But if discipline is the means for attaining freedom, how does it come about that in the past (and for most people to-day) discipline has appeared as a method of _compelling_ children to do the right thing--"until they have the habit"? How does it come about that discipline, in the minds of most people, consists so largely of _restraining_ children from doing undesirable acts--until they are well started into the safe age of discretion? The reason seems to be that the need for discipline or training makes itself most quickly felt where children--or older people--infringe upon the rights of others, or upon the proprieties. We miss discipline where a child fails of self-restraint, acts impulsively, or loses his temper. In short, failure of early training is indicated wherever there is lack of self-control, or a lack of proper application to the business in hand. It is therefore natural that discipline should early take the form of commanding and prohibiting. It is but a short step from this view of discipline to the philosophy that what children do spontaneously, what they like to do, must be wrong. And the complement to this is the feeling that virtue and character can arise only from doing what is disagreeable or difficult. But the newer studies in the psychology of childhood lead to a totally different theory of character formation. And many experiments made in schools and institutions confirm these new theories at every point. Moreover, if we look about, perhaps even in our own homes, I am sure we can all find abundant support for the modern view. The new studies have to do with the relation that our emotions bear to our activities and especially to the formation of habits. To learn to do a thing, we have known for ages, we must practise continuously and uniformly. But we did not know that the state of feelings connected with the performance of the act had anything to do with the result. Richard must master the scales in his music study. These scales can be mastered in only one way--he must play them over and over and over again, until he just has them. But suppose Richard does not care to practise the scales over and over and over again? Suppose that he does not care whether he ever masters the scales or not. Well, he can be _made_ to practise, at any rate; and perhaps some day he will thank his elders for having thus forced upon him the extremely valuable but unappreciated command of the scales.