Praise the good, scold the bad... I believed that was the "right" thing for an educator to do. I never doubted that model, and that's how I treated them as well.

only cast him into the abyss, even though he had plenty of strength to walk the right path if I had let him.

People who obsess over "right and wrong" are liable to get the idea that they themselves are special and lose sight of "the obvious".