and is in any case an insult, as you will realise if
 you imagine its infliction at a later age. Secondly if a boy is so
 insensible to instruction that reproof is useless, he will, like the
 worst type of slave, merely become hardened to blows. Finally there will
 be absolutely no need of such punishment if the master is a thorough
 disciplinarian. As it is, we try to make amends for the negligence of the boy's paedagogus, not by forcing him to do what is
 right, but by punishing him for not doing what is right. And though you
 may compel a child with blows, what are you to do with him when he is a
 young man no longer amenable to such threats and confronted with tasks
 of far greater difficulty? Moreover when children are beaten, pain or fear frequently have results
 of which it is not pleasant to speak and which are likely subsequently
 to be a source of shame, a shame which unnerves and depresses the mind
 and leads the child to shun and loathe the light.