responsible for bringing the touch of inspiration, the new vision, the turning from the old ways to the right ways of those under their charge. In the days gone by our prisons were places that blighted and cursed and brutalized those that went to them. Today so many changes have come in the institutions that our prisons are becoming places that will be blessings. I believe the day may come when every man and woman stepping out of our institutions will turn back on the threshold and say, "I thank God I ever entered there." Not because their stay was made so pleasant, not because it was made an easy place, for the prisons where the best discipline is maintained are generally the happiest, but because within, everything that could be done morally and educationally and spiritually was done, to lift them from the plane to which they had slipped onto a higher plane, where they could develop into better manhood and womanhood. If a man goes into prison as a burglar or thief, or a woman goes in with some taint or stain of crime, when they step out again they should have been cleansed from that evil and should go out ready to begin life over again.

I have always felt in my work within the prison walls that here was the time to prepare for the future and that they would be on the outside just what they become within those prison walls. When people have come to me on the outside and said, "How can we help the ex-prisoner?" I have always felt like saying, "Begin before he is an ex." The great thing is the preparation within the walls of our institutions. So many people say that the first day of new life is going to be the day of liberty. I feel the first day of the new life should be the day they enter the prison, the day sentence is passed and the old life is left behind them. That should be the first day of new hope and new inspiration and they should be made to feel that every day within those walls is a glorious opportunity that counts for the future.

Unless we make new men and women of those who come under our charge, all our work is a failure to take the broken and wrecked material with which the home and church and school and society has failed and make it over. Good discipline in our prisons is fine; educational advantages splendid; trades to be taught to those who come to us almost essential; good food to those poorly nourished; good hospital care to those defective; all these things are

splendid, but my friends it is too big a problem for human brains and hands to settle and handle alone, and I for one, would say if I believed that the little bit of work I have been trying to do through the Volunteer agency, was only my work and I was to rely upon my efforts and that was to be the test of the question, I would give it up tomorrow. But I believe we are instruments and messengers. Human souls have been entrusted to our care. Human bodies are in our hands. Human destinies are to be made straight and beautiful and every man and women of us has the right to look up and realize that the dear Hand that opened the blind eyes, that cured the sick one, that brought life to the dead, is waiting to be stretched out with its loving touch to those who need it so sorely, and somewhere deep down in their hearts, somewhere back in their poor, distorted consciences, somewhere beneath the surface in their human soul is that which will respond to the touch Divine. There is, within, the possibility that God has given to every human individual, purity and sweetness and helpfulness and love. We are made in the image of God and God knows that some of us did not have much of the image; but if we can yield our hearts and lives to the Divine touch, if we come out into the sunshine of His presence each day, something better, something sweeter, something more noble can be brought out in our hearts and lives that I will make the world better. So it is with those who have had so little chance. They have come from the dark places; they have not had the educational or spiritual or home or social or church privileges we have, and sometimes as we search their lives we find them so bare that they seem almost hopeless. It is for us to stretch out the loving, human hand that shall give the human touch, that paves the way for the touch Divine, and when that Divine touch has come to them we can step back and realize it is all worth while, for these we have helped to find God are not going out into the world poor creatures to whom we have given crutches, but they are going out made over, so that they will be sound and strong, true and good, and they themselves will stretch out a helping hand to others we might never reach, becoming in the world a blessing where they

were once a curse.

Adjourned, 4:45 p. m.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.

Assembly Room Hotel Oakland, 2:15 o’Clock.

CHAPLAINS' ASSOCIATION.

The Chaplains' Association met in the Assembly Room of the Hotel Oakland, at 2:15 o'clock. In the absence of the president, Rev. C. E. Benson, of Stillwater, Minnesota, First Vice-President, presided.

Major Walter Collins, of Columbus, Ohio, offered prayer.

REASONABLE WANTS OF THE PRISONER.

ORVILLE L. KIPLINGER, CHAPLAIN INDIANA STATE PRISON.

Ten years of intimate, daily contact and association with prisoners in one of the best prisons in the country has given me an opportunity to know whereof I speak.

