ABSTRACT
Schleiermacher's wise saying, "Punishment must be an ever-diminishing factor in education", is true, both as regards the individual and the race. Early education is the least able to dispense with certain forms of punishment. But in human history the limitation of punishment is an exact index of the degree of moral culture reached, so that punishments are less frequent and more reasonable now than in past centuries. Punishment here then has no moral significance, but is simply a deterrent, an artifice designed to have the same effect as described in the proverb, "A burnt child dreads the fire." The child too sees the natural result of a fault in its social effect; whoever will not accommodate himself to life in common with others, is excluded from this society. For that reason, a penalty of banishment is one of the most successful forms of punishment.
