From general observation, as well as from the records of our penal courts, we may deduce the proposition that obedience to statute by normal men rests largely on their belief in the justice of law and the reasonableness of the exercise of the authority which is predicated on such law. Law, in the domain of childhood, is parental command; and even though the child’s sense of justice may not be as discriminating as that of the parent, nevertheless it is strong enough and deep enough to impel him to resist, by evasion, subterfuge, deceit, or other means at hand, those parental laws which he believes to be founded on mere caprice or positive injustice. We must promulgate reasonable commands if we are to expect reasonable compliance with them, and we shall suffer no loss of dignity by frankly explaining to our children the reasons which underlie our mandates. Although the child may be unable at all times to follow our line of reasoning, or to agree wholly with our conclusions, he will, at any rate, be convinced that our orders do not emanate from capricious fancy, but have a semblance of justice as their basis. Even paternal example is not without its influence on the keenly observing mind of youth. The seventeen-year-old son of a neighbor was detected smoking a cigarette the day following the direct injunction of his father that he should not do so. When reproved by his father for disobedience, the son retorted: “Well, dad, why don’t you obey the law? You shot ducks out of season.” The delinquent children who flow in a steady stream through our juvenile courts are undisciplined, self-willed, and rebellious against authority and are governed only by impulse which is as spasmodic as their conduct is abnormal. Obedience has never found a place in the poor moral equipment with which they are endowed. Practically every moral derelict stranded on the human scrap-pile can trace his failure in life to his disobedience in childhood; and the fault is not wholly his own but rests largely on the shoulders of parents who failed to compel obedience in the early years when compulsion was possible through firm and just regulation. The boy who is early indoctrinated in obedience becomes plastic material ready to be shaped, through training, in the stature of a man of fine moral quality. CHAPTER VII THE REPRESSIVE METHOD OF TRAINING The training of the child should begin as soon as it is able to comprehend spoken language. A venerable mother who had reared eleven children and had seen them attain successful and honorable positions in life was asked the question: “At what time should the training of a child begin?” Her answer was: “In the cradle.” And, it is needless to add, it should be continued to maturity. There are, broadly speaking, two general plans of training which may be termed respectively the repressive method and the suggestive method.