Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-08-03

have turned teachers and instruct
others One Negro convict has taught
Spanish for five years and has had
1000 inmates In his classes or CORE
spon6ence courses.
OF 2,228 papers graded by the Uni
versity of California extension depart
ment, only one received failing mark.
All the grades were higher than for
students living in homes, though the
same standard of marking was used.
These courses embrace many academic
and vocational subjects. One is in home
nursing and is being taken by a man
whose wife is an invalid. He Is pre-
pairing for the time when he will be
released. though it is years away.
Folsom Prison, CALIFORNIA; Siberia, is
do ng uphill work with hardened crimi-
mails in for long bits" During May
half the books sent there by the State
library were on law, asked for by men
seeking some means of release. And
books on prohibition have become pop
ular-for, as one man sheepishly put it.
When you get in jail you kinda wish
| you'd known more about the laws"
! On the opposite side of the continent
at Sing Sing the library is now having
a regular Spring cleaning. A bright new
room will permit 200 convictS to gather
| there for reading. This in itself is a
! great step forward, for many officials in
the past have not dared to allow prison.
ers to gather in such numbers. A new
catalogue is being issued. and methods
| OF calling books to every mans atten-
ton will be introduced
Prisoners find escape from morbidity
and self-pity in moments spent with
books" ssid Warden Lewis E. Lawes.
A well appointed library can be of
great help toward rehabilitation and is
helpful in moments CT irritation. 1
doubt, however, that it is decisive in an
emergency"
Preventing such emergencies in Sing
sing, IN so far as possible is one of the
tasks OF the educational director. N. ].
Henzel. We stood in the window of the
administration building talking and
watching the men in the recreation field
by the Hudson.
Many Visit the Library.
I'm nine cases out of ten when man
leaves the reception company on COM
ing in, his first visit is to the library. %
he said. Down there in the field is a
lad who did just that and has contin-
ued to use the library for 10 years. He
was an East Side New Yorker who
joined gang at 20 and got caught
during his first stick-up. But he hasn't
wasted moment since he came here
He had sixth-grade education on en-
terlng. Now he is through high school
ana has taken correspondence courses
in bookkeeping. accounting and litera-
ture. He's writing short stories and
does very well with them"
Convicts refer to such study as
Making the old bit pay dividends"
However, this young man will have to
wait for his dividends from short-story
writing until after he is released. New
York permits no inmate to submit his
writings to newspapers, magazines or
book publishers until after he leaves.
New Jersey, however, only recently re-
leased Lawrence Maynard, who had
sold articles to several magazines while
a prisoner.
1t seems that almost every man in
prison is writing a story-usually auto
biographical. They have for inspira-
ton not few famous authors whose
writing began behind bars. o. Henry
leads the list. He spent four years as
No. 30664 in Ohio State Penitentiary,
and while night clerk in the hospital
began his first short story.
The success of Jack Blacks auto
biography, You Can't Win" encour-
ages hundreds to push pudgy pencils
over miles of paper. And Oscar Wilde's
DE Profundis" awakens would-be bards
to record their imprisonment in poetry
Prison Life Popular Topic.
Any book dealing with prison life is
assured of feverish reading by convicts
Condemned to Devils leland" was read
eight times in the first six weeks in one
prison. THE House of the Dead" by
Dostoevski, is read because it records
Siberian prison conditions. 1.-THE Pris-
,oner of Chillon," by Byron; Crime and
Punishment in Germany" by Hampe;
Beating Back" and Through the
Shadows With o. Henry" by Al Jen-
nings, are all read because of prisoners
curiosity about others who have been
imprisoned. Even THE Prisoner of
Zenda" is read because of that fatal
word in the title.
Writing poetry seems to be almost as
much weakness as writing auto
biographies. Twice in our lives comes
the urge to express ourselves in poetry"
one prisoner whimsically said. First,
when we fall in love: second, when we
come to jail
Prison newspapers and magazines
contain columns of poetry, one Journal
putting out a special poetry number
each year. That which is printed rep
reSentS but a small part of what is
written Much of it deals with women.
Completely cut off from anything
feminine, they grow sentimental over
wives, mothers, sweethearts or the girls
of their dreams. The poetry they read
c,
just as their fiction.
Nowhere in the country is there such
a completely developed system of serv-
ice to prisoners as that offered by the
Wisconsin State Free Library Commits
sion to the inmates of Waupan and
Green Bay Prisons. Chester Allen in
teryiews the men and draws them out
as to what they would like to read or
study. Be 1t aeronautics, cartooning,
radio, Africa, fur farming. English his
tory, penmanship, painting or music
the choice is theirs. With that choice
Mr.. Allen sends to library headquarters
brief outline of the mans educational
background, temperament and ambi-
tons.
7 Course of instruction Accepted.
A personal note is injected into every
recommendation. For instance, man
at Waupun wanted to study astronomy.
His course opened with paragraph
telling the part stars have played in
history, thinking and mems lives. Then
the librarian commends to him in this
order such books as Pageant of the
Stars" Music of the Spheres Path
finder Star Maps" Romance Of the
Sum-" Stories of the Great Astrono-
mers" Geology in Its Relation to
Landscape" and Galileo's biography
When I saw one of these courses
study of the therapeutic action OF
drugs-visions of clever murders arose,
| just as a suspicion always dawns when
course in penmanship is chosen.
| They always remind me of the counter
| feiter in a Federal prison who COM
planned: "There are no books on metal
| lurgy or engraving in the library. How
can I keep up in my profession" This
Wisconsin prisoner, however, apparent
| ~ had no Interior motive. He had had
| two years in a medical college at a
university before violating the law, and
now, as he himself said, is paying the
price for making money the height of