ndent Whittaker, of the institution at Jeffersonville, Indiana,
says, "No." He believes that within ten years' time we will do away with
the high wall, and will keep our loaded guns out of sight; to a great
degree also we will take the bars from the windows of the prisons, just
as we have taken them away from the windows of the hospitals for
the insane.

At the reform school it may be necessary to have a guard-house for some
years to come, but the high wall must go, just as we have sent the
lock-step and the silent system and the striped suit of disgrace into
the ragbag of time--lost in the memory of things that were.

Four men out of five in the reformatory at Jeffersonville need no
coercion, they would not run away if the walls were razed and the doors
left unlocked. One young man I saw there refused the offered parole--he
wanted to stay until he learned his trade. He was not the only one with
a like mental attitude.

The quality of men in the average prison is about the same as that of
the men who are in the United States Army. The man who enlists is a
prisoner; for him to run away is a very serious offense, and yet he is
not locked up at night, nor is he surrounded by a high wall.

The George Junior Republic is simply a farm, unfenced and unpatroled,
excepting by the boys who are in the Republic, and yet it is a penal
institution. The prison of the future will not be unlike a young ladies'
boarding school, where even yet the practice prevails of taking the
inmates out all together, with a guard, and allowing no one to leave
without a written permit.

As society changes, so changes the so-called criminal. In any event, I
know this--that Max Nordau did not make out his case.

There is no criminal class.

Or for that matter we are all criminals. "I have in me the capacity for
every crime," said Emerson.

The man or woman who goes wrong is a victim of unkind environment.
Booker Washington says that when the negro has something that we want,
or can perform a task that we want done, we waive the color line, and
the race problem then ceases to be a problem. So it is with the Ex.
Question. When the ex-convict is able to show that he is useful to the
world, the world will cease to shun him. When Superintendent Whittaker
graduates a man it is pretty good evidence that the man is able and
willing to render a service to society.

The only places where the ex-convicts get the icy mitt are pink teas
and prayer meetings