example will yet find many imitators, as men more generally and more
perfectly realize the importance of faith in childhood and youth, as the
element of a true faith in our race. If this enterprise, in the judgment
of its founder, was not an experiment ten years ago, it cannot be so
regarded now; yet the public will look with anxiety, though with hope,
upon every change of the officers of the institution. The trustees
having appointed a new superintendent, he now assumes the great
responsibility. It may not be second to any in the state; yet a man of
energy, who is influenced by a desire to do good, and who will not
measure his reward by present emoluments or temporary fame, can bear
steadily and firmly the weight put upon him. The superintendent elect
has been a teacher elsewhere, and he is to be a teacher here also. His
work will not, in all particulars, correspond with the work that he has
left; yet the principles of government and education are in substance
the same. The head of a school always occupies a position of influence;
the characters of the children and youth confided to him are in a great
degree subject to his control. Here the teacher is neither aided nor
impeded by the usual home influences. This institution is at once a home
and a school; and its head has the united power and responsibility of
the parent and the teacher. Here are to be combined the social and moral
influences of home, the religious influences of the Sunday-school, with
the intellectual and moral training of the public school. He who to-day
enters upon this work should have both faith and courage. He is to deal
with the unfortunate rather than with the exceptional cases of humanity;
for all these are children whom the Father of the race, in his
providence, has confided to earthly parents to be educated for a
temporal and an immortal existence. That these parents, through crime,
ignorance, indolence, carelessness, or misfortune, have failed in their
work, is no certain evidence that we are to fail in ours. May we not
hope to see in this school the kindness, consideration, affection, and
forethought, of the parent, without the delusion which sometimes causes
the father or mother to treat the vices of the child as virtues, to be
encouraged? And may we not expect from the superintendent, to whom,
practically, the discipline of the school is confided, one
characteristic of good government, not always, it is feared, found in
punitive and reformatory institutions? I speak of the attributes of
equality, uniformity, and certainty, in the administration of the law.
To be sure, a school, a prison, or a state, will suffer when its code is
lax; and it will also suffer when its system is oppressive or
sanguinary; but these peculiarities in themselves do not so often, in
any community, produce dissatisfaction, disorder, and violence, as an
unequal, partial, and uncertain administration of the laws. If at times
the laws are administered strictly according to the letter, and if at
other times they are reluctantly enforced or altogether disregarded; if
it can never be known beforehand whether a violation is to be followed
by the prescribed penalty--especially if this uncertainty becomes
systematic, and a portion are favored, while the remainder are required
to answer strictly for all their delinquencies; and if, above all, these
favored ones are recognized as sentinels, or spies, or informers in the
service of the officers,--then not only will the spirit of
insubordination manifest itself, but that spirit may ripen into
alienations, feuds, and personal enmities, dangerous to the prosperity
of the institution. Here the scales of justice should be evenly
balanced, and the boy should learn, from his own daily experience, to
measure equal and exact justice unto others. I do not speak of systems
of government: they are essential, no doubt; but they are not to be
regarded as of the first importance in institutions for punishment or
reformation. Establish as wise a system as you can; but never trust to
that alone. Administer the system that you have with all the equality,
uniformity, and certainty, that you can command. As a general truth, it
may be said that the law is respected when these qualities are exhibited
in its administration; and, when these qualities are wanting, the spirit
of obedience is driven from the hearts and minds of the people.
But we are not to rely altogether, nor even chiefly, upon the visible
weapons of authority. Especially must the mind and heart of childhood
and youth be approached and quickened and strengthened by judicious
appeals to the sentiments of veneration and love, and to the principles
of the Christian faith. In this institution, one serious obstacle is
present; yet it may be overcome by energy, industry, and a spirit of
benevolence. I speak of the large number of inmates to be superintended
by one person. Men act in masses for the removal of general evils; but
the reformation of children must be individual, and to a great extent
dependent upon the agency, or at least upon the coöperation, of the
subjects of it. It is not easy for the superintendent to make himself
acquainted with the persons and familiar with the lives of six hundred
boys; yet this knowledge is quite essential to the exercise of a
salutary influence over them. He may be aided by the subordinate
officers of the institution; and that aid, under any circumstances, he
will need: but, after all, his own influence and power for good will be
measured by the extent of his personal acquaintance with the inmates as
individuals. First, then, government is essential to this school; not a
reign of terror, but a government whose majesty, power, equality,
certainty, uniformity, and consequent justice, shall be experienced by
all alike; and, being experienced by all alike, will be respected,
reverenced, and obeyed.
