For my part, I believe that punishment has a certain very minor place in education; but I doubt whether it need ever be severe. I include speaking sharply or reprovingly among punishments. The most severe punishment that ought ever to be necessary is the natural spontaneous expression of indignation. On a few occasions when my boy has been rough with his younger sister, his mother has expressed anger by an impulsive exclamation. The effect has been very great. The boy burst into sobs, and would not be consoled until his mother had made much of him. The impression was very profound, as one could see from his subsequent good conduct towards his sister. On a few occasions we have resorted to mild forms of punishment when he has persisted in demanding things we had refused him, or in interfering with his sister’s play. In such cases, when reason and exhortation have failed, we take him to a room by himself, leave the door open, and tell him he can come back as soon as he is good. In a very few minutes, after crying vigorously, he comes back, and is invariably good: he perfectly understands that in coming back he has undertaken to be good. So far, we have never found any need of severer penalties. If one can judge from the books of old-fashioned disciplinarians, the children educated by the old methods were far naughtier than the modern child. I should certainly be horrified if my boy were half as badly behaved as the children in “The Fairchild Family”; but I should think the fault lay more with his parents than with himself. I believe that reasonable parents create reasonable children. The children must feel their parents’ affection--not duty and responsibility, for which no child is grateful, but warm love, which feels delight in the child’s presence and ways. And except when it is quite impossible, a prohibition must be explained carefully and truthfully. Small misfortunes, such as bruises and slight cuts, should sometimes be allowed to happen rather than interfere with rash games; a little experience of this kind makes children more willing to believe that a prohibition may be wise. Where these conditions are present from the first, I believe children will seldom do anything deserving of serious punishment. When a child persistently interferes with other children or spoils their pleasures, the obvious penalty is banishment. It is imperatively necessary to take steps of some kind, because it would be most unfair to let the other children suffer. But there is no use in making the refractory child feel guilty; it is much more to the purpose to make him feel that he is missing pleasures which the others are enjoying. Madame Montessori describes her practice as follows: