Mexico weekly ledger., 1917-02-08
IGNORANCE CAUSES CRIME
WARDEN PAINTER
Many Missouri ~Penitentiary Inmates
Wholly Iliterate and Could Be
Helped With Education
BOOKs EQUIPPED For WORN
Convicts viii Teach Their Ignorant
Fellows if Necessary Supplies
for Work Can Be Had

JEFFERSON CITY, Feb. /. -
Warden Painter, who is putting thu
new deal in effect at the Missouri
prison, wants the people of Missouri
to contribute $1,000 to get a prison
school started in the jefferson CITY
institution. The money is to be useC
solely for buying text books. Severa
hundred convicts have expressed ar
earnest desire to study nights and II
attend classes that will be started
soon with convict instructors. The
Legislature will be asked to provide
a tubercular hospital and win have
other large expenses to meet in pro.
viding state employment, so the war.
den is making his appeal direct to the
people.
I~literacy Leads to Crime
The educational census taken of the
twenty-five hundred convicts by War
den Painter, which was partly COM
pleted yesterday, shows the appalling
degree to which illiteracy and crime
go hand in hand.
1t also showed a great desire exist
ing among the inmates to bet
ter their conditions = TO study and
prepare themselves in prison, after
work hours, to better be able to face
the battle of life after their terms ex-
pired.
The census among other things
showed:
That 313 of the inmates who have
reported can neither read nor write.
That 496 have never attended a day
of school.
That the great bulk of the convicts
never got beyond the fifth grade of
school.
That there are thirty-two college
men, most of them graduates, in the
two thousand five hundred odd con
victs. The colleges represented range
from Heidelberg in Germany, the
Universities of Paris and Berlin,
Oxford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and
Western schools including one from
the University of Missouri.
A Strong Desire to Learn
The census, the most complete of
its kind ever undertaken in the pris-
on, revealed the great desire for
prison classes. In fact, there are
so many applications to read and
write, for example, it will be i'm
practical for months to begin to pro-
vide classes for but a small part of
those who expressed the desire to
better their condition. The greatest
demand is to learn to read and write
that comes from the submerged
313 that can do neither. After that
the requests for some study in gram
mar and spelling come next in num-
Der in the applications.
Above the entirely illiterate class
of the convicts the applications from
the men for chances to study or at
tend prison classes, out of work hours
were not nearly so numerous. How
ever, there are scores and scores of
these applications, men who can read
and write and have an elementary or
even high school education who desire
to take work on some special trade or
professions so that they can find work
better when they get out. In the ex-
preston of preference for study work
that would be offered, the requests
were most numerous for shorthand,
agriculture, bookkeeping, motor car
repairing.
Every one of the college graduates
in the prison except mi volunteered
to assist as teachers in the prison
classes. One prisoner who had at
tended universities at Berlin, Copen-
hagen and Paris being especially ca
ger. Another, a musician, volunteer
ed to teach those desiring to take up
some elementary form of study Of
music, and there were many requests
for this. The Harvard student con-
vict volunteered his services with a
"glad of the chance"
The census showed these results:
No schooling and can't read and
write 313; no schooling but can read
and write 1888; miscellaneous 10; first
grade II; second grade 142; third
grade 208; fourth grade 208; fifth
grade POI; sixth grade $50; seventh
grade 81; eighth grade 212; graduate
grammar school so; first year high
school 81; second year high school
80; third year high school 16; grad
yates high schools 4S; college stu
dents of at least two years of grau-
yates 80.