Education in Prisons.

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ers; and the whole report is printed on the ary methods yearly becoming more general presses, and bound in the bindery of the in the treatment of prisoners, is that their institution. manhood is recognized. They do not want Concord Reformatory, only seven years in to be talked to as criminals. They know as existence, is fast following in the footsteps well as we that it is wrong to steal and mur of Elmira; and Huntington, of even more der, but they may have many motives when recent date, has adopted the same methods. perhaps we have not one. They are grate In these prisons the schools are conducted ful for judicious kindness, but sentimental on essentially the same lines as our public indulgence they play upon and despise. They want only just dealing. places of learning. The same spirit of. com petition among the pupils is manifested; and Foreign books have told of abnormal it is but just to say that the prisoner pupil creatures, fostered in crime, the brutish chil dren of brutish parents. There may be is often a harder working and more consci entious student than his brother beyond the classes of such criminals in the Old Country, but in six years' experience as a teacher prison walls. among convicts on this side the Atlantic the It is interesting to watch the mental de velopment of these convicts after being writer has failed to find any such here except brought into the companionship of books. in a few cases of insane persons. The crim In their first stage they browse eagerly inal is unbalanced, selfish, whimsical. His among the volumes, changing them often. conscience is warped, his will diseased, his mind oftentimes corrupt. He lacks principle. As they become more thoughtful and recep tive, they read fewer books, and keep them On the other hand he is not always wanting in feeling. He is often emotional. He is longer, and the real students confine them selves to a small number of volumes. And keenly impressionable, and is capable of ap they are a most critical class of readers. preciating good reading; but he has a strong He who would select books clever enough sense of the ridiculous, and not much rever for them must have his wits about him. ence. He respects knowledge of the world, Their sharpness is developed quite out of acuteness, humor, sympathy, and frankness; proportion to the weightier gifts of judg and the less he is treated as a man peculiar ment and discretion. They like Dumas, from other men the harder he will work to Lever, Sir Walter Scott, and Dickens. Some retrieve himself from crime. A picture might be painted of scenes that .of them will relish profoundest essays on the most abstract philosophies, and the products still take place in prison, — scenes that would of the pens of sceptics receive their closest make the just man's blood boil with indigna tion. It is not long since men were confined attention and arouse their sincerest admira in cells unfit even for the habitation of brutes, tion. The report of Chaplain J. W. F. Barnes, and subjected to punishments as horrible as of the Massachusetts State Prison, for last the tortures of the Inquisition. To-day in year furnishes some interesting statistics as j parts of the country can be heard the shriek to the classes of books most popular among of prisoners undergoing the torture of the prisoners. The library of this prison con thumb strings, and kindred appliances. tains nearly six thousand volumes. The per But such tragedies are surely giving way cent of fiction taken out during the year was to better things, as old prisons are torn down 48.84; magazines (bound volumes), 10.65; and new ones built on the ruins, while air history, 9.58; travel and adventure, 7.87; and sunshine replace former darkness, and education fills the mind of the prisoner with general literature, 6.46; and religious read ambitions for the manliness of his hfe which ing, 3.20. A most important phase of the education- is his right.