A box on the ear, such as a cat gives to a rebellious kitten, is certainly the _quickest_ application that can be made.

The measures that are calculated to reach and affect the heart can not vie with blows and scoldings in respect to the promptness of their action.

Still, the parent or the teacher who will begin to act on the principles here recommended with children while they are young will find that such methods are far more prompt in their action and more effectual in immediate results than they would suppose, and that they will be the means of establishing the only kind of authority that is really worthy of the name more rapidly than any other.
The special point, however, with a view to which these illustrations are introduced, is, as has been already remarked, that penalties of this nature, and imposed in this spirit, are not vindictive, but simply remedial and reformatory.

They are not intended to satisfy the sense of justice for what is past, but only to secure greater safety and happiness in time to come.
_The Element of Invariableness_.
Punishments may be very light and gentle in their character, provided they are certain to follow the offense.

It is in their _certainty_, and not in their _severity_, that the efficiency of them lies.