Sunday Washington globe., 1902-03-02

ing and studying the social problem, Of
which he himself is the greatest and most
unsolvable enigma
OF course, the necessary discrimination
must be observed which will prevent young
men, or FIRST termers, from coming in
contact, in the cougregate plan, with hard.
ened or professional criminals. Ia fact, il
is the practice to etagain st the professional,
men Of brains and middle-aged accidental
criminals whose habits are formed aud
whom there is no possibility Of the profess
sional corrupting.
The desire and the good behayior which
must accompany the desire of candidates to
sleep in and be assigned to this room evil
dences its preference BY the convicts them
selves many of whom have from time to
time, in a casual way, impaired to me the
improvement it works ia them mentally
and physically In fact, whatever the
prisoner may have been under the conine-
ment of the separate system, he is the best
behaved aud most tractabe of couvicts
under the congregate plan.
The capricious treatment of child spoils
a boy or girl, and men and women are. after
all only overgrown boys and girls But,
as intimated, convicts especially are intel
lectually iufantile-a mans frame eucloses
the undeveloped faculties of a child Start
ing with this theory the penologist must
endeavor to develop these deficient mental
qualities, and at the same time repress the
physical and fully developed man. In
other words, the intellect Of the convict
must be treated after the manner Of a
child's while his physical manhood re-
quires repression aud discipline. Aud this
is what is called and very correctly, too,
THE humane system" He who believes
in and who practices force, unaccompanied
by admonition and without taking into con-
sderation the mental capacity Of the sub
iect upon whom it has been inflicted,
simply hardens the culprit and brutalizes
himself to a greater or less extent
Sympathy is one of the great secrets Of
life It overcomes the most refractory and
strengthens the well behaved It disarms
resistance, too; it melts, sometimes, the
hardest hearts and it develops the better
part of their human nature Canon Farrar
has we'll said
"A man may lose position, influence,
wealth and even health aud yet live in
comfort, II with resignation; but there is
one thing without which life becomes a
burden-that is, human sympathy"
1t is true that kindness is sometimes ill-
requited, but that makes no difference to
the sympathetic No less an authority
than Bentham lays down the proposition
that The happiness of the cruel and de-
graded man is as much an integral part of
the whole human happiness as is that of
the best and noblest of men
AS habits belonging to the body" says
DR.. Butler, ARE produced by external acts,
so habits of the mind are produced by the
exertion of inward practical purposes"--
that is, by the principles of justice and
sympathy acting tangiblY on the physical
being.
Society does not now desire to take re-
venge upon criminals, and that they must be
treated as they we're formerly. Christianity
teaches a higher and a nobler purpose in
the imprisonment and restraint which are
inflicted for the protection of societv-the
reclamation Of the erring and the reforma-
ton of the degraded. Without sympathy
in the management and conduct of a prison
for our fallen and erring fellowman, neither
reformation nor reclamation can be effected.
sympathy and justice should be inscribed
in large letters over the gates of our prisons,
and not the old Venetian motto Of 'All Ye
Who Enter Here Leave Hope Behind"
Our Bridge of Signs" should be Bridge
of Hope" to encourage the fallen and err
ing in their passage back to the ranks of
society-reelaimed, rehabilitated and re-
formed.
ITO be continued