We are aiming at something definite in the construction of our new prison. We are going to try to give that large class of boys and young men that come to prison for the first time one more opportunity of going through life without being immured in a prison cell. In the construction of our buildings, our domicile accommodation will be largely of the dormitory type;—small dormitories, accommodating 14 beds, with a large, semi-circular bay window on one side which will serve as a sitting room; attached to which dormitory will be a completely equipped bedroom and dressing room. The corridor which runs along the side where the officers will patrol is divided from these rooms that I speak of by a glass partition, so that our men are thoroughly under observation every hour of the day and night, and there will be no opportunities whatever for some of those things that penologists so much dread. In addition to that, we have a number of single rooms and a number of cells; but in a prison which is destined to accommodate 600, we are only putting in 40 cells. The men who behave and who demonstrate that they can appreciate that dormitory life and maintain the condition of it, we hope to give ultimately a single room; and the men who fail to appreciate this dormitory life and don’t behave as we wish them to will then be demoted into a cell; but we are going to try, as I say, to get those boys through life, if possible, without the cell. Will we succeed? I don’t know. I don’t know. We have our critics; but this world will never be saved by the critics; it will be saved by the dreamers. The history of humanity is the history of indomitable hope. Emerson says that “Every thing is free to the man that can grasp it;” that “He who despairs is wrong.”
In dealing with delinquents, it is the personal touch that tells. Human nature craves for sympathy. Kingsley was once asked what the secret of his joyous, buoyant life was; and his ready reply was: “I had a friend.” Our Saviour was no exception to this rule; for as our Saviour approached Gethsemane, he yearned for a friend whom he could rely upon to wait and watch while he endured; and expressed it in that pathetic request to the drowsy Peter and his sleepy comrades. When we see a very simple duty staring us in the face in dealing with this class, we are too prone to say, “Lord, here am I. Send him.” It is an easy matter for a man of means to write his check, or give his cash; but it is an entirely different thing to carry that gift to some poor fellow who is down and out and sweeten it with the fragrance of personal kindness.
“Not what we give, but what we share;
The gift without the giver is bare.”
We have church service at our place every Sunday afternoon and Wednesday afternoon; one day our preacher failed to materialize. The men were in the chapel; and I did not wish to have them return to the cells without saying something to them; as I could not preach I thought I would do the next best thing, and I would read another fellow’s sermon; only, I gave the other fellow credit for it. I was reading a book just then that interested me very much; and I went down to the office and got it, and I read the first chapter; and when I finished, I asked if I should read more, and they said, “Yes, Warden.” I read a second and a third chapter; I read as long as my voice would hold out; and as I had finished, a man down in the audience said, “Won’t you be kind enough to tell me the name of that book, and the author?” I was very glad to have them ask the question; I told him. The next morning when I was going through the prison industries, the officers kept asking me what book I read, the previous day. I said, “Why do you ask?” They said, “The men are all talking about it.” I sent down town and got fifteen copies and sent it around among the cells, with instructions that no one man could keep it for more than a week. When we collected the books at the end of the first week, I found that a great many men had taken paper and copied out portions of it. This was practically a non-reading population. They had refused a lot of good books we had put in our library which I had thought were fine, much to my disappointment. Perhaps you would like to know the kind of book they so much enjoyed; and, with your permission, I will just read you the first page of the first chapter.
“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.
My time is up.
(A Voice: “Go on!”)
A Member: Who is the author of that book?