To show how much mischief the application of the Spencerian method might work, let me mention a case which came under my observation. A certain teacher had been studying Herbert Spencer and was much impressed with his ideas. One wet, rainy day a number of children came to school without overshoes. The teacher had often told them that they must wear their overshoes when it rained; having neglected to do so, their feet were wet. Now came the application of the natural penalty theory. Instead of keeping the children near the fire while their shoes were being dried in the kitchen, they were allowed to run about in their stocking feet in the large school hall in order to fix in their minds the idea that, as they had made their shoes unfit to wear, they must now go without them. This was in truth moral discipline with a vengeance.
It is, in many instances, impossible to let the natural penalties of their transgressions fall upon children; it would be dangerous to health, to life and limb, and also to character, to do so.
Let me be perfectly understood just here: I do not deny that the method of natural penalties is capable of being applied to advantage in the moral training of children. It is a philosophic conclusion that it can be used as a means of building up the confidence of children in the authority of their parents and educators.
The father says to his child: "You must not touch the stove or you will be burned." The child disobeys his command and is burned. "Did I not warn you?" says the father. "Do you not see that I was right? Hereafter believe my words and do not wait to test them in your experience." The comparatively few cases in which the child may without injury be made to experience the consequences of his acts should be utilized to strengthen its belief in the wisdom and goodness of its parents, so that in an infinitely greater number of cases their authority will act upon the mind of the child almost as powerfully as the actual experience of the evil consequences would act.
Mr. Spencer himself admits, as I have said, that there are what he calls extreme cases to which the system he recommends does not apply. In these he falls back upon parental displeasure as the proper penalty. But parental displeasure, according to his view, is an indirect and not a direct penalty, and to use his own words, "the error which we have been combating is that of substituting parental displeasure for the penalties which nature has established." Yet he himself in regard to the graver offenses does substitute parental displeasure, and thus abandons his own position.