Very few children are ever severely burnt by putting their fingers into the flame of a candle.
They are effectually taught not to put them in by very slight burnings, on account of the _absolute invariableness_ of the result produced by the contact.
Mothers often do not understand this.

They attempt to cure some habitual fault by scoldings and threats, and declarations of what they will certainly do "next time," and perhaps by occasional acts of real severity in cases of peculiar aggravation, instead of a quiet, gentle, and comparatively trifling infliction in _every instance_ of the fault, which would be altogether more effectual.
A child, for example, has acquired the habit of leaving the door open.

Now occasionally scolding him, when it is specially cold, and now and then shutting him up in a closet for half an hour, will never cure him of the fault.

But if there were an automaton figure standing by the side of the door, to say to him _every time_ that he came through without shutting it, _Door_! which call should be a signal to him to go back and shut the door, and then sit down in a chair near by and count ten; and if this slight penalty was _invariably_ enforced, he would be most effectually cured of the fault in a very short time.
Now, the mother can not be exactly this automaton, for she can not always be there; but she can recognize the principle, and carry it into effect as far as possible--that is, _invariably, when she is there_.

And though she will not thus cure the boy of the fault so soon as the automaton would do it, she will still do it very soon.
_Irritation and Anger_.
Avoid, as much as possible, every thing of an irritating character in the punishments inflicted, for to irritate frequently the mind of a child tends, of course, to form within him an irritable and unamiable temper.