Of course, the actual brutal beating was only a small part of the child's ordeal.
The most horrible part was the waiting for the punishment. No man in the death cell ever suffered more than thousands of children suffer every day waiting for the brutality which is to exemplify our savage notions concerning the education of children.
If such a monstrous parody on a father should be met in some lonely wood by a huge gorilla and treated as that father treats his own son, he would complain bitterly of the gorilla's ferocity. Yet it would not equal in any way his own brutal and less excusable cruelty. ——
If a parent says that he cannot bring up his children and control them without beating them, you may say to that parent:
You never struck a child in your life except when you were angry, and you would not have dared to strike it if it had been of your own size.
Children born of decent parents can be brought up, and ARE brought up, without beatings, and if yours are a different kind of children it is a reflection on YOU, and on your whole brood and family.
The poor, ignorant hen can teach its young ones to scratch and hunt worms, and acquire whatever education they need without hurting them, and a human being should be able to do for his own as much as a hen can do.
IT IS NATURAL FOR CHILDREN TO BE CRUEL
You have perhaps read that Mrs. Isabelle Bailey, of Palmyra,
N.J., was cruelly tortured by three little girls.
The unfortunate woman was eighty-five years old, paralyzed, and confined to her bed.