I have long held the belief that the boy is the mirror of his home. A subsequent acquaintance with the lad’s father and his home life confirmed my impression that the sum total of this boy’s training consisted in gratifying his every wish. For the boy to ask was to receive. While the father expended a wealth of money, he did not expend a single thought concerning its effect on his son. Only pity can be evoked at the plight of such a boy handicapped as he is by these false ideals and standards of life. It is doubtful whether even the unsympathetic, stern and harsh discipline of the brutalist is more conducive to crippled character than the methods of the lavish, coddling and cosseting parent. Parents have the choice of two plans in correcting faults and developing character in the boy. One consists in the prohibition of acts and the application of censure for wrongdoing, and proceeds on the theory that the consequences of wrongdoing will be made so unpleasant that he will abandon the acts complained of to avoid the resulting censure. The other plan is to suggest the desired course of conduct and to praise the boy for his good acts and qualities to the extent that he will continually seek to earn approval by doing the things which call forth approbation. The boy, like the adult, is keenly susceptible to praise. The exaltation of spirit which follows the word of approval given as a reward for good deeds is a continued inspiration to future goodness. The effects of blame are depressing; of praise, stimulating. A certain boy has hanging on the wall of his bedroom an honor shield on which silver “merit stars” are placed for conspicuous good deeds, deportment, and scholarship. As each unworthy act or failure of duty causes the removal of a star, the owner is keenly alive to keeping his escutcheon bright with evidences of merit. The boy is intensely human, although we may not at all times treat him like a human being. As our own best efforts are inspired by commendation or reward, so the boy is quickened to highest endeavor by praise and not by blame. Rewards are more effective incentives to excellence than demerits or punishments. The constant repression of a child’s actions by prohibition is a cruel form of punishment which drives him farther and farther out of the range of the parent’s influence for suggestive helpfulness. “Do this!” is more effective than “Don’t do that!” CHAPTER VIII THE SUGGESTIVE METHOD OF TRAINING Every parent of a son should formulate some definite, determinate plan for his training, and this can be done even though original research and the formation of plans deduced therefrom are not always possible to the parent whose life is bulging with other activities necessitated by our hurrying civilization. Any definite plan of training is better than no plan, inasmuch as it will cause us to think and to use our best judgment on this important topic and so tend to a clarification of preformed vague or inchoate opinions.