's Rights_, KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. Punishment DECEMBER 14 "Punishments, then, must in the first place be proportionate to the offence, lest, by an undiscriminating severity or an undiscriminating leniency, distinctions of moral desert be blurred or effaced. "_Secondly_, they must be analogous to the offence. The greedy must be starved, the insolent humbled, the idle compelled to work. Otherwise the imposition will not effectually go home to the offender. "_Thirdly_, punishments ought to be exemplary. Since they needs must come, it is not enough that they should simply open the eyes of the culprit, by giving him his deserts. They must be utilised as object-lessons for the behoof of that large class, the culprits in potentiality. "_Fourthly_, they ought to be economical. 'It is good that they should suffer,' we sometimes say; and so it is, so long as suffering, in itself always an evil, do not exceed the quantum that is lamentably needful, needful, that is, to vindicate authority, to stigmatise the offence, and to impress the offender. "_Fifthly_, punishments ought to be reformatory. Not only must they never, by vindictiveness in him who gives, and degradation in him who receives, impair the instincts and resolves for a better life; they must be devised in the belief, or at least in the hope, that these instincts and resolves exist, though they may be inhibited by the evil proclivities which punishment is meant to crush. The killing of what is bad must always look to the liberation of what is good. "_Finally_, punishments ought to insist upon, and to define indemnity, so that the wrong-doer, in things small or great, may be forced to repair, so far as this is possible, the irreparable mischief which offence implies." _The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN. Rebuking DECEMBER 15