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This also I assert, that children ought to be led to honourable practices by
means of encouragement and reasoning, and most certainly not by blows or
ill-treatment, for it surely is agreed that these are fitting rather for
slaves than for the freeborn ; for so they grow numb and shudder at their
tasks, partly from the pain of the blows, partly from the degradation.
Praise and reproof are more helpful for the free-born than any sort of
ill-usage, since the praise incites them toward what is honourable, and
reproof keeps them from what is disgraceful.
But rebukes and praise should be used alternately and in a variety of ways ;
it is well to choose some time when the children are full of confidence to
put them to shame by rebuke, and then in turn to cheer them up by praises,
and to imitate the nurses, who, when they have made their babies cry, in
turn offer them the breast for comfort. Moreover in praising them it is
essential not to excite and puff them up, for they are made conceited and
spoiled by excess of praise. [p. 43]
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1927. 1.
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