PUNISHMENT AND REWARD. - Punishment is the chastisement or penalty inflicted for the violation of a duty. Reward is the recognition of a service rendered or of a duty fulfilled.
The one and the other, studied from the standpoint of their educational value, present certain characteristics converging toward an intimate harmony. a) They respond, in fact, to a requirement of human nature itself, which feels a vivid need to see the concepts of good and evil, of law and arbitrariness, of virtue and vice, of justice and injustice effectively carried onto the practical plane by means of the positive or negative sanction that accompanies and represents them. If we give a person what pleases him, he is easily led to do our will; if we threaten him with what displeases him, we instill fear in him and he will more easily renounce what he would nonetheless like to do, but to his own detriment. b) However, punishment and reward must not mean a simple pleasant or unpleasant sensation, as though it were a matter of a fine or a wage, because otherwise punishment would stand to evil and reward to good as a pure addition, a chronological succession, and the person would see in them not so much the effect of his conduct and his action as the effect of an extraneous will that seeks to impose itself. In order for punishment and reward to possess their true educational value, they must be like the external expression of the interior state of our spirit when one does evil or accomplishes good: punishment becomes the symbol of our interior diminishment or impoverishment; reward the symbol of our interior enrichment. In this way punishment and reward orient us toward discovering the values of the spirit, bring into view the dishonor and the dignity of conscience, and lead us toward awareness of our own inner happiness, which bursts forth from good, together with the consent of honor and complacency paid to us by others outside ourselves, and conversely toward awareness of our own inner diminishment or baseness, which bursts forth from evil, together with the disapproval and hostility encountered outside ourselves. c) Reward is a stimulus to good and to one's own perfection (how many times a simple word of understanding or praise brightens the monotony of the day and spurs one to work with greater diligence and interiority); punishment is a check, a restraint, a call to order (how many times a simple stern glance from one's father or a furtive tear caught on one's mother's eyelash have set straight for life a deviation); punishment and reward are very valid means of awakening latent energies and of transforming an entire existence. d) Reward, finally, is a kind of glorification, which comes from outside to be added to our inner satisfaction and to highlight the effort made; punishment is an expiation, and a purification, a deprivation of the lawful for having first touched the unlawful.
These four fundamental characteristics must harmoniously govern the educational act in its entirety; it will then be the educator's own prudence, in studying the character of the pupil, to distribute in practice rewards and punishments according to a certain gradation, now relying on one motive and now on another.
I. PUNISHMENT
1. Why punish
Punishment is a demand of justice, which wills that evil receive its penalty and that the pupil himself acknowledge that he deserves it if he transgresses his duty; it is therefore a means that serves to correct, amend, and set straight. It will therefore be a good thing in itself when it is inflicted in this spirit and disposes one to it; if it is contrived in such a way as to be morally wholesome without being physically harmful; if the educator does not let himself be dominated by passions of personal resentment. Thereby several evils, quite common in education, will be remedied.
And first of all the sentimental approach, which under the specious pretext of a misunderstood delicacy causes many educators to show themselves in reality to be so many slaves of love for their own comforts and their own ease. Never to punish, or hardly ever, is not always a sign of gentleness, but only a convenient letting things go their own way, so as not to take trouble or to avoid conflicts; an education that wants to be all milk and honey and is content with saying: "let this be the last time" or "the first new fault and I shall really punish you," gives one to understand that neither one's own responsibilities nor human nature are understood. Secondly, many think they are good educators only if they know how to punish. But punishment is a medicine, and one does not live on medicines alone. So it is not so much a question of punishment as a brute fact, but rather of knowing how to punish as a fact of an intelligent and reflective soul. It can moreover happen that one punishes not from a defect, but with a defect. Indeed, just as one can virtuously punish out of duty, so too one can virtuously refrain from punishing. In this case, however, the refraining from punishing must clearly appear as an act of courtesy, of forgiveness, of love, which binds the pupil's heart to become better, and not instead as an act of weakness on the educator's part and of victory on the culprit's part, who has known how to persist, to weave excuses, to whimper, using as a pretext that he would amend (do we not often say: "if I ask forgiveness, I avoid punishment"?).
