A SCHOOL FOR YOUTHFUL PRISONERS IN MAZAS, PARIS.
A PRISON SCHOOL IN PARIS.
In the large and gloomy prison called Mazas, in Paris, there is a school for the instruction of youthful offenders against the law. Most of them are very ignorant when they enter the prison, but they are taught reading, writing, and arithmetic during their term of confinement, and most of them leave their cells not only improved in morals, but fitted to earn their living in honest employment.
The prison is a gloomy place for a school; but it is better than the dreadful places from which its youthful inmates are taken, where they had begun to learn the ways and habits of older criminals. It is a wise thing to give them useful instruction as well as punishment, so that when they are set free they may not sink back into evil ways, and go on from bad to worse in a downward course.
No class in this prison school contains more than eight pupils at a time, and the school-room is very different from the pleasant, cheerful rooms where the pupils of our free schools are taught. It is a vaulted court lighted with gas, and the doors of the cells open into it. At each door is a plain wooden table, and the pupils sit in such a position that they can not see each other, while all are under the eye of the teacher.
The teacher, as may be seen in the picture, walks slowly back and forth in front of the open doors, listening to the recitation of the lessons. All the pupils respond at once, either reading from their slates or answering questions orally. It is really wonderful to see how quickly he detects the slightest error, and corrects it, when all are speaking at the same time. You may think that this is a very inconvenient way to learn; but bright boys, who were entirely ignorant when they entered the prison, have been known to write legibly in a month's time, and to do quite difficult sums in multiplication and division. The fact that they have nothing to divert their minds from their lessons, and that study is really a new kind of recreation for them, may account for this rapid progress.
When Louis Napoleon overthrew the French Republic in 1851, and made himself Emperor, Mazas became famous for the number of distinguished patriots who were confined there by the order of the usurper. A full description of the prison is given in Victor Hugo's History of a Crime.