Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1869-05-05
PROGRESS OF REFORMATORY IN.
sIITUIIONR

Madam. can not hirt fan.
But, with your leave, i III fan a fiirt"
PROGRESS OF REFORMATORY In
sTITUTIONs.
The old and homely adage that
"An ounce of prevention is worth
apound of cure" is strikingly ap-
-plicable to the method of dealing
with crime. The most economical
and efectual way of diminishing
this evil, which has now assumed
an epidemical character and proper
tons, is to reduce the sources of
supply arising, where a natural
proclivity to vice is not the cause,
from bad early education and ass
ISOLATION. The ranks in the army
of criminals are mostly recruited
from neglected and vagrant youths,
who are constantly roaming the
streets of our cities, exposed to the
corrupting examples of older and
worse ones, and in their pauperism
and want of employment thrown
into the way of constant tempta-
ton. There is an education for
good or evil, says the Baltimore
Sun, which every child receives
from his companions, and these
wandering children are educated by
evil associates to lives of crime
and shame, and to penitentiaries
and scaffolds. Therefore, in seek
ing to arrest the progress of crime,
Institutions looking to the rescue
and reformation Of vagrant and
criminal children would seem to be
of the first Importance. Reforma-
tory systems, having for their OBJ
ject the mastery Of crime in its
germ, have long occupied the atten-
ton of civilized nations. In 1872,
Rev. DIR. Stanford, chaplain to the
penitentiary and eleemosynary in
shtutions of New York, addressed
a communication to the authorities,
in. which he proposed the creation
of separate place for the reception
OF vagrant children. In 1913, John
Falk founded reformatory at Wei
mar, in Germany, for criminal
children and the children of Grim
inals. Mr.. Falk placed honest and
useful labor next 10 moral and re-
ligious instruction as a means of
criminal reformation. In 1919, 81
milar institutions were established
in Rhenish Prussia and in Berlin,
the one in the first named being one
Of the largest and most useful of
the reiormatory establishments in
Europe. In 1917, the London
Philanthropical Society, formed in
that year by Mrs. Elizabeth Fry,
Joseph John Quincy, and others of
her personal friends, founded an
institution for the reformation of
criminal youth Of both sexes. Vari-
Gus trades were taught in this instie
tuition, and there were night schools,
where the children were carefully
instructed in the principles of reli-
gion and the elements Of learning
A society was formed in New
York in 1917, under the leadership
of DIR. Griscom, for the prevention
of pauperism in that city. In the
second report prepared by DIR.
GriscOm, attention was called to
the fact that ia the Bellevue Peni-
Tertiary there was no separation
between adult and youthful Grim
inals, and the report recommended
the erection, within the prison in
closure, of a building for the
younger cOnvicts. The sixth annual
report of THIS association, in 1923,
was devoted almost wholly to the
consideration Of juvenile delin-
quency, and was prepared by James
W Gerard, Esq, then beginning
has career as a lawyer. He argued
earnestly that Young offenders
should be imprisoned in a separate
binding, where, if possible, they
should hear 40 clanking Of chains
and feel no restraint of bolts and
bars, but rather find themselves in a
place Of instruction and work, and
so preparing for usefulness and re
spectability in some honest calling.
In one of his speeches, Mr.. Gerard
mentioned an interesting incident
which had turned his mind TO the
subject of prisons for youth. This
was his being called on to defend, in
his first criminal case, fine looking
lad Of fourteen years of age, on an
indictment for stealing 4 canary
bird. The defense, that canary
being tcroe RGtUrGe, was not a sub
iect Of larceny, was ruled down, but,
rs there was no separate prison for
boys, and if convicted his client
would be incarcerated with hardened
villains, Mr.. Gerard pressed
strongly upon the jury for his ac-
uuittal, and he was, more on that
consideration than any other, dis
charged. But the boys education
had been neglected, and there being
no house of refuge to send him to,
he became 4 depredator upon the
community, and finally died in
prison, where he was confined fol
a larceny. While thus incarcerated
he was left a fortune of $4,000