Be sparing of commands.  Command only when other means are inapplicable, or have failed.  “In frequent orders the parents’ advantage is more considered than the child’s,” says Richter.  As in primitive societies a breach of law is punished, not so much because it is intrinsically wrong as because it is a disregard of the king’s authority—­a rebellion against him; so in many families, the penalty visited on a transgressor is prompted less by reprobation of the offence than by anger at the disobedience.  Listen to the ordinary speeches—­“How dare you disobey me?” “I tell you I’ll make you do it, sir.”  “I’ll soon teach you who is master”—­and then consider what the words, the tone, and the manner imply.  A determination to subjugate is far more conspicuous in them, than anxiety for the child’s welfare.  For the time being the attitude of mind differs but little from that of a despot bent on punishing a recalcitrant subject.  The right-feeling parent, however, like the philanthropic legislator, will rejoice not in coercion, but in dispensing with coercion.  He will do without law wherever other modes of regulating conduct can be successfully employed; and he will regret the having recourse to law when law is necessary.  As Richter remarks—­“The best rule in politics is said to be ‘pas trop gouverner:’  it is also true in education.”  And in spontaneous conformity with this maxim, parents whose lust of dominion is restrained by a true sense of duty, will aim to make their children control themselves as much as possible, and will fall back upon absolutism only as a last resort.

But whenever you do command, command with decision and consistency.  If the case is one which really cannot be otherwise dealt with, then issue your fiat, and having issued it, never afterwards swerve from it.  Consider well what you are going to do; weigh all the consequences; think whether you have adequate firmness of purpose; and then, if you finally make the law, enforce obedience at whatever cost.  Let your penalties be like the penalties inflicted by inanimate Nature—­inevitable.  The hot cinder burns a child the first time he seizes it; it burns him the second time; it burns him the third time; it burns him every time; and he very soon learns not to touch the hot cinder.  If you are equally consistent—­if the consequences which you tell your child will follow specified acts, follow with like uniformity, he will soon come to respect your laws as he does those of Nature.  And this respect once established, will prevent endless domestic evils.  Of errors in education one of the worst is inconsistency.  As in a community, crimes multiply when there is no certain administration of justice; so in a family, an immense increase of transgressions results from a hesitating or irregular infliction of punishments.  A weak mother, who perpetually threatens and rarely performs—­who makes rules in haste and repents of them at leisure—­who