And next the social, intellectual, and moral influences of the school
and the home should be combined and mingled, or else the visible forms
of government become a skeleton, merely indicating the figure,
structure, and outline, of the perfect body, but destitute of the vital
principle which alone could render it of any value to itself or to the
world.
This institution is not an end, but a means. The home itself is only a
preparatory school for life. This is a substitute for the home, but is
not, and never can be, its equal. It therefore follows that a boy should
be removed whenever a home can be secured, especially if his reformation
has been previously so far accomplished as to render the completion of
the work probable.
A great trust has been confided to the officers of the Reform School;
but the power to do good is usually proportionate to the responsibility
imposed upon the laborer. In this view, much will be expected; but the
expectations formed ought not to relate so much to results as to the
wisdom and humanity with which the operations are conducted.
Massachusetts is charged with the support of a great number of
charitable and reformatory institutions. Their necessity springs from
the defects of social life; therefore their existence is a comparative
rather than a positive good; and he is the truest friend of the race who
does most to remove the causes of poverty, ignorance, insanity, mental
and physical weakness, moral waywardness, and crime.
THE CARE AND REFORMATION OF THE NEGLECTED AND EXPOSED CLASSES OF
CHILDREN.
[An Address delivered at the opening of the State Industrial School for
Girls, at Lancaster, Massachusetts.]
In man's limited view, the moral world presents a sad contrast to the
natural. The natural world is harmonious in all its parts; but the moral
world is the theatre of disturbing and conflicting forces, whose laws
the finite mind cannot comprehend. The majesty and uniformity of the
planetary revolutions, which bring day and night, summer and winter,
seed-time and harvest, know no change. Worlds and systems of worlds are
guided by a law of the Infinite Mind; and so, through unnumbered years
and myriads of years, birth and death, creation and decay, decrees whose
fixedness enables finite minds to predict the future, and rules whose
elasticity is seen in a never-ending variety of nature, all alike prove
that the sin of disobedience is upon man alone.
But, if man only, of all the varied creations of earth, may fall from
his high estate, so to him only is given the power to rise again, and
feebly, yet with faith, advance towards the Divine Excellence. This,
then, is the great thought of the occasion, to be accepted by the hearts
and illustrated in the lives of all. The fallen may be raised up, the
exposed may be shielded, the wanderers may be called home, or else this
house is built upon the sand, and doomed to fall when the rains shall
descend, the floods come, and the winds blow. The returning autumn, with
its harvest of sustenance and wealth, bids us contemplate again the
mystery and harmony of the natural world. The tree and the herb produce
seed, and the seed again produces the tree and the herb, each after its
kind. There is a continued production and reproduction; but of
responsibility there is none. As there is no intelligent violation of
law, there is no accountability. Man, however, is an intelligent,
dependent, fallible, and, of course, responsible being. He is
responsible for himself, responsible in some degree for his fellow-man.
There is not a chapter in the history of the human race, nor a day of
its experience, which does not show that the individual members are
dependent upon, and responsible to, each other. This great fact, of six
thousand years' duration, at once presents to us the necessity for
government, and defines the limits of its powers and duties. Government,
then, is a union of all for the protection and welfare of each. This
definition presents, in its principles and statement, the highest form
of human government,--a form not yet perfectly realized on earth. It
sets forth rather what government ought to be, than what it has been or
is. Too often historical governments, and living governments even, may
be defined as a union of a few for their benefit, and for the oppression
of many. The reason of man has not often been consulted in their
formation, and the interests and principles of the masses have usually
been disregarded in their administration.
A true government is at once representative, patriarchal, and paternal.
In the path of duty for this day and this occasion, we shall consider
the last-named quality only,--governments should be paternal. The
paternal government is devoted to the elevation and improvement of its
members, with no ulterior motive except the necessary results of
internal purity and strength. Every government is, in some degree, no
doubt, paternal. Nor are those governments to be regarded as eminently
so, where the people are most controlled in their private, personal
affairs. These are mere despotisms; and despotism is not a just nor
necessary element of the paternal relation. That government is most
truly paternal which does most to enable its citizens or subjects to
regulate their own conduct, and determine their relations to others. In
the midst of general darkness, the paternal element of government has
been a light to the human race. It modified the patriarchal slavery of
the Hebrews, relieved the iron rule of Sparta, made European feudalism
the hope of civilization in the Dark Ages, and the basis of its coming
glories in the near future; and it now leads men to look with toleration
upon the despotism of Russia, and with kindness upon the simplicity and
arrogance of the Celestial Empire.
