Pioneers in work with troubled children sought, with mixed results, to replace coercive discipline with democratic self-governance. In 1927, law student Clara Liepmann wrote her doctoral dissertation on the history of self-governance in correctional settings in Europe and the United States. Her father, Moritz Liepmann, was a law school professor who advocated for replacing punishment with education. Together they toured progressive correctional facilities in the United States. Clara combined data from that visit with historic and emerging developments in Germany and Switzerland. This article summarizes her research (Liepmann, 1928). Liepmann believed that traditional discipline by force had totally failed to transform and educate. Antisocial behavior is a lack of inner restraints and willpower. Only self-education will make lasting change.