"He singled me out again. 'Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken - whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment please?' '
Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!'
'I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?'
'Uh ... why, mine, I guess.'
'Again I agree. But I'm not guessing.'
A girl blurted out, "but why? Why didn't they spank little kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any older ones who deserved it - the sort of lesson they wouldn't forget! I mean ones who did things really bad. Why not?'
'I don't know,' he answered grimly, 'except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves "social workers" or sometimes "child psychologists." It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a puppy... The tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep... The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray.'
Starship Troopers pp116-117