We complain, justly enough, that the world is governed too much; and
yet, in a great degree, we neglect the means by which the proper
relations of society could be preserved, and the world be governed less.
In what works are the so-called Christian governments principally
engaged? Are they not seeking, by artifice, diplomacy, and war, to
extend national boundaries, preserve national honor, or enforce nice
distinctions against the timid and weak? Yet it is plain that a nation
is powerful according to the character of the living elements of which
it is composed. If it is disorganized morally, uncultivated in
intellect, ignorant, indolent, or wasteful in its labor, its claims to
greatness are destitute of solid foundation, and it must finally yield
to those that have sought and gained power by the elevation of the
individual as the element of the nation.
That nation, then, is wise, and destined to become truly great, which
cultivates the best elements of individual life and character. It is not
enough to read the parable of the lost sheep, and of the ninety and nine
that went not astray, and then say, "Even so, it is not the will of your
Father which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish,"
while the means of salvation, as regards the life of this world merely,
are very generally neglected. Such neglect is followed by error and
crime; and error and crime are followed by judgment not always tempered
with mercy.
While human governments debate questions of war and peace, of trade and
revenue, of annexations with ceremony, and appropriations of territory
without ceremony, who shall answer to the Governor and Judge of all for
the neglect, indifference, and oppression, which beget and foster the
delinquencies of childhood, and harden the criminals of adult life?
And who shall answer for those distinctions of caste and systems of
labor which so degrade and famish masses of human beings, that the
divine miracle of the feeding of the five thousand must be multiplied
many times over before the truths of nature or revelation can be
received into teachable minds or susceptible hearts? And who shall
answer for the hereditary poverty, ignorance and crime, which
constitute a marked feature of English life, and are distinctly visible
upon the face of American civilization? These questions may point with
sufficient distinctness to the sources of the evils enumerated; but we
are not to assume that mere human governments can furnish an adequate
and complete remedy. Yet this admitted inability to do everything is no
excuse for neglecting those things which are plainly within their power.
Taking upon themselves the parental character, forgetting that they have
wrongs to avenge, and seeking reformation through kindness, criminals
and the causes of crime will diminish, if they do not disappear. This is
the responsibility of the nations, and the claim now made upon them.
Individual civilization and refinement have always been in advance of
national; and national character is the mirrored image of the individual
characters, not excepting the humblest, of which the nation is composed.
Each foot of the ocean's surface has, in its fluidity or density or
position, something of the quality or power of every drop of water which
rests or moves in the depths of the sea. What is called national
character is the face of the great society beneath; and, as that society
in its elements is elevated or debased, so will the national character
rise or fall in the estimation of all just men, and upon the page of
impartial history. Government, which is the organized expression of the
will of society, should represent the best elements of which society is
composed; and it ought, therefore, to combat error and wrong, and seek
to inaugurate labor, justice, and truth, as the elements of stability,
growth, and power. It must accept as its principles of action the best
rules of conduct in individuals. The man who avenges his personal wrongs
by personal attacks or vindictive retaliation, must sacrifice in some
measure the sympathy of the wise, the humane, and the good. So the
nation which avenges real or fancied wrongs crushes out the elements of
humanity and a higher life, which, properly cultivated, might lead an
erring mortal to virtue and peace. The proper object of punishment is
not vengeance, but the public safety and the reformation of the
criminal. Indeed, we may say that the sole object of punishment is the
reformation of the criminal; for there can be no safety to the public
while the criminal is unreformed. The punishment of the prison must,
from its nature, be temporary; perpetual confinement can be meted out to
a few great crimes only. If, then, the result of punishment be
vengeance, and not reformation, the last state of society is worse than
its first. The prison must stand a sad monument of the want of true
paternal government in the family and the state; but, when it becomes
the receptacle merely of the criminal, and all ideas of reformation are
banished from the hearts of convicts and the minds of keepers, its
influence is evil, and only evil continually.
