The Washington times., 1921-02-05

One of the most noted criminol-
ogists and prison experts in the
United States, Colonel Foster, before
coming to Washington was warden
of the Jefferson county Jail at
Louisville. Ky. 1t was here. says
School Life, that the idea hit him
between the eyes that crime is
largely due to a lack of education.
Going over the roster of the In
mates of the prison, Colonel Foster,
an experienced newspaper man be-
fore he entered into a career of
managing penal institutions. found
inmates were men and women who
lacked sufficient education to moral
ly direct their welfare.
TESTS HIS THEORY.
He put his theory into practice. Il
worked so we'll that the records
showed after a years try-out of
Colonel Fosters educational system
that only one of 800 graduates" OF
the school inaugurated by the war
den was resentenced to the prison
after serving out their terms.
Coming to Washington and taking
charge not only of the Jail, but the
workhouse at Occoquan and the
reformatory at Lorton, Va, Colonel
Foster again applied the theory. The
Jail school started with twenty-eight
students and was and still is being
conducted in high, whitewashed
blue-ceilinged corridor, lighted by
tall windows, save for their bars,
and having a cathedral effect.
Two rows of desks face a teachers
platform and a blackboard. Each
desk is equipped with elementary
textbooks, pencils, pens and paper.
To some of the prisoner-students
necessary. One who enrolled was
the secretary of a Congressman from
a Western state. He is in Jail for
contempt of court, and evidently
Joined the class to while away the
dull hours. Most of the pupils who
have taken to the classes were i'll
literates and the great majority of
them today can read and write, and
are highly gratified that they can
write to relatives and friends. Many
graduates who were illiterates
when they entered the prison have
left, having completed their jail
sentences, and before passing
through the gate to freedom have
thanked Colonel Foster for the in
terest he took in them in the en-
COuTaktIntHt lHeI tuuSabioh.
The teacher Of the prisoners is an
inmate of the institution himself.
His educational proficiency did not
keep him out of prison.
"The right kind of education" is
the essence of the Foster school sys-
tenn. BY 1t the prophet of the
method means training that will ft
a man for his Job in life. and help
him find the job. Colonel Foster be-
lieves that the training should have
come in childhood to the men and
women whose lack of 1t has landed
them in jails and prisons, and that
the prison school is nothing but a
repair shop, instead OF a factory that
society should have furnished.
JAIL SCHOOL A STOP GAP.
1.-THE jail school is only a stop gap
in the criminal problem" he says.
"but II is movement in the right
direction, l am sure, since the pre-
vention and cure OF crime is largely
a matter of education. There are,
to be sure, crimes which come from
almost ineradicable human tenden-
cies: but the majority OF the crimes
which cause men to be sentenced 20
jails for short terms are caused by
ignorance.
1.-THE school roll here shows that
nearly every man in attendance now
committed a crime that could have
been prevented had he been educated
into a steady-earning, self-respecting
citizen. Migrants, housebreakers, Joy
riders, llduor-law violators-they are
all social derelicts trying to make n
living in the easiest way, not edu-
Gated into knowledge that this Is the