For instance, if the boys of a school do not come in promptly at the close of the twenty minutes' recess, but waste five minutes by their dilatoriness in obeying the summons of the bell, and the teacher keeps them for _five minutes beyond the usual hour of dismissal_, to make up for the lost time, the punishment may be felt by them to be deserved, and it may have a good effect in diminishing the evil it is intended to remedy; but it will probably excite a considerable degree of mental irritation, if not of resentment, on the part of the children, which will diminish the good effect, or is, at any rate, an evil which is to be avoided if possible.
If now, on the other hand, he assigns precisely the same penalty in another form, the whole of the good effect may be secured without the evil.

Suppose he addresses the boys just before they are to go out at the next recess, as follows: "I think, boys, that twenty minutes is about the right length of time for the recess, all told--that is, from the time you go out to the time when you are _all_ back in your seats again, quiet and ready to resume your studies.

I found yesterday that it took five minutes for you all to come in--that is, that it was five minutes from the time the bell was rung before all were in their seats; and to-day I shall ring the bell after _fifteen_ minutes, so as to give you time to come in.

If I find to-day that it takes ten minutes, then I will give you more time to come in to-morrow, by ringing the bell after you have been out _ten_ minutes." "I am sorry to have you lose so much of your recess, and if you can make the time for coming in shorter, then, of course, your recess can be longer.
I should not wonder if, after a few trials, you should find that you could all come in and get into your places in _one_ minute; and if so, I shall be very glad, for then you can have an uninterrupted recess of _nineteen_ minutes, which will be a great gain." Every one who has had any considerable experience in the management of boys will readily understand how different the effect of this measure will be from that of the other, while yet the penalty is in both cases precisely the same--namely, the loss, for the boys, of five minutes of their play.
_The Little Runaway_.
In the same manner, where a child three or four years old was in the habit, when allowed to go out by himself in the yard to play, of running off into the street, a very appropriate punishment would be to require him, for the remainder of the day, to stay in the house and keep in sight of his mother, on the ground that it was not safe to trust him by himself in the yard.
This would be much better than sending him to bed an hour earlier, or subjecting him to any other inconvenience or privation having no obvious connection with the fault.

For it is of the greatest importance to avoid, by every means, the exciting of feelings of irritation and resentment in the mind of the child, so far as it is possible to do this without impairing the efficiency of the punishment.