Punishment
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6.Punishment in the education of children and the discipline of subordinates
6a.The case against the rod in education
See also: Education 4b · Diversion 11a · Honor 12a · Family 8a
Aesop, FablesVol. 17
- p. 28Condemned thief punishes his mother for failing to rebuke and punish him early.read · scan
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 13Boys punished by elders who do the like themselves; beating for neglecting studies.read · scan
Michel de Montaigne, Of the Institution and Education of ChildrenVol. 32
- p. 54–55Fear of shame and punishment should not be drilled into children; harsh compulsion bastardises a gentle nature.read · scan
- p. 55Quintilian noted that imperious punishment of children brings dangerous inconveniences.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 34Great severity of punishment does little good and much harm; the most chastised seldom make the best men.read · scan
- p. 34–35Servile punishments like beating and chiding should not be the means of governing children.read · scan
- p. 35–36The rod is the unfit instrument of education, since it encourages love of pleasure and fear of pain and breaks spirits.read · scan
- p. 36–37Whipping breeds aversion to what the tutor wants liked, makes a slavish temper, or breaks the child's mind.read · scan
- p. 37Misapplied rewards and punishments sacrifice virtue and teach luxury, pride and covetousness.read · scan
- p. 38Reward and punishment are the only motives for rational creatures; but bodily pleasures and pains are ill-chosen ones.read · scan
- p. 39Rewards and punishments should be esteem and disgrace, not blows, which lose force when common and unaccompanied by shame.read · scan
- p. 40Shame is preferred to formal punishment; Locke would willingly have no punishment.read · scan
- p. 40–41Frequent beating and chiding are to be avoided; shame and fear of parents' displeasure are the true restraint, and severity must not be quickly laid aside.read · scan
- p. 42Excessive correction is ineffectual or spoils temper of body and mind.read · scan
- p. 44Many rules force either frequent punishment or unpunished transgressions.read · scan
- p. 55Punishing a child for what he sees the parent do seems arbitrary and imperious rather than kind.read · scan
- p. 56Childish unfashionable behavior is exempt from the rod, so beating is rarely needed in an ingenuous education.read · scan
- p. 99–100Children should not be much beaten for faults lest they think bodily pain the greatest punishment.read · scan
6b.Limited correction: when whipping is warranted
See also: Will 8b · Education 4b · Family 8a
Saint Augustine, The Confessions of St. AugustineVol. 7
- p. 16–17Cruel threats and the master's cane are seen as a bitter discipline, tempered by God's laws, recalling us to Him.read · scan
- p. 21Severer punishments displace the cane as sins mature.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 378Deans and censors punish students severely for faults in proportion to the trespass.read · scan
John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning EducationVol. 37
- p. 60Blows and passionate chiding are ineffective; only obstinacy deserves whipping, with shame rather than pain the chief penalty.read · scan
- p. 60–61Locke argues correction must bend the child's will, not avenge a fault; beating that fails to reach the mind only hardens the offender.read · scan
- p. 62Whipping should be a last remedy reserved for obstinacy; indiscriminate beating for trivial slips renders it ineffectual.read · scan
- p. 63Faults of frailty should be gently set right, not sharply reproved or treated as obstinacy.read · scan
- p. 65–66Whipping should be the last resort, not done in passion, preferably by a tutor at the father's order; shame usually suffices.read · scan
- p. 67–68Only after milder methods fail should sedate but severe whipping, mixed with admonition, be used until true sorrow shows; useless beating is enmity.read · scan
- p. 93Correction must subdue the child's will and mind, applied soberly without passion, else beating is mere tyrannical cruelty.read · scan
- p. 102Children should not be punished for harm caused by play or ignorance.read · scan
- p. 108–109Mild sanctions escalate from reasoning to ridicule to setting him to tedious play as remedy.read · scan
- p. 110Forced play is applied as cure, not punishment, and preferred to forbidding or other penalties.read · scan
- p. 114Repeated lying is rebuked, then met with blows; premeditated lies must not escape unpunished.read · scan
- p. 114–115Confession brings impunity and approbation; repeated lying after correction merits chastisement for perverseness.read · scan
- p. 141–142Blows only for obstinacy; other faults corrected gently, since roughness teaches ill-nature.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 34–37Children need discipline and known liability to punishment to persevere in irksome studies.read · scan
6c.Flogging and discipline at sea and in the military
Plutarch, AristidesVol. 12
- p. 100Pausanias punishes common soldiers with stripes and standing under the iron anchor.read · scan
