Education: Who's Whence

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Conscientious parents may be divided into two sects—Spankers and Non-Spank-ers. Last week the Spankers had a new and highly creditable ally—Garry Cleveland Myers, head of the Division of Parental Education, Cleveland College, Western Reserve University. In a book which is calculated to show parents how to behave toward their offspring,* Spanker Myers devotes a chapter to the proper method of child castigation. Excerpts: "

Perhaps 90% of all punishment by parents is injudicious. . . . I believe in punishment, not as a last resort, but as a part of a very deliberate program with the child, punishment which is planned ahead for days and weeks before it is to be applied. . . . Is it not better that a little child should have a good burning spank than that his body should be burned up by a conflagration or that he should be ruined for a lifetime by pulling down upon his head a pot of boiling liquid?"

Recommended to potential Spankers are these precepts: Don't scold or pray over the child, or nag with small, ineffectual, repeated chastisements. Don't ridicule, frighten, punish after school years; never in the presence of others after the age of three. Punish immediately and impressively after an offense.