“So far, I have pointed out some of the means I employed to reach the first two of these ends. They were just as simple for the third; for I still made use of the impressions and experiences of their daily life to give my children a true and exact idea of right and duty. When, for instance, they made a noise, I appealed to their own judgment, and asked them if it was possible to learn under such conditions. I shall never forget how strong and true I generally found their sense of justice and reason, and how this sense increased and, as it were, established their good will. “I appealed to them in all matters that concerned the establishment. It was generally in the quiet evening hours that I appealed to their free judgment. When, for instance, it was reported in the village that they had not enough to eat, I said to them, ‘Tell me, my children, if you are not better fed than you were at home? Think, and tell me yourselves, whether it would be well to keep you here in such a way as would make it impossible for you afterwards, in spite of all your application and hard work, to procure what you had become accustomed to. Do you lack anything that is really necessary? Do you think that I could reasonably and justly do more for you? Would you have me spend all the money that is entrusted to me on thirty or forty children instead of on eighty as at present? Would that be just?’ “In the same way, when I heard that it was reported that I punished them too severely, I said to them: ‘You know how I love you, my children; but tell me would you like me to stop punishing you? Do you think that in any other way I can free you from your deeply-rooted bad habits, or make you always mind what I say?’ You were there, my friend, and saw with your own eyes the sincere emotion with which they answered, ‘We don’t complain about your hitting us. We wish we never deserved it. But we want to be punished when we do wrong.’