legislation making the sentence absolutely
indeterminate, so that those who resist the reformatory measures may be
kept in prison for a period co-terminous with that of their resistance.
The principles upon which the system is founded are developed in a
course of training described as a three M course, i.e. mental, moral and
manual. The machinery consists of, the indeterminate sentence, the
school of letters, the trade school, and the gymnasium.

=The Indeterminate Sentence.=--The ideal Indeterminate sentence provides
that when once a criminal falls into the clutches of the law he shall be
deprived of his liberty until he has given satisfactory evidence that he
is able to conduct himself as an honest and industrious citizen. It
makes no distinction between different crimes, such as to provide that
the man who embezzles shall receive a longer sentence than the man who
commits arson or vice versa, but makes the restoration of liberty depend
entirely upon reformation. It refuses to tolerate the idea that any
criminals should be at large to prey upon society, and it thus imposes
upon society the obligation to undertake the reform of all criminals.
This IDEAL sentence, however, does not exist. At Elmira, the
authorities are obliged to recognise a maximum, so that if at the expiry
of this maximum, the prisoner should have made no progress towards
reform he must, nevertheless, be discharged. Since, however, a man may
at Elmira reduce a sentence of ten years to something like 22 months, a
great incentive is given to him to identify himself with the efforts
being made on his behalf. From every point of view the indeterminate
sentence in the case of those sent to reformatories appears the most
reasonable. The business of the trial court is concluded as soon as the
question of guilt is determined. The judge has not imposed on him the
impossible task of measuring out a punishment which in its severity
shall exactly accord with the degree of crime committed. The question of
the prisoner's sanity is not left to the jury to decide but to qualified
alienists. Neither does this question determine his GUILT but
only his RESPONSIBILITY. No account has to be made of the
provocation from which the prisoner suffered at the committal of his
crime. If but a small degree of criminality exist, the safest adjustment
of punishment is to be found in the indeterminate sentence. From the
social point of view, it gives the best safeguard to the societ