Note 12 — THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION.

That is, punishment is retributive and not corrective. Justice requires that each man shall have the fruits of his own deeds; in this it assumes that each and every man is free and self-determined. It proposes to treat each man as free, and as the rightful owner of his deed and its consequences. If he does a deed which is destructive to human rights, it shall destroy his rights and deprive him of property, personal freedom, or even of life. But corrective punishment assumes immaturity of development and consequent lack of freedom. It belongs to the period of nurture, and not to the period of maturity. The tendency in our schools is, however, to displace the forms of mere corrective punishment (corporal chastisement), and to substitute for them forms founded on retribution—e.g., deprivation of privileges. See secs. 42 and 43.