If you can not govern your child without corporal punishment, it is better to resort to it than not to govern him at all.

Taking a wide view of the field, I think there may be several cases in which a resort to the infliction of physical pain as the only available means of establishing authority may be the only alternative.

There are three cases of this kind that are to be specially considered.
[Illustration: THE RUNAWAY] _Possible Cases in which it is the only Alternative .-- Savages_.
1.

In savage or half-civilized life, and even, perhaps, in so rude a state of society as must have existed in some parts of Judea when the Proverbs of Solomon were written, it is conceivable that many parents, owing to their own ignorance, and low animal condition, would have no other means at their command for establishing their authority over their children than scoldings and blows.

It must be so among savages.