She notes that the child begins listlessly to pick up some of the scattered blocks, one by one, and drop them into the box where they are kept. After an absence of several minutes she returns. She sees but little change, although the child is hastily putting some toys away. She is aware, however, that this activity started only when her footfall sounded in the hall.
"If those things are not all in their places on time, I shall have to punish you."
The mother is vexed, the child is unhappy and rebellious. A daily experience of this sort may result finally in some kind of habit in the child; but only at great cost of effort to the mother, and at the sacrifice of much of the normal relationship between the two.
Another mother appears at the door of the nursery.
"In five minutes it will be time to begin to put away the blocks and toys," she announces, thus giving some time for the builder to complete operations. Then she asks, "What are you going to be this evening?"
"I think I'll be Michael bringing the wood to the wood-box for the fire."
In five minutes she calls: "Michael, I want all the wood put into the wood-box."
The builder is now transformed for the time being into Michael. He has seen the lusty Irishman carry great armfuls of wood, and his own frail arms assume new dignity. He gathers the blocks by the dozen, and as he lets them fall, kerplunk, into the box, he sees great logs falling into place. In a few moments his mother reappears.
"You have been working hard, Michael, haven't you? I think you will have the wood in its place in plenty of time. How much better the room looks without those logs of wood lying all about! You can carry a good many logs at once, can't you?"
Repeated every day, this process will inevitably develop into a habit of orderliness. The regularity of the process is not in the least impaired by the fact that one evening it assumes the form of stacking up firewood, another evening of bringing in bags of coal to the cellar, another evening of loading merchandise on to a vessel. It is the same will that directs Michael, and the coal man, and the stevedore, and it is the same brain that receives the repeated impression of promptness and good order. In each case, whether it is Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore, the workman is doing his task under orders; he is subject to authority. And if Michael, or the coal man, or the stevedore fails to do his duty, it is not inappropriate that he should suffer a penalty. Of course it will be more effective if the penalty can be made suitable to the character. Whether it is made suitable or not will depend largely upon the imagination of the person in authority. As a rule, however, the spirit of such a process as that which I have illustrated is less that of discipline than of instruction, or perhaps more accurately, the spirit of discipline through instruction. It is, in fact, just because instruction plays so large a part in the government of children that those in authority need to have constant recourse to their imagination.