Where, it may be asked, are to be found the men who are
leaders in thought and action who have, without any religious influence
whatever, risen from the depths of misery, crime and filth? Where are to
be found the families now living in honesty and virtue, though still in
poverty, families in the midst of which every form of wickedness was
once to be seen, who owe nothing to religious influence? The rationalist
may claim that when his educational theories are adopted and put into
practice all dens of misery and vice will disappear, but he cannot
support his statement with convincing proofs. The teacher of religion is
infinitely better off. While he strenuously supports the adoption of
better and larger educational effort, he insists that, in order to gain
the active co-operation of those on behalf of whom it is to be employed,
religious influences must be brought to bear, and for the support of his
statement he need only say "open your eyes and look around you."

The influence of religion in regaining criminals cannot be gainsaid by
any, and the United States Educational Report for 1897-98 declares that
it is most important for the inculcation of sound morality, that
children should, from a very early age, be brought under the influence
of good religious teaching.

When the State is convinced that religious education is an absolute
necessity, it will approach the question of ways and means with a
determination that a satisfactory solution must be arrived at, and what
it will then demand is not so much an emasculated Bible as the bringing
to bear upon the children of the vital regenerative influences of
religion.

Chapter IX.

SOME AMERICAN EXPERIMENTS:--

THE PROBATION SYSTEM.

THE ELMIRA SYSTEM.

=The Probation System.=--In several of the States of America an attempt
has been made to devise a substitute for imprisonment in the cases of
persons convicted for minor offences.

The State of Massachusets was the first to take the lead by initiating a
somewhat elaborate system of probation.

Briefly described, it is an attempt to reform a prisoner
OUTSIDE.

Imprisonment for minor offences has had many bad features and should,
where possible, be avoided. Firstly, there is the stigma that attaches
to every man who has worn the broad-arrow. Secondly, there is the loss
of self-respect which, together with the contaminating influences
existing in a prison, often convert the minor offender into the hardened
c