he meets the class, say once a week, they are prepared to listen with interest and profit, to ask and answer questions, and to discuss topics intelligently.

Volunteers from outside the prisons could doubtless be found in most cases to conduct this line of work, and it may be made very helpful in promoting the purpose of prison schools.

Important economic, commercial, political, and social questions might be presented in this way and mistaken notions corrected.

Debates have been found to be a useful device in prison school work. They call for much reading, which adds to the stock of useful knowledge, afford training in sound reasoning, give fluency of expression, cultivate fairness in debate, and encourage toleration of the views of others.

VISUAL AND TRADE INSTRUCTION.

There seems to be a place for visual instruction in prison schools. The desire and need for entertainment may be utilized to direct thought into useful and inspiring channels. Facts of history and geography, industry, and commerce may be taught in this way. The great material achievements of man may be presented in a graphic form with such setting by the teacher as will produce beneficial results.

A number of prisons report trade instruction. It appears, however, that this instruction is in most cases incidental to work in the prison industries. Such trade schools as are common in institutions for the young do not seem to exist to any extent in prisons and perhaps are not desirable. The men are employed in various shops, and thus gain practical knowledge how to do specific things. They are thus trained to do work of economic value. If they share in the results of their labor, an impulse is given to reformation of life. Labor and wisely directed mental effort together offer the best hope there is for the regeneration of misguided men.

OTHER REFORMATORY INFLUENCES.

Education as a reformatory measure should not be regarded in the narrow sense of school training. School work proper is only one phase of the question. Men are led to reform or to grow more hardened and hopeless by many and various influences. Atmosphere counts for a great deal in the moral as in the physical world.

Just and impartial treatment, sympathetic relations between officials and inmates, a constant appeal from force to kindness, from the lower to the higher motive, a daily object lesson in integrity and loyalty to duty observable in the prison management will do more, perhaps, than anything else to lead wrongdoers to see their mistakes and to fill them with a determination to reform.

The warden, the chaplain, the head teacher, and the librarian represent the factors that are potential for righteousness and reform. Each of these has a field of labor wide enough to tax his powers to the utmost. The warden, by reason of his authority and appointing power, must bear the chief responsibility for the working of the whole system. The chaplain, the head teacher, and the librarian each represents a large field of activity and vitally affects the general result. There must be a personality back of every effort to reform men to 'make it effective. There should be a whole man for each task and all should work together.

Prisons are open to religious influences. Every prison has one or more spiritual advisers. The Bible may be read by the men. The most intolerant will not deny the right of appeal to the justice and mercy of a Supreme Being.

These facts afford opportunity and impose responsibility. No greater crime against humanity can be imagined or committed than the introduction of form and pretense in the name of religion among men who have lost hope and are in need of light. Religious hypocrisy in prison is not only blasphemous but it is a positive force to hasten moral degeneracy and defeat reformation.

The chaplain holds the chief point of vantage in prison for exerting a salutary influence over the men. He must be a rare man to do his work well. He must be blameless in his life, an example of the truth he proclaims, abounding in faith and good works, an optimist who can not be dismayed. Such a man can win his way to the hearts of men in the lowest depths of moral degredation and bring sunshine into the lives of many.

Reformation has always been closely associated with the religious life of men.

SUNDAYS AND HOLIDAYS.

Sundays and holidays are lonely for convicts, locked in their cells from morning until night, as well as from night until morning. These days should be utilized for improving the men physically, mentally, or morally. Classes of some sort should meet on these days. Reading rooms might be provided. Such days should not be days of torture to men whom the State is trying to prepare for return to society.

A number of the prisons of the United States publish papers. These are managed by the prisoners themselves and reflect the life and ideals of the prisons they represent. They are perhaps designed rather for entertainment and to afford an outlet for the thoughts of the men than as a means of social uplift, but they have in them possibilities of great helpfulness and may easily be made factors in promoting reformation.

THE MEN IN SCHOOL.

No statistics have been obtained of the number and nationality of men in the prison schools of the whole country.

During the year 1911-12, there were 2,479 men between the ages of 17 and 56 in the schools of the New York prisons. The average age of the men was about 30 years, and 50 per cent of them were foreign born.

More than half the men in the Sing Sing school were Italians, and more than one-third of the total in all the schools were of the same nationality.

Thirty-one nationalities were represented in the Sing Sing school. About 30 per cent of the prison population was in school. Those most in need of education are given the preference in admission to school. The schools can deal successfully only with men of normal mentality. Reformation. may be expected only of those who are responsible for their actions and can think. Many subnormal and mentally defective persons are sent to prison, which is not the place for them. Other provision should be made for this class.

