The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1890-05-29
WORDS OF WISDOM.
Spoken by Archbishop Ireland at the
Laying of the Corner Stone of the New
Reform School. at ed Wing.


Reform School, tired Wing.
1t is we'll that we put in it's place with
pomp and sOlemnty this corner stone. 1t
tells of great work to be done for the
state and by the state. The state reform
school of Minnesota will shed upon this
broad land of ours most beneficent and far
reaching influences, and all whose hearts
beat in sympathy with fellow-man and
exult in public good rejoice in this morn
ng's feat. Amid the youths that make
soon be power for good or evil, there are
the weaklings. They need peculiar nurtur-
ing care lest they fall by the wayside, or
turn into devious pathways. Left to them
selves they will, in all probability, one day
take rank among the outcasts and the GRIM
inals and compel the law, in defense of So
ciety, to lay upon them its heavy hand. Is
the state meanwhile to stand idly by. arms
folded. and witness the steady growth of
vicious dispositions, threatening in the
gathering of their explosive forces dire dis
aster, with the simple reserved determina-
tiOn to punish when the harm shall have
been done? Some may think so. and may
plead either the limited authority or the
limited pecuniary resources Of the state.
The policy of abstention obtained largely
in times gone by. We have advanced far
beyond crude and narrow notions of the
kind. The state should act the part of a
prudent and thoughtful parent. even more
than that of an avenging judge. Better
thousand times charity which will prevent
crime than stern justice which will punish
1T. State paternalism within due limita-
tiOns is the truest state government, and
facts showing that it sometimes goes too far
are no arguments for its elimination from
our code of public morals. 1t is the pride
of this free republic that, with it's scrupu-
lOus constitutional regard for individual
rights and liberty, to which it allows fullest
scope, it knows when there is need of its
paternal solicitude, and then, regardless of
labor and expense, it gives quick and eff
cient response to the call. Money spent in
preventive measures is not merely charity
to the individual. it is charity to the public
good which suffers from the cOmmiSSOn of
crime; it is the most economical use of the
public funds. Prevention is always cheaper
than the infiictiOn of punishment and the
reparatiOn of damages. Our youthful weak
lings deserve kindness and charity. Their
faults and evil tendencies are much more
their misfortune than their fault Circum-
stances darken and cucumber the right
eous road, and the best of us should fear
their ENHANCEMENT. Far worse than the
criminals we abhor might we have been,
had their dangers been ours and had our
feet trOdden upon the thorns over which
they had been fated to walk. The State
Reform School of Minnesota has already. in
it's old quarters, accomplished great deal
"a sure token of what it will accomplish
amid the enlarged facilities which its newer
and better appointed buildings will afford.
Numbers of men are to-day useful citizens
of Minnesota, who, without the skilled and
natient training of devoted masters which
thew received in the school, would be hope
less outcasts and hardened criminals They
went to it ignorant. indOlent and deSpOnd-
ent.
would be false to truth and to my own
most sacred convictions were 1 to permit
the belief to go forth that the best efforts
of the state. however generously and wisely
expended, suffice for the building up of
character and the change to better lives in
wayward youth or perverted adults. The
enduring moral power is religion. the awak-
ening of the soul to the sense of respOn-
sibility to the great Master of heaven and
earth. and the strengthening of mind and
heart through the influence of divine truths
and divine graces. 1t is not the province
of the state to teach religion or administer
its spiritual gifts; but it were the fatal mis-
take of the state to move forward ignoring
religion. or excluding it's cooperation.
There shall be no union of church and
state, in the sense that one be functionary
of the other; but on the other hand there
shall be no divorce of church and state in
the sense that where the one labOrs the
other must be forbidden to appear. The
independence of both assured and defended.