e question of so placing it
that it will have some relation to State development and some
connection with the people's interests and desires. State institutions
should be so separated that the greatest number of people may see them
or come into contact with them. I dislike the tendency to group the
State institutions about certain populous centres. In these days of easy
transportation, the carrying problem is really of less importance than
certain less definite but none the less real relations to all the
people. There are certain great areas in the State of considerable
population in which there are no State institutions, and in which the
people know nothing about such affairs beyond the local school and
church. Perhaps at first blush the people of a locality might not relish
the idea of having a reformatory in their midst, but this feeling ought
soon to pass away; and, moreover, the people should be made to feel
their responsibility for reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries as
well as their responsibility for any other State institutions, and the
feeling should not be encouraged that such institutions should be put
somewhere else merely because one locality does not desire them.

The character of the property that is purchased will determine to a very
large extent the character of the institution, and, therefore, the
nature of the reformatory processes. This is more important than
transportation facilities. It is a more important question even than
that of the proper buildings, for buildings for these purposes have
been studied by many experts and our ideas concerning them have been
more or less standardized and, moreover, buildings can be extended and
modified more easily than can the landed area. It seems to me that
before you think actually of purchasing the land, you should arrive at a
fairly definite conclusion as to what kind of a farming enterprise it is
desired to develop as a background for the institution; you could then
determine as far as possible on principle in what general region the
institution ought to be located; and then set out on a direct
exploration to determine whether the proper kind and quantity of land
can be secured.

_The background spaces.--The open fields_

Here not long ago was the forest primeval. Here the trees sprouted, and
grew their centuries, and returned to the earth. Here the midsummer
brook ran all day long from the far-away places. Here the night-winds
slept. Her