Speaking from a wide experience, Mr. Z. R. Brockway says:

The bulk of prisoners consists of those who are weak, habitually wayward, and unreflective persons who do not readily connect a present infelicitous experience with the remoter cause and consequence.

A PSYCHOLOGICAL LABORATORY.

It seems very desirable that a prison should have a department for the study of the men from the physical, mental, and moral standpoint. All questions of the treatment of men in prison, parole, and discharge should come before the experts of this department for study and report. Men should be dealt with in prison with a full knowledge of their condition. Their retention and discharge should be based on scientific information regarding them. No decisions should be based on superficial or defective knowledge or on the whims or influence of interested individuals. Unless put on a scientific basis the parole system is likely to fall into just discredit and disuse.

RESULTS FROM SCHOOL EFFORTS.

The apparent results from prison schools are improvement in the conduct of the men, relief from the depression of prison life, preparation for positions in the prisons, an increase of chances for success in life outside, and fewer returns to prison.

That the schools help men to gain an honest livelihood after their release is evident from the grateful acknowledgments of the men

themselves. A man who goes out with ability to read and write is much better fitted to cope with conditions. The schools are certainly removing the handicap of illiteracy from the men who go out of prison.

It is impossible to speak with certainty regarding the reformation of convicts through school influences. Figures on this point mean little and are often misleading. It is difficult, if not impossible, to follow men from prison back into life and measure their characters there.

The thing that may be stated with confidence is that the men are given an opportunity and surrounded, for a short time at least, with a bracing and helpful atmosphere. The door has been opened for them; the incentives to reform have been presented. Those who choose darkness rather than light, war with society rather than peace, must reap the bitter fruit to the end. Society has done its part.

INTEREST IN PRISON SCHOOLS.

Public interest in prison schools and what they represent in the treatment of criminals is limited and lukewarm. Prison officials are in many cases skeptical and indifferent regarding the moral uplift of the men. The prison atmosphere is rank with pessimism.

Much of the boasted progress in prison management up to the present has been on the lower level of material things. The regeneration of the men has been neglected. The pressure of public sentiment has led to the establishment of schools in some of the prisons for adults, but their work is limited by lack of hearty and effective support.

The unfortunate derelicts who have been put within prison walls are the last to get sympathy, and perhaps in most cases the last to deserve it. But every consideration of self-interest as well as of humanity demands that men unfit to remain in society should not only be segregated but also given a chance, under the most favorable conditions, to reform and prepare to resume a place in society.

It is no sentimentality that calls for a change of method in dealing with criminals, involving as one of its features the establishment of schools of character in all prisons for adults, but the enlightened mind of humanity that is dealing scientifically with the laws of cause and effect.

The school work in prisons is far from being as effective as it should be for lack of room, of teachers, and of sufficient time. It needs the support of an aroused and extended public sentiment. The work costs comparatively little, and the people would gladly furnish it if they knew its possibilities.

THE PRISON SCHOOLS OF NEW YORK.

The prison schools of New York were organized in their present form in 1905-6. Some school work had been done before that time, but nothing of a comprehensive and systematic nature had been attempted. It may not be too much to say that nothing so revolutionary in character had ever been undertaken in prisons for adults. The main features of the system are:

First. Schoolrooms, to accommodate from 20 to 25 men each, equipped with modern school appliances.

Second. A civilian head teacher who outlines the work, selects and trains the teachers, supervises the teaching, and puts the right spirit into the movement.

Third. A corps of inmate teachers selected from the best qualified that are available in scholarship, character, and interest.

Fourth. A line of work divided into 12 parts, called standards, each part requiring from 2 to 4 months for completion.

Fifth. Cooperation among the schools of the various prisons, maintained by frequent conferences of the head teachers.

Sixth. A general advisory oversight of the system by the State education department by request of the superintendent of prisons. Seventh. A card record of the work of each man, including a record of books read.

Eighth. Attendance in school of at least one hour and a quarter each day, except Sunday.

Ninth. Division of the school day into four or five periods, morning and afternoon.

Tenth. Men are gathered from the shops in companies of 100 or more, returned at the end of the period, and others taken to the school.

Eleventh. No incentive is offered the men to study except the benefits to themselves, and no penalties are applied for failure. There are no examinations that must be passed.

The head teachers give all their time and energy to the work, and it is never done. They select the teachers and train them, outline the daily work, supervise the teaching, direct the reading, and give such class instruction as seems desirable. They also confer with men outside of class and give advice regarding personal matters. They are the main factor in the success of the New York prison schools.

The inmate teachers devote all their time to the schools. This gives them time to prepare their work as well as to teach. All their interest and effort center in the schools. Many of them do excellent work, become deeply interested in it, and deserve great credit for what they accomplish. These faithful inmate teachers certainly do a great deal to atone for their wrong to society, and their services should be remembered and appreciated.