To earn entrance on the spiritual life by the briefest possible
experience of the physical, is always "greater gain;" but how emphatically
is it so when the conditions of life upon earth are sure to be
unfavorable!
If it were possible in any way to get a statistical summing-up and a
tangible presentation of the amount of physical pain inflicted by parents
on children under twelve years of age, the most callous-hearted would be
surprised and shocked. If it were possible to add to this estimate an
accurate and scientific demonstration of the extent to which such pain, by
weakening the nervous system and exhausting its capacity to resist
disease, diminishes children's chances for life, the world would stand
aghast.
Too little has been said upon this point. The opponents of corporal
punishment usually approach the subject either from the sentimental or the
moral standpoint. The argument on either of these grounds can be made
strong enough, one would suppose, to paralyze every hand lifted to strike
a child. But the question of the direct and lasting physical effect of
blows--even of one blow on the delicate tissues of a child's body, on the
frail and trembling nerves, on the sensitive organization which is trying,
under a thousand unfavoring conditions, to adjust itself to the hard work
of both living and growing--has yet to be properly considered.
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