“Man has two Creators: his God and himself. The first creator furnishes him the raw material of his life and the laws of conformity with which he can make that life what he will. His second creator, himself, has marvelous powers he rarely realizes. It is what a man makes of himself that counts. If a man fails in life he usually says, I am as God made me. When he succeeds in life he proudly proclaims himself a self-made man. Man is placed into this world, not as a finality, but as a possibility. Man’s greatest enemy is himself. Man in his weakness is the creature of circumstances; man in his strength is the creator of circumstances. Whether he be victim or victor depends largely on himself. Man is never truly great, merely for what he is, but ever for what he may become.”
Now that is pretty good meat. And that afternoon I was the one who learned the great lesson, for I learned that if we approach this subject in the right way we can waken, even in dormant minds, a desire for good literature. And my little experience of the afternoon revolutionized my method of dealing with the boys in this respect.
Dr. Jordan, of Boston, is the author of that book, and it is called “Self-Control.” Briefly and hurriedly I have just tried to sketch some of the phases in dealing with delinquency. Who are they for whom we should do these things? What claim have they upon us? What is our relationship to them? Did you ever hear the story of the Scotch girl, the one who was carrying a crippled boy over a street crossing in Edinburgh? A gentleman, seeing her burden, hastened up to assist and sympathize with her, and the girl looked up smiling and replied: “Ah, sir, I dinna mind it. He is my brither!”
FARMING FOR EX-CRIMINALS.
According to Salvation Army officials of England, there is something about farming which alters the criminal mind. Just what it is they do not profess to know, but they do know from experience that tilling the soil makes a better man of the ex-convict. Land-owners in the suburbs of London have become interested and have sold the Army numbers of small tracts. These tracts, in turn, are rented on easy terms to released prisoners with an arrangement by which the latter are further enabled to buy them outright. Thus far nine hundred men who have worn the stripes have been bettered in this way. So successful, in fact, has the scheme proved that the people of London are actually beginning to see in these farmers a means of supplying a deficient vegetable market—for London, like American cities, is suffering to an extent from the high cost of living.
There is room aplenty in America for farm colonies of ex-convicts. Considering the results obtained in England, the scheme would seem worthy of experiment on a scale sufficient to prove its merit or demerit.
THE OMAHA MEETING OF THE AMERICAN PRISON ASSOCIATION.
Report of the Delegate.
Omaha, Neb., October 20, 1911.