With our present-day scientific knowledge of the boy, as distinguished from our personal knowledge of him in the past, we recognize the trend of tendencies and understand the portent of symptoms which formerly were either unnoticed or disregarded. We have brought minute investigation, analysis, and cold logic into the solution of his problems over which we were wont to blunder. We have made no greater blunders in the past than those we have committed in connection with the corrective measures which it has been the custom of certain parents to employ. The necessity for physical punishment has been superseded by persuasive methods based on a more accurate understanding of the boy’s mental and moral processes and his impulses for good and bad. Love, sympathy, and justice beget loyalty where fear fails. Moral suasion, mental development, the cultivation of will-power, the appeal to reason, the deprivation of liberties and privileges, rewards for merit, the exhibition of love, insight and sympathy, the use of tact and the honor system, all are effective substitutes for physical chastisement. The preponderating weight of authority among sociologists and penologists supports the view that the attitude of the parent toward his filial offender and of the state toward the adult misdemeanant should be on the one hand formatory and on the other reformatory--but never punitory. The desire to avoid punishment which the prospective recipient regards as unjust, whether rightly or wrongly does not matter, results in the concoction of many ingenious stories and schemes. Again the author draws on his own boyhood experience for an illustration. At the age of nine I was threatened by my mother with a severe switching for an offense the nature of which has long since been forgotten. The timely arrival of callers postponed the dreaded event and afforded me ample time for reflection. The anticipatory torture which I suffered during the hour preceding their departure was greater punishment than the actuality. My mental processes during that hour were these: “I didn’t do anything very bad. I don’t deserve a whipping for it. I am sorry for what I have done and won’t do it again. It’s unfair to whip me for such a little thing. How can I escape this unjust licking?” At last, after long and labored mental effort, I evolved a scheme which to my youthful mind seemed the last word in ingenuity and effectiveness; it would appeal to her pity and give her an object lesson she would never forget. My plan was to obtain some oatmeal from the pantry, chew it until my mouth was filled with froth and saliva and at the first blow of punishment I would fall to the floor in simulation of unconsciousness, frothing at the mouth.