I desire to state frankly before this body of some of the longings I know prisoners have which I believe to be based on perfectly legitimate wants. At the outset let me say that I know perfectly well some prisons generously meet some of these longings. I know of no prison that meets them all, but I believe they might be frankly met, and I think every prison chaplain should use his utmost influence to win for the prisoners these things which they so keenly desire.

First of all as a background for free expression as to the reasonable wants of the prisoner let us think for a moment of the matter of "prison discipline." Of course there must be "rules" and “discipline” in a prison, but in too many prisons the application of "discipline" is still wholly in the direction of restraint practiced objectively instead of in the direction of constructive self-control. In other words force is still the thing depended upon to work out reformation in men.

Why are men in prison? Because they lacked self-control. There is yet in most prisons entirely too much of the "thou shalt not" to bring men to self-control. In the training of a child it is

not enough to make him do certain things that are right. Successful training makes him want to do the things which are right. Under the heavy and inflexible force of prison discipline whose central tenet is "thou shalt not" if a man becomes a good prisoner it is too often the result of fear. Ofttimes he learns more of cunning and deceit than he knew before he came to prison, is not changed by the force applied, and when the restraint is removed the chances are he will fall again. If there is no goodness in the man you cannot make him good by rules. Unless he is taught to see the advantages of right living as its own reward the so-called "discipline" is a total failure.

The most of things for which men in prison long are denied them in the interests of "prison discipline." That "a good discipline" may be maintained, prisoners must not talk to one another; must not speak to guards and officers unless spoken to; must on no account try to state their own side of a case-that would be "talking back"; must be denied, except twice in a month, the privilege of seeing relatives; must not see a newspaper except one which has been censored; must be denied the opportunity for selfexpression which letter writing affords; must obey rules which they have no part in making. All these "thou shalt nots", and many others, are still in full force in many prisons "for the sake of discipline."

The convicted man entering prison is too often met by an officer who shows no interest in him other than perhaps an inquisitive curiosity. The moment he passes through the gate the iron hand of "discipline" is felt in a gruff command: "Remove your hat." Perhaps without a word the man is marched to a place where the next word is: "Remove your clothes." The next spoken word is a command to take a bath, followed by another to "Put on these clothes." Perhaps he is then told how to hold his cap and when to remove it and told when he enters the dining-room to fold his arms and sit in silence until the others begin to eat; never to take more bread than he can eat, and if he does by chance take more, to break off only that portion which he means to eat and place the rest forward on the table where it can be gathered up. Then he is told when through eating to fold his arms, look straight forward

and keep silence until the signal to march from the dining-room. He is told that he will find a book of rules in the receiving cell which he is to study, and ordered to march to the receiving cell. For the sake of "discipline" no genuinely kind word has been spoken. He is thrust into the receiving cell with scant courtesy and left for a time to meditate on the error of his way.

If the prison contains an old-time cell house the receiving cells are usually located there and almost at once the new prisoner is put at the most menial tasks until he is regularly assigned to labor, tasks such as carrying out night buckets and scrubbing the floor. Of course this work is necessary, but it might be done by men who have been longer in the prison and the new man given a moment to adjust himself and to see and understand for himself the necessity for it, when he would gladly join in the task. As it is, the custom makes the new recruit to feel from the beginning that he is a degraded creature and that the first desire of the prison is to humiliate him.

After he has his picture taken and receives instructions from the deputy warden he is assigned to work, possibly on some contract, possibly on some state work, where he is compelled to do a certain amount of work without pay, and if he fails or offends in any small particular he is promptly reported. Often it matters little how unjust or hasty the report, he cannot defend himself. If he denies the charge he is made to feel that he is considered a liar, for, for the sake of "discipline", the officer must always be supported. No matter if the man, having been some time in prison and having conscientiously tried to obey all rules, has only forgotten for a moment to fold his arms in the dining-room, if observed by an officer he may be reported, and the lightest punishment administered is a reprimand which enters into the records against him and goes down as a spot against him.

Such discipline makes a prisoner bitter and rebellious. The fact that he has not a word to say about how he shall act and live within the prison is a weak point in the so-called "prison discipline." Government without the consent of the governed is doomed to failure. The sooner penologists recognize this fact the sooner will all prisons have a "constructive discipline.'