Plutarch, AntonyVol. 12
- p. 352Antony decimates the soldiers who deserted the mound, executing one in ten by lot and reducing rations.read · scan
Ambroise Paré, Journeys in Diverse PlacesVol. 38
- p. 10Captain and ensign hanged to make an example and frighten the Emperor's soldiers.read · scan
- p. 21–22Soldiers are ordered on pain of hanging to kill their prisoners, forgoing ransom.read · scan
Francis Pretty, Sir Francis Drake's Famous Voyage Round the WorldVol. 33
- p. 205Doughty, found guilty of contention and mutiny, is beheaded after receiving communion.read · scan
Benjamin Franklin, His AutobiographyVol. 1
- p. 142Franklin prefers inducement to the punishments some military laws inflict for skipping divine service.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 25Mate is berated and demoted to common sailor for sleeping on watch, losing his title.read · scan
- p. 52'Haze' means to punish a crew by hard work, at an officer's word.read · scan
- p. 100Flogging threatened without offense proven; John asks why Sam is to be flogged.read · scan
- p. 100The captain flogs Sam and John brutally; the narrator sickens at a man flogged like a beast, though punishment is a sailor's lot.read · scan
- p. 101–102Flogging inflicted without offense, for interference and questioning, showing punishment as cruelty.read · scan
- p. 102Flogging used to instill fear and submission, followed by denial of remedy for wounds.read · scan
- p. 109–110Lagoda's crew are surprised at the story of a regular seizing-up and flogging, unknown in California.read · scan
- p. 123The captain threatens flogging and beats the offender with a rope's end; he deserts to avoid punishment.read · scan
- p. 125–126The lingering effects of the flogging on the crew and the two men.read · scan
- p. 330The captain flogs the steward with a rope's end for threatening to spill blood, without further inquiry.read · scan
- p. 362–363Dana, though horrified by flogging, doubts a total legal ban and wants captains to keep power of moderate corporal punishment in extremity.read · scan
- p. 363–364Captain may inflict moderate chastisement for reasonable cause, like parent or master; juries decide whether it was excessive.read · scan
- p. 364–365Flogging should fade as seamen and officers improve and opinion condemns it; also criticizes pleas for lenient sentences for captains.read · scan
6d.Punishments of servants, slaves and wives
See also: Chivalry 7c
Homer, The OdysseyVol. 22
- p. 269Odysseus threatens to slay the disloyal handmaids and Eurycleia offers to name them; he will judge himself.read · scan
- p. 299–300Odysseus orders the traitor Melanthius bound and hung from the roof beams to suffer long torment for his transgressions.read · scan
- p. 300–301Melanthius is captured, bound and hoisted up a pillar, with Eumaeus mocking him as fitting requital for feeding the wooers.read · scan
- p. 307–308Disloyal maidservants are hanged and Melanthius mutilated as retribution for consorting with the wooers and dishonouring the house.read · scan
Plutarch, CoriolanusVol. 12
- p. 168–169A master had a slave scourged through the market and killed, a cruelty condemned by observers and punished by the senate.read · scan
- p. 169–170The slave's shameful public penalty and the master's punishment are recalled.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 12–13The husband beats his wife with mulberry twigs until she repents and ceases her questioning.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 36A farmer whips his young servant, accompanying blows with reproof and counsel.read · scan
- p. 37The farmer adds cruel blows and threatens to flay the boy, while Quixote threatens vengeance if the oath is broken.read · scan
- p. 123The innkeeper beats Maritornes, believing her the cause of the uproar.read · scan
- p. 296A master cruelly flogs his servant, claiming negligence and theft.read · scan
- p. 297–298Quixote intends to chastise the villain who beat Andrew.read · scan
William Shakespeare, The TempestVol. 46
- p. 426–427Prospero's spirits torment Caliban with pinches, adders and hedgehogs for slow work.read · scan
- p. 437Stephano beats Trinculo for supposedly giving him the lie.read · scan
Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's HolidayVol. 47
- p. 523–524Lincoln threatens to have Firk punished for the deception.read · scan
- p. 524–527Lincoln wants Firk punished; Firk says punish the journeyman villain but not the shoemaker.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 151–153The Prince confines Gertrude, threatens a vaguer worse penalty, and has the page dismissed and beaten to silence him.read · scan
- p. 179Rodrigo and Griso threaten to repay a suspected spy in the household as he deserves.read · scan
- p. 309–310Provincial objects that transferring the friar before establishing his fault would look like punishment; the Count calls it merely prudential.read · scan
- p. 310–311The Count denies that the friar's removal is punishment, calling it a prudential arrangement.read · scan
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