Birmingham state herald., 1895-12-08
REFORMATORY FOR CRIMINALS.
To the State Herald:


 Your issue of the 27th ultimo contained a communication signed J. M. R. urging the establishment of reformatorieS for criminals and a better public school sys- tenn throughout the state.
 Allow me to commend the spirit which prompted this letter, and the patriotic sentiments contained therein should ap- peal to the head and heart of every man in Alabama who loves his state and who boasts of her wealth of resources and material progress; and shall I have sue ceeded in drawing attention to this let ter. and to subject which is of impor- tance not only in an individual light, but in its bearings upon our national prosperity. I shall fully have accom- plished the purpose for which I write; for 'tis true that Crowded marts. beau tiful temples and hoarded millions are the least of the great elements that con- stitute a state; her brave and virtuous men are the greatest glories of the com monwealth"
 The following is a reproduction of the letter to which refer:
 We have recently noticed in a few of the papers of Alabama that public opinion is greatly in favor of establishing a reformatory for criminals. Scarcely any enterprise known to us could be of greater importance in the future welfare of the country than one in which the lower classes of the people can be touched
 
 be seen.
 ITO their misfortune many, many of the people of our fair Alabama have lived their score and one and have never been shown by paternal index the pur- pose of life. Sad indeed for our minds to visit the homes of some of the children of our knowledge; no purpose no aim, no future intentions are taught them; re- fnement Is unsought and education a stranger! No wonder the state needs reformatories; 1t will continue to need them until the great gulf of ignorance among the poorer classes is filled!
 Just pause and think. There are hun- dreds of boys and girls in Alabama who know nothing of books nor their teach ings There are scores of schools within the borders of Alabama that receive as public funds not more than $50 per year. If the healthy mind of boy or girl should hunger for knowledge how long would it thrive and grow on it's portion of this amount of hired instruction?
 Friends and countrymen, what we need and must have is a close investiga- tion into our school system. The mind makes the man and the man makes the country. Then why are our authorities so indulgent in the school system? Polit- ical parties may harp on their tariff and free silver. etc., and at the same time the schools under their Jurisdiction are struggling for maintenance and nothing said of them. Ignorance and vice go hand in hand, retarding the progress of our enlightened country in the forms of aims houses. jails and reformatories.
 Let's work for a better public school system, and if necessary a compulsory school law. Then in a few years, on a rising generation will dawn a prosperous day that will lead to higher plane of civilization. J. M. R."
 Man must be capacitated to discharge the duties of citizen by educating him to know those duties, and the tendency of education is to elevate man in his po- litical condition by rendering him m1re capable of governing himself; that as the government offers it's shield and its pro- lection, throws off all unnecessary re- strctions, 'tis a mutual trust and mu- tual benefit, and is repaid by devotion as true as 'tis ennobling. Freed from the thraldom and the despotism alike of ig- norance and power, he can stand forth as his creator intended him-a reflection and an image of the God that made him. That he possesses divine attributes, is a part, an atom as 1t were. of a divine prin- ciple, needs no philosophic reasoning to teach him-cultivate his intellect Then light up the dark shadows that enshroud him in a state of ignorance and you kin dle an embryo flame that b1azes for free dom and immortality.
 would not be understood as advocat- ing equality in it's broad sense. As the earth which we inha bit is kept in it's or bit by the attraction which it owes to other and greater bodies, and we upon it's surface by the attraction that we owe to 1t, so the principle is carried out alike in the physical. moral and intellec- tual organization. The philosophy of the cloisters may speculate upon mans equality, but when we see daily evidences to the contrary, when education in &C., cordance with our natural capacities 1t1 seem that to a refiecting mind that philosophy must become paradox. for 'tiS a strange infatuation that would deny the light of reason to the human intellect. Place man upon an equality and you destroy every incentive to. action you destroy that emulation which is the true basis of his greatness and his glory; but the tendency of past ages. all it's teachings and the maxims of it's philosophy was to concentrate all knowl- edge and power in the hands of the few at the expense of many, and consequent ly to destroy individual identity and re- sponsibility in the masses. But the storm at lasta awoke-it came out dark and looming from the night of ages. Terrible were the reverberationS when the chords that had bound it for centuries snapped asunder and the spirit that came out upon the breeze was mind-free and un- trammelled, before the potent majesty of whose omnipotence the elements were calmed, and there is yet much strife to come, but the results must be the har- binger and herald of the millennial morn.
 It is said that crime has rapidly de- creased in Belgium since the reformato- ries were established and capital punish ment abolished. Would that that foul blot were removed from our boasted civ ilization, and had mans moral enligIit- enment kept pace with the giant strides of modern civilization it would long ago have been relegated to that barbarous