Strict discipline prevailed in the house; falsehood and disobedience were severely punished. Little children often tell falsehoods because of defective memories. A child is asked, "Did you do it?" It happened only two hours ago, and his memory does not reach back so far. Since the act appeared an indifferent matter to the child, he paid it no attention. Therefore little children can lie unconsciously, and this fact should be remembered. They also easily lie out of self-defence; they know that a "no" can free them from punishment, and a "yes" bring a thrashing. They can also lie in order to win an advantage. The earliest discovery of an awakening consciousness is that a well-directed "yes" or "no" is profitable to it. The ugliest feature of childish untruthfulness is when they accuse one another. They know that a misdeed must be visited by punishing someone or other, and a scapegoat has to be found. That is a great mistake in education. Such punishment is pure revenge, and in such cases is itself a new wrong.

The certainty that every misdeed will be punished makes the child afraid of being accused of it, and John was in a perpetual state of anxiety lest some such act should be discovered.

One day, during the mid-day meal, his father examined his sister's wine-flask. It was empty.

"Who has drunk the wine?" he asked, looking round the circle. No one answered, but John blushed.

"It is you, then," said his father.

John, who had never noticed where the wine-flask was hidden, burst into tears and sobbed, "I didn't drink the wine."

"Then you lie too. When dinner is over, you will get something."

The thought of what he would get when dinner was over, as well as the continued remarks about "John's secretiveness," caused his tears to flow without pause. They rose from the table.

"Come here," said his father, and went into the bedroom. His mother followed. "Ask father for forgiveness," she said. His father had taken out the stick from behind the looking-glass.

"Dear papa, forgive me!" the innocent child exclaimed. But now it was too late. He had confessed the theft, and his mother assisted at the execution. He howled from rage and pain, but chiefly from a sense of humiliation. "Ask papa now for forgiveness," said his mother.

The child looked at her and despised her. He felt lonely, deserted by her to whom he had always fled to find comfort and compassion, but so seldom justice. "Dear papa, forgive," he said, with compressed and lying lips.

And then he stole out into the kitchen to Louise the nursery-maid, who used to comb and wash him, and sobbed his grief out in her apron.

"What have you done, John?" she asked sympathetically.

"Nothing," he answered. "I have done nothing."

The mother came out.

"What does John say?" she asked Louise. "He says that he didn't do it." "Is he lying still?"

And John was fetched in again to be tortured into the admission of what he had never done.