Vice, driven from the presence of virtue, with no hope of reformation or
of restoration to society, begets vice, and becomes daily more and more
loathsome. Misery is so universal that some share falls to the lot of
all; but that misery whose depths cannot be sounded, whose heights
cannot be scaled, is the fortune of the prison convict only, who has no
hope of reformation to virtue or of restoration to the world. His is the
only misery that is unrelieved; his is the only burden that is too great
to be borne. To him the foliage of the tree, the murmur of the brook,
the mirror of the quiet lake, or the thunder of the heaving ocean, would
be equally acceptable. His separation from nature is no less burdensome
than his separation from man. The heart sinks, the spirit turns with a
consuming fire upon itself, the soul is in despair; the mind is first
nerved and desperate, then wandering and savage, then idiotic, and
finally goes out in death. Governments cannot often afford to protect
themselves, or to avenge themselves, at such a cost. There may be great
crimes on which such awful penalties should be visited; but, for the
honor of the race, let them be few.
We may err in our ideas of the true relations of the prison to the
prisoner. We call a prison good or bad when we see its walls, cells,
workshops, its means of security, and points of observation. These are
very well. They are something; but they are not all. We might so judge a
hospital for the sick; and we did once so judge an asylum for the
insane.
But what to the sick man are walls of wood, brick, granite, or marble?
What are towers and turrets, what are wards, halls, and verandas, if
withal he is not cheered and sustained by the sympathizing heart and
helping hand? And similar preparations furnish for the insane personal
security and physical comfort; but can they
"Minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?"
And it may be that the old almshouse at Philadelphia, which was nearly
destitute of material aids, and had only superintendent, matrons, and
assistants, was, all in all, the best insane asylum in America.
We cannot neglect the claims of security, discipline, and labor, in the
erection of jails and prisons; but to acknowledge these merely will
never produce the proper fruit of punishment--reformation. Indeed,
walls of stone, gates of iron, bolts, locks, and armed sentinels, though
essential to security, without which there could be neither punishment
nor reformation, are in themselves barriers rather than helps to moral
progress. Standing outside, we cannot say what should be done either in
the insane hospital or the prison; but we can deduce from the experience
of modern times a safe rule for general conduct. In the insane hospital
the patient is to be treated as though he were sane; and in the jail the
prisoner is to be treated, nearly as may be, as though he were virtuous.
This rule, especially as much of it as applies to the prisoner, may be
recklessness to some, to others folly, to others sin.
"The court awards it, and the law doth give it," is no doubt the essence
and strength of governmental justice in the sentence decreed; but it
would be a sad calamity if there were no escape from its literal
fulfilment. And let no one borrow the words of Portia to the Jew, and
say to the state,
"Nor cut thou less nor more,
But just a pound of flesh."
As the criminal staggers beneath the accumulated weight of his sin and
its penalty, he should feel that the state is not only just in the
language of its law, but merciful in its administration; that the
government is, in truth, paternal. This feeling inspires confidence and
hope; and without these there can be no reformation. And, following this
thought, we are led to say, it is a sad and mischievous public delusion
that the pardoning power is useless or pernicious. It is a _delusion_;
for it is the only means by which the state mingles mercy with its
justice,--the means by which the better sentiments of the prison are
marshalled in favor of order, of law, of progress. It is a _public
delusion_; for it has infected not only the masses of society, who know
little of what is going on in courts and prisons, but its influence is
observed upon the bench and in the bar, especially among those who are
accustomed to prosecute and try criminals. This is not strange, nor
shall it be a subject of complaint; but we must not always look upon the
prisoner as a criminal, and continually disregard his claims as a man.
It is not often easy, nor always possible, to make the proper
distinction between the _character_ and _condition_ of the prisoner. But
the prison, strange as it may seem, follows the general law of life. It
has its public sentiment, its classes, its leading minds, as well as the
university or the state; it has its men of mark, either good or bad, as
well as congress or parliament. As the family, the church, or the
school, is the reflection of the best face of society, so the prison is
the reflection of the worst face of society. But it nevertheless is
society, and follows its laws with as much fidelity as the world at
large.
It is said that Abbé Fissiaux, the head of the colony of Marseilles,
when visiting Mettray, a kind of reform school, at which boys under
sixteen years of age, who have committed offences without discernment,
are sent, asked the colonists to point out to him the three best boys.
