The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-01-22

I1I T centerS for accomplishing such a per manent social benefit.
 Early and desirable formative type Of family life is rarely, now, found among that large division of the pop ulation which mostly supplies occa sion for charities and correction. Im- migration, urban housing conditions, and industrial changes have well nigh obliterated that kind of family which justified the axiom, '"The Family, the Unit and Bllwark of Society," AS to the Church, when considered as an institution, there is little hazard in affirming without offering explanation, that, long since, it has ceased to be regarded as the important source of scientific charity or as the chief we'll spring of social morality.
 When we look to the schools and other institutions that embrace most of the young of the generation it seems amazing. The erstwhile apathy of educators, managers of charities, and of the general public is astounding. That they should remain satisfied with antiquated routinism for imagin- ary spiritual and moral impression and with the medievalism of our ped agogy. In this connection it is signi- ficant that of 10000 young men felons admitted to the Elmira Reformatory fully 50 per cent had previously had experience in Reform Schools for de-
 lnquents, or in Institutions for De- pendents, or in Jails and Short-Tern- Prisons intended for misdemeanants, and some of them had served in the Estate Prison for high crime. Also While most of the 10000 claimed to have attended the common schools 62 per cent were practically, if not tecn- nically, illiterate, and S9 per cent had no suitable industrial ability. Boise, in his great work (The Sci ence of Penology-1899) gives official figures showing that of the many mill lions of registered school pupils in the United States 31.6 per cent were always absent and 6S39 per cent ir- regular attendants. Now, when we recall that more than p per cent of the school pupils suffer from needless impeding morbidities; that the same ratio of the inmates received at the Elmira Reformatory are diagnosed as tuberculosis, Ferris estimate that 75 per cent of dependency and crime could be prevented by proper care de- voted to the young in the charities and schools does not seem eXtraVa- gant.>
 It is encouraging to note that not so much as formerly, in this youthful plant field, nor indeed anywhere else, | are now sought the virtues of rectitude and economic value, by mere precept c'ld iIeIlOfy OI l1OTd1 Dld&ln1S, put more effectively by means of indivi- dual education with all that term, in it's wide significance, implies AS an indication of this change, last Sunday the Church contribution was devoted not as has sometimes been. to the purchase of testaments, tracts and notices for the children of the local Orphanage, but to buy tools and pro- vide instruction for the boys of the OrphanaSe in manual training. Fly anywhere, too, is observed, as related ] to secondary educational interests, an | awakening from the long time stupid i SomnOlence to lively regard for self preserving culture-regard for bodily health and development, manual and technical dexterity, and a comfortable self-centrol. It is the new birth of biological, psyschologic and economic science directed to the social welfare particularly by way of the schools and charities. It is change of Opin- ion; as to principles, too slowly, but more and more nowadays applied to practical problems
 The modern spirit of charity some ! what affects penology, alleviating rig ors, minimizing the motive of profit and the hope and methods of reforma- tions are considerably rationalized. Within fifty years the current theory Of crime and the treatment of criIn- inals have materially changed, and some accordant changes of prison | management have also occurred. But
 this article wants space for any prop | CT statement of such alterations. It must suffice to indicate the change of theory by the briefest possible men | tion of the underlying principles of the | American Reformatory Prison System | first advocated at Cincinnati in 1870, | inaugurated at Elmira in 1876, gener- l ally opposed at first but now almost
 universally approved. Under this | System:
 1 The traditional punishment theory
 is substituted with the object of the public protection.
 The punitive time) sentence system | is changed to the Reformative Gnde- | terminate) sentence.
 The notion of soul-saving by means
 of miraculous conversions is now held
 subservient to rehabilitation by ra- | tional reformation.
 l The state no more assumes to tres pass upon the mystic field of the souls 1 relation but instead aims to change
 the character so as to promote the
 public security. The State, while in
 all things endeavoring to deal fairly,
 does not essay to administer justice
 but leaves that consideration to na-
 ture. Little regard is had to deter
 rency to be affected by observing or l experiencing the pains of imprison- ment. Nor, on the other hand, is the | collective welfare ever subordinated to
 individual indulgence. The doctrine of
 the reciprocal interaction of body and mind is accepted and therefore the dogma discarded Strin-
 gent disciplinary requirements with
 use of coercion, when it is needed to
 incite initial advancement, is held to 1 be necessary and justifiable. The harmonious development of the whole
 being for his self-preservation and
 proper social adjustment is never Fabandoned. That such education is
 comprised in creation of healthy econ-
 omic ambition and capacity coupled
 with strong and tested instructive
 desire for correct habits.
 The outlook for charity and correc-
 tiops-the Twentieth Century-is most
 enticing. The writer regrets that the
 limit of allotted space forbids any re- marks upon the change in prison
 methods and also excludes mention of the forecast of Twentieth Century
 progress in respect both to charity and
 correction.