The Kansas University Quarterly

CONTENTS
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY
Lawrence, Kansas
Price of this number, 50 cents
Entered at the Post-office in Lawrence as Second-class matter.
Journal Publishing House Lawrence, Kansas 1893
Kansas University Quarterly.
Vol. I.APRIL, 1893.No. 4.

BY F. W. BLACKMAR.
No doubt it is highly gratifying to the tax-payers of Kansas that the institution is on a self-supporting basis. Especially is this to be approved in a new state where so much must be done in a short time; where schools, churches, hospitals, asylums, and penal institutions must be built and maintained by the people almost before they have made themselves comfortable in a new country. These must be provided for, while railroads, roads, bridges and court houses must be built and the native resources be made productive for the support of all.
Again, in regard to the prevention of crime. One of the chief objects of penal servitude is to set an example before other evil-disposed persons of what the consequences must be if they in turn violate the law. But in each of these cases it is to make the commitment of crime less frequent that men are imprisoned, rather than that they should suffer for their sins. But, finally, in the last case the reform of criminals within or without the prison walls has become one of the prime principles of penology. No present system or theory can be complete in these days that does not consider in some manner the methods of bringing back into legitimate society those who by their deeds have become outcasts from the body politic. In the study of sociology there are two sides of social life to be considered: First, there is what might be called legitimate society, which has sprung up from indefinite and simple beginnings, but has grown into a strong organism, which might be called the proper status of social life; and then there is the other side of humanity which may be termed the broken down, decrepit or fragmentary part of the great social body, which may be called disorganized society. It is as much the duty of the reformer to study the organized and legitimate society as it is to study the disorganized or the fragmentary. In modern times there have been a great many who call themselves social scientists, who devote a great deal of time to the criminal and the pauper, and properly so, for, indeed, it is from these broken down parts of humanity that we realize more especially the nature of human society, and discern more clearly the means of preventing crime; but the ideal or legitimate society must not be lost sight of. We must keep before our eyes the proper laws, proper government and proper protection of organized society while we investigate the habits, conditions and qualities of its outcasts. Hence in all modern reforms there are two subjects to consider: A reform measure which shall by direct application tend to develop and strengthen that which is already considered good and, on the other hand, a reform measure which shall reclaim and reform that which is considered bad. In this respect the state prison and the state university are not so far apart as it would seem: one tending to build up and strengthen legitimate society, to protect the state in all its interests, to make law more prominent, reform more stable, human society more moral and intellectual, crime less frequent and industry more prevalent by well ordered education. These are the objects of the state university. While, on the other hand, in accordance with the last one of the penological principles stated, the prison has for its duty the same objects as the university, although applied to a class of individuals entirely different, who overstep the bounds of the law and by their own habits have abstracted themselves from legitimate society. Both institutions exist for the improvement of society and neither is instituted for the purpose of revenge.