The looks of the whole body immediately designated three young persons
whose conduct had been irreproachable to an exceptional degree. He then
applied a more delicate test. "Point out to me," said he, "the worst
boy." All the children remained motionless, and made no sign; but one
little urchin came forward, with a pitiful air, and said, in a very low
tone, "_It is me._" Such were the public sentiment and sense of honor,
even in a reform school. This frankness in the lad was followed by
reformation; and he became in after years a good soldier,--the life
anticipated for many members of the institution.
The pardoning power is not needed in reform and industrial schools,
where the managers have discretionary authority; but it is quite
essential to the discipline of the prison to let the light of hope into
the prisoner's heart. Not that all are to enjoy the benefits of
executive clemency,--by no means: only the most worthy and promising
are to be thus favored. But, for many years, the Massachusetts prison
has been improved and elevated in its tone and sentiment above what it
would have been; while, as it is believed, over ninety per cent. of the
convicts thus discharged have conducted themselves well. If the
prisoner's conduct has not been, upon the whole, reasonably good, and
for a long time irreproachable, he has no chance for clemency; and,
whatever may be his conduct, and whatever may be the hopes inspired, he
should not be allowed to pass without the prison walls until a friend,
labor, and a home, are secured for him. And the exercise of the
pardoning power, if it anticipate the expiration of the legal sentence
but a month, a week, or a day even, may change the whole subsequent
life. Men, criminals, convicts, are not insensible to kindness; and when
the government shortens the legal sentence, which is usually their
measure of justice, they feel an additional obligation to so behave as
to bring no discredit upon a power which has been a source of
inestimable joy to them. And prisoners thus discharged have often gone
forth with a feeling that the hopes of many whom they had left behind
were centred in them.
Mr. Charles Forster, of Charlestown, says, in a letter to me: "I have
been connected with the Massachusetts State Prison for a period of
thirty-eight years, and have always felt a strong interest in the
improvement, welfare, and happiness, of the unfortunate men confined
within its walls. I am conversant with many touching cases of deep and
heartfelt gratitude for kindly acts and sympathy bestowed upon them,
both during and subsequent to their imprisonment." And the same
gentleman says further, "I think that the proportion of persons
discharged from prison by executive clemency, who have subsequently been
convicted of penal offences, is very small indeed." To some, whose
imaginations have pictured a broad waste or deep gulf between themselves
and the prisoner class, these may seem strange words; but there is no
mystery in this language to those who have listened to individual cases
of crime and punishment. Men are tried and convicted of crimes according
to rules and definitions which are necessarily arbitrary and technical;
but the moral character of criminals is not very well defined by the
rules and definitions which have been applied to their respective cases.
Our prisons contain men who are great and professional criminals,--men
who advisedly follow a life of crime themselves, and deliberately
educate generation after generation to a career of infamy and vice. As a
general thing, mercy to such men would be unpardonable folly. Of them I
do not now speak. But there is another class, who are involved in guilt
and its punishment through the defects of early education, the
misfortune of orphanage, accident, sudden temptation, or the influence
of evil companionship in youth.
The field from which this class is gathered is an extensive one, and its
outer limits are near to every hearthstone. To all these, prison life,
unless it is relieved by a hope of restoration to the world at the hand
of mercy, is the school of vice, and a certain preparation for a career
of crime. As a matter of fact, this class does furnish recruits to
supply the places of the hardened villains who annually die, or
permanently forsake the abodes of civilized men. What hope can there be
for a young man who remains in prison until the last day of his sentence
is measured by the sun in his course, and then passes into the world,
with the mark of disgrace and the mantle of shame upon him, to the
society of the companions by whose influence he first fell? For such a
one there can be no hope. And be it always remembered that there are
those without the prison walls, as well as many within, who resist every
effort to bring the wanderers back to obedience and right. I was present
at the prison in Charlestown when the model of a bank-lock was taken
from a young man whose term had nearly expired. The model was cut in
wood, after a plan drawn upon sand-paper by an experienced criminal,
then recently convicted. This old offender was so familiar with the
lock, that he was able to reproduce all its parts from memory alone.
This fact shows the influence that may be exerted, even in prison, upon
the characters of the young and less vicious. Now, can any doubt that
these classes, as classes, ought to be separated? Nor let the question
be met by the old statement, that all communication between prisoners
should be cut off. Humanity cannot defend, as a permanent system, the
plan which shuts up the criminal, unless he is a murderer, from the
light of the human countenance. Such penalties foster crimes, whose
roots take hold of the state itself.