may be returned to the prison without trial for disorderliness,
drunkenness, or other anti-social conduct, he is not likely to do much
damage. A second offense would be likely to bring upon him imprisonment
for life, which would be within the discretion of the prison officials.
This method provides a spur to good behavior, and, when used in
conjunction with the reforming influences we are about to consider,
works admirably in abolishing the criminal class; whatever criminal
class persists-those who cannot or will not reform are kept under
restraint for life, where they can do no harm. Fourthly, and most
important of all, a painstaking attempt must be made to reform the
criminal, to make him a normal, socially useful man. At present our
prisons are rather schools of corruption than of uplift; too often
first offenders are thrown into association with hardened criminals,
and come out after their term of years with their minds full of criminal
suggestions, and less able than before to live a normal life. The prison
should be a training school for the morally perverted. First of all,
the prisoner should be taught a trade, if he knows none, and made
competent to earn an honest living. He should be kept at regular work,
and his wages used partly to reimburse society for his keep, and partly
to support his family, or, if he has none, to give him a new start
when he leaves prison. Recent experience shows that the great majority
of prisoners can be trusted to work outside the prison, at any ordinary
labor, without guards-returning to the prison each evening.[Footnote:
See Century, vol. 87, p. 746.] Regular hours, and wholesome living
in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure
hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are
brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private
talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant
morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but
are amenable to skillful guidance; most of them, could, if pains were