Can these facts be made to accord with the statement that the whole process of education is “building up of cerebral cells”? If Mr. Dugdale would substitute the term “moral faculties” for “cerebral cells,” he would theorize much more correctly and to better practical effect. Speaking of subjecting the growing criminal to a system of instruction resembling the Kindergarten, he says:
“The advantage of the Kindergarten rests in this: that it coherently trains the sense and awakens the spirit of accountability, building up cerebral tissue. It thus organizes new channels of activity through which vitality may spread itself for the advantage of the individual and the benefit of society, and concurrently endows each individual with a governing will.”
We agree with Mr. Dugdale that such a system of training is well calculated to bring about these results, but certainly not in the manner he indicates. Let us translate his language into that which correctly describes the process of improvement in the criminal, and we find it to be as follows:
Let the subject on whom we are to try the system of training in question be a boy of fourteen rescued from the purlieus of a large city. His education must be very elementary indeed. His intellectual faculties are to be treated according to their natural vigor or feebleness, but his moral faculties are especially to be moulded with care and watchfulness. He has been accustomed to gratify his evil passions and to yield to every propensity. The will, therefore, is the weakest of his faculties, and constant efforts must be made to strengthen it. With this view he should be frequently required to do things that are distasteful to him, beginning, of course, with what is easy and what might entail no discomfort on the ordinary boy. The will is thus gradually strengthened, both by this direct exercise and by the reaction upon it of the intellect, which is undergoing a concurrent training.
This is all that Mr. Dugdale means to convey when his words are translated into ordinary language. When he dismounts from his scientific hobby, however, he imparts counsel for the treatment of criminals which we heartily endorse. Thus, in speaking of industrial training, he says (p. 54): “The direct effect, therefore, of industrial training is to curb licentiousness, the secondary effect to decrease the craving for alcoholic stimulants and reduce the number of illegitimate children who will grow up uncared for.” He tells us that with the disappearance of log-huts and hovels—and, we might add, the reeking tenements of our cities—lubricity will also disappear. This is true to a great extent, but surely it is not all that is required. We might cultivate the æsthetic tastes to the utmost, we might have a population dwelling in palaces and lounging in luxurious booths, and be no better morally than those who, while enjoying those privileges, tolerated the mysteries of the Bona Dea and assisted at the abominations which have made the city of Paphos the synonym of every iniquity. All attempts at the reformation of our criminal classes without the instrumentality of religion will prove unavailing. You may “make clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanliness.” These words will for ever hold true of those who inculcate and pretend to practise morality without religion. The attempt has often been made, and has as often signally failed, so that we regard the presentation of proof here superfluous. The student of the history of social philosophy is well aware of the truth of this principle, and none but the purblind or the unwilling fail to perceive it. Religion is the basis of morality, and morality the pivot of reform. Let the friends of the criminals recognize these fundamental truths, and they may then hope to make some progress in their work. Then it will be time to defend and demonstrate the merits of the congregate system of imprisonment; then we might with profit insist upon the proper classification of prisoners, the necessity of proportioning penalty to offence, and not blasting the lives of mere boys by sending them for twenty years to Sing Sing for a first offence, thus compelling them to consort with ruffians of the most hardened description during the period which should be the brightest of their lives. Then all those reforms which philanthropists are ever planning might be wisely introduced, but not till then can we hope for the millennium of true reform to dawn upon us.
RELIGION IN JAMAICA.
The population of Jamaica numbers about half a million, of whom nearly four-fifths are blacks, one hundred thousand colored people, and only thirteen thousand Europeans. In addition to these there are several thousand Cubans and Haytians, who have been driven from their homes by political troubles, some thousands of Indian coolies, and a few Chinese and Madeira Portuguese.
Of this motley population only a few thousand are Catholics. The greater part of the English belong to the Church of England, which, however, has been disestablished in Jamaica for some years. These enjoy the full benefit of the usual High Church and Low Church party warfare. One of the leading clergy of this denomination has started a monthly paper in Jamaica, called the Truth-Seeker. It is to be hoped that he may be successful in his search. The last number which the writer saw contained arguments in favor of spiritualism, homœopathy, and Extreme Unction. The editor is a vegetarian and teetotaler, and is said to have employed in the communion service, as a substitute for wine, the juice of a few grapes squeezed into a tumbler of water. When the bishop was asked about it he made a wry face and expressed a hope that he might never receive the communion in his teetotal friend’s church again. This reminds us of an incident related by a Church of England parson. He arrived at Kingston by the mail steamer from England on a Sunday morning, and duly betook himself to a church. It happened to be communion Sunday, and he “stayed.” He noticed that most of the white people went up to receive first, and that the few who neglected to do so, and who communicated with the negroes, came back to their seats screwing up very wry faces. Our friend solved the mystery when, going up nearly last, he found that his black friends’ lips had imparted such a flavor to the cup that he did not lose the taste of it for hours!
But the most popular sect amongst the blacks is the Baptist. The Baptist ministers are credited with having been the cause of the insurrection a dozen years ago, which was attended with so much bloodshed. Their great recommendation to the people appears to consist in their teaching virtually that the country belongs to the black man, and that the whites endeavor to defraud them of their rights by giving them insufficient wages and by other means. The consequence is that the negroes frequently defraud their employers by theft, shirking work, injuring their property, and so forth.