2. How to punish
Punishments can be physical and moral, according as a corporal or a moral punishment is inflicted. Exaggerated physical punishments, which cause harm to the body, must not be used, because they not only humiliate but irritate, and end by showing themselves inadequate to the aim of education; they have too little hold on the inner man, they found all their force on fear. However, some physical punishments are not always and entirely to be reproved: "Qui parcit virgae, odit filium suum" (Prov. 13, 24) and "Virga atque correptio tribuit sapientiam" (Prov. 20, 15), observes Scripture. The pupil, in fact, has many incitements and impulses of a hedonistic nature, does many things only for the pleasant sensation he derives from them, and avoids or neglects many for the sensation of pain or effort that he would have to face; it is well therefore to make him understand in a practical way that, failing in his duty, he exposes himself to the loss of a sensible pleasure, or to a sensation of discomfort.
Nevertheless, moral punishments remain always to be preferred: admonitions, reproof by words or gestures, with a look, or silence, etc., because in them lies the living germ of an individual improvement, that is, shame, remorse, vexation and displeasure at the evil done. All the more so since punishment must be taken as a starting point and not as an end; it must serve for the early years, in which sensibility and indolence predominate in the pupil, to prevent dangerous habits from being contracted, while awaiting the awakening in him of intelligence and conscience, of the feelings of dignity, esteem, and altruism, which will bring valid assistance; one must, indeed, seek to awaken them as soon as possible and strengthen them as much as possible.
Certain other norms concur in fixing punishment within its proper limits: a) punish the pupil when he truly deserves it; otherwise a deep aversion to the educator will be stirred up in his heart, and the latter's influence will thus lose all efficacy. b) Do not punish in moments of anger or passion or selfish resentment, because this leads to no improvement (one will merely say, for example: "today the teacher is on edge"; "something has gone wrong for him," etc.). The pupil, on the other hand, must understand that the educator, if he punishes, does so with regret, and out of consciousness of his own duty, and that the one who forces him to severity is the pupil himself. c) Punishing must be the "ultima ratio," when the other means prove insufficient, otherwise one becomes accustomed to punishment and takes it with indifference and sometimes even with a certain pride, in this case highly harmful. d) Punishment must be proportionate to the fault, that is, neither too severe nor too light. Just as undeserved punishment offends the pupil's conscience, so disproportionate punishment perverts it, leading him to regard a light fault as grave, or a grave fault as light. The gravity of the fault must be judged by the age and understanding of the pupil and also by the examination of conscience that the educator must make of himself to see whether he, by his methods, his impulsiveness and his conduct, may not have caused or at least contributed to the fault. e) Also outside the framework of active pedagogical values is punishment that is too humiliating or seasoned with invectives and sarcasm or based on physical defects or hereditary or family deficiencies of the culprit; this, on the one hand, would embitter the soul of the punished and, on the other, would expose him to the mockery of his companions, to the detriment of that moral education and that pity which is the dearest of human affections. f) Punishment must be impartial, and predilections and preferences must be set aside, all the more so if founded on the pupil's high or low family status, or on the greater or lesser power of his family, on the greater or lesser favors he may obtain; this provokes resentment and envy and sometimes even rebellions against the educator. g) The execution of the punishment must mean that the matter is closed. The educator, once the punishment has been carried out by the pupil, must avoid bearing him a grudge, pursuing him with continual references to the past or with more heated reproaches; otherwise the latter will repeat the usual phrase: "They have it in for me!" and every efficacy of the punishment is lost and it produces instead a pernicious stubbornness.
II. REWARD
1. Why reward
Reward too is a demand of justice and of human nature itself, which require that as evil must correspond a penalty, so to good must correspond a reward. This reward, in the field of morality, represents and concretizes the emblem of positive sanction: it stimulates, in fact, and aids the inclinations of the pupil, indeed of every person, by arousing emulation, sustaining and refreshing effort against the monotony, difficulties and distractions of daily occupation, awakening the hope of a flattering compensation for the interest one has in esteem and good reputation, preparing for struggle and competition, unfolding and intensifying the exploitation of one's own capacity, spurring one to overcome possible failures without letting oneself be gripped by paralyzing discouragements and depressions.
