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nified and exalted of all professions is the least liable to innovations. The law itself is an exact science. We have what we call "Reforms in the Law" which are mere

changes in its application. The great foundation principles are as unchangeable as time, and go on forever. Dignity and truth, personified justice.

EDUCATION IN PRISONS. By James A.. Anderson. WITHIN the past twenty years most re markable changes have been made in the management of our prisons and the treatment of their inmates. The penologist has caught much of the infection of liberality that has struck in at «very story of our social structure. With increased knowledge of those with whom he has to deal, and a better understanding of the nature of crime, has come to him a clearer conception of the treatment which will offer the most chances for the criminal's reformation. The great pioneers in prison reform — Crofton, McConochie, Obermaier, Montesinos, and the founders of Mattray — in their most sanguine hopes for the prisoner perhaps never dreamed of a time when these hopes would be more than realized. Oftentimes the best things that happen to men come in the guise of apparent disaster. When jealousy in behalf of free labor led our law-makers to restrict within a narrow chan nel the production in prison of all goods possessing value in the general market, prison wardens were made to face a crisis. There is no torment so fierce to the criminal in prison as the torment of absolute idleness, when he can only sit in his narrow cell and think, think, think, until he is all but mad. His natural tendency under such condi tions is to curse fate and the law, and to plan future depredations on the society that had cast him off. It was to obviate such tenden cies that the wise directors of penitentiaries established in their prisons schools and li braries, offering the possibility of a much

needed education to the majority of their charges. While unexpected results have followed this departure from hitherto accepted theo ries for prison management, it has not come to be believed by these men that education will prevent crime, but simply that it multi plies the chances of reforming criminals. It would be impossible in this brief glance at the work of education pursuing in our prisons to estimate justly the excellence of the results being achieved all along the line. The names of Brockway of Elmira, N. Y., Major McLaughry, formerly of Joliet, Ill., and now of Huntington, Penn., the late Gar diner Tufts, of Concord, Mass., and Miss Ellen C. Johnson, of Sherborne, Mass., shine out brightly among those who are engaged in educating the convict, and bringing him into harmonious relations with society, of which they have demonstrated he can be made a useful member. Elmira, one of the grandest penal institu tions in the world, has admirable trade schools, an excellent course of study extend ing from primary lessons to lectures upon history, literature, and social science, and a library of over three thousand volumes of general literature and special reference. The result of these educationary advantages is manifest in the report of the institution for 1891, which has an appendix exclusively the work of the inmates. The text is written by the editor of the " Summary," the weekly paper published in the reformatory; the illustrations are taken from photographs, sketches, and etchings made by the prison-