We all retain memories of having regard for all the men and women who
have been helpers in the work we have in hand. One name will always
stand highest, that of General Rutherford B. Hayes, for ten years our
President, and to many of us a type of a gallant American gentleman.
His life and labor in the promotion of humanity in prisons, and the
reformation of the imprisoned, are crystalized in the records of the
proceedings of the Association.
Following the history of prison reform work in the world, and
especially in this country, he said, “Thus it has come about that a
cellular system of confinement in separation in the intervals of work
has come to be called the American System of imprisonment. In nearly
all the prisons of this country details may vary in some points, but
in the main the prisons closely resemble each other. No better form of
imprisonment has yet been devised. Nearly all these changes in prison
discipline of the United States have taken form in the latter part of
the century.”
“The Constitution laws, of nearly all the States have been enacted
since the National Prison Association took strong grounds in favor of
this feature, in which reward and punishment go hand in hand. A system
of classification first introduced in the Elmira Prison Reformatory has
been adopted in substance by the majority of all classes and