Against the beneficial effects of rewards, some insist on the fact that they can stimulate a sense of vanity, of egoism, of self-sufficiency, provoke an insatiable craving to appear, for publicity, for honors, with the consequent almost inevitable abuses and deceits, merely to obtain primacy, to secure success, to make one's way even by walking over the bodies of victims. But this picture, though rich in psychological evidence and unfortunately confirmed by experience, is not in contrast with, indeed is in perfect harmony with, the motives that counsel the use of rewards; on the other hand, among the various subjects that form the object of the totalitarian education of the individual there are also the norms that serve to curb those tendencies and those stimuli which can lead to deviations; therefore the passion of vanity too must be educated to remain in the golden mean and not to overstep into the field of injustices. Abuse must not prejudice or destroy use, and the victor must learn that the best merit is to know how to bear victory with naturalness and simplicity, without ridiculous inflations or unpleasant exhibitionism.
Still others define reward as unjustified because it resolves into a falsification of the ethical ends immanent in spiritual activity and therefore into a veritable corruption... "To accustom the young to look outside themselves to an end, whose attainment does not depend entirely on them... is to substitute in their soul for the certainty of the present and unfailing worth of life the doubt of the reward, in view of which life can have worth" (G. Gentile, op. cit. in bibl., pp. 56-57). Leaving to philosophy and theology the solution of the question of interested morality, to which these lines call us back, one must observe: a) Christian doctrine does not give the individual this self-sufficiency, whereby he would shut himself up in himself as in the absolute and regard himself as the absolute, but coordinates him to God, a being distinct from him, transcendent and most perfect and therefore just, who for this reason rewards good and punishes evil "not arbitrarily nor capriciously, with a puerile extrinsicism, but rather bound as a consequence of the spiritual state in which, by seconding or paralyzing divine action, the subject has voluntarily placed and voluntarily formed himself... Man's placing himself in the order and harmony willed by God cannot and must not be frustrated with a final lack of success; but it will have as its logical providential consequence its reward, and in the contrary case its punishment" (D. Bassi, op. cit. in bibl., p. 203).
b) Education, which is not only theory but also practice, cannot prescind from the inclinations of human nature. Now interest is an instinctive tendency which, if it can easily degenerate, can also succeed and in fact does succeed in works of good and of personal and social efficacy. Morality cannot be isolated, in the wondrous human complex, from the variety of forces, motives and tones that play within it. The motives extrinsic to the human act, among which is also interest-reward, can and must prepare the formation of conscience, give the way to initiate a movement which little by little can be carried in ever nobler and higher directions, which can be called moral and spiritual interests; but at bottom the problem of happiness will always be in play, which is, whether one wills it or not, the supreme interest of every individual.
2. How to reward
In order that the reward may have all the educational value that is its due, it must be used according to these guiding lines: a) the mere recognition of the result attained must not be regarded as the end of the reward; more than the result attained, one must consider the energy employed and the individual effort of good will. b) Nor does the reward have as its end only to recompense the pupil for the good done, but rather to keep him in the way of good, to fortify him in good ever more and ever better. c) To strengthen in the pupil the persuasion that the best of rewards, the noblest and most consoling, must always be the approval and contentment of his conscience. d) The reward must not be distributed too frequently, because then it will be received with indifference and will lose its bite. e) Praise too, which in a certain respect represents the most perfect reward, must be used sparingly, perfectly dosed and proportioned to the merit that produces it, especially when it is given in the presence of others. An excessive facility or an indiscriminate manner in the use of praise empties it of all its efficacy, gives the educational work an unctuous, cloying tone which can easily ferment insincerity, hypocrisy, pride. f) Above all one must take care that the pupil does not consider the reward as the principal motive of the effort to be made in order to act well. One may enjoy the reward as a recognition and a support for progressing in one's own perfection; one may consequently aspire to it: but at the same time one must temper the soul to duty, and strengthen the will, so as to conduct oneself well even in the case that the reward for any reason should be lacking. - g) In those not rewarded there must arise no feelings of envy, but of emulation; all must always rejoice with sincerity and fullness of heart at the triumph of others; and consider in their reward not so much the effect as the cause that produced it; that is, application, study and effort. Thus the reward will become an object of noble emulation and demoralizing and paralyzing envy will cease.