Sometimes it is very disheartening, and yet that is to be expected. Even constant vigilance over some of these weak and enervated individuals would not succeed in keeping them from lapsing; but on the whole, religion is a power for good in prison work. It makes deep impression on the unfortunate, soothes them in time of anger and resentment against the world, buoys them up in moments of despair, encourages them to begin again in their efforts to overcome themselves, and usually sends them out with the desire at least to be better men and women.

CHAIRMAN MAYER: I will now call upon the Rev. Adolph Guttman, of Syracuse, to discuss the paper just read.

REV. ADOLPH GUTTMAN: The paper to which we have just listened has my utmost admiration. I admire its tone, its form, its earnestness, its urgent and eager desire to arrive at the truth. The subject under consideration is an important and a very interesting one, "Religious Influence in Prison Work." Two thoughts, two ideas, two institutions, at the first blush foreign to each other, are brought here in close contact, in most intimate relations with each other. Religion and prison, religion and State, religion and sociology, religion and practical prison work. That is a splendid union, that is an excellent alliance, just as it should be. It is true church and State are divorced in this our land, but the church only because there are so many; but religion and State must never become separated. There are many churches, but there is only one religion. I agree and believe with the speaker that religious services conducted by the chaplains of the various de nominations exert a beneficent influence upon the inmates of our prisons, but I also believe that every agency that corrects and humanizes and lifts up the unfortunates and helps to raise the whole tone of life in prison, comes distinctly within the scope of religious influence in prison work. I hold that all work which is being done in prison and out of prison for the betterment and the reformation of our fallen brothers and sisters is distinctly and strictly religious, religious in the broadest and truest sense of the term. Why, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this very Conference of Charities and Correction, that these very meetings we are holding here this week are not only of a charitable and humane character, but that they are intensely religious. Years

ago I heard Mr. Talmage say, "Wherever a kind word is spoken, wherever a friendly, generous, loving deed is performed, there the Shekinah dwells, there we stand upon holy ground." Religion is nothing, unless it is everything, unless it touches every human activity, unless it enters into all human experience, spiritual, moral, intellectual and physical. To be sure, we must make much of the purely spiritual services; we must make much of worship and prayer, of symbol and ceremony, of rite and hymn; but we must also make much of law and life, of virtue and purity, of kindness and sympathy, of conduct and character, of culture and manhood. Yes, we want beauty of holiness, but we also want beauty of life. You will remember the biblical story of the Shunammite mother and her dead child. The prophet's servant comes and puts the staff upon the dead child, but the child remains dead. Then the prophet Elisha comes, stretches himself upon the child, with his eyes upon his eyes, with his hands to his hands, with his mouth to his mouth, and, to the joy of its mother, the child is brought back to life. Now the lesson is obvious. It teaches us that faith without works is dead; that to the purely spiritual service there must be added the practical personal service. If we would reclaim our fallen brothers and sisters in our penal institutions; if we would awaken them again to life and light and duty, then we must come to them, as the prophet of old, we must come to them with warm, loving, sympathetic hearts; we must come into the closest contact with them, eye to eye, hand to hand, heart to heart; we must put the arm of brotherly love around them as the children of one Heavenly Father, and under such beneficent influences, old stains and old iniquities are wiped out, the soul is resuscitated, and hope is reborn, faith in God and in man is revived, character stimulated, aspirations quickened. And in the course of time, at least with many of them, we will be able to say to society in the words of the prophet, "Take thy child, thy child liveth." But the question is, is society willing to receive back her child? My answer is, I am sorry to say, no. There are societies, God be thanked, which give to discharged prisoners a helping hand, personal assistance, kindly advice; they give themselves, which is the best thing they can give. But they find it very difficult to secure employment for discharged prisoners, for the

revived children; for as soon as it is known that they are exconvicts they are not wanted and so shunned by society, disappointed and discouraged, many of them drift back into a felon's cell. It is safe to say that two-thirds of those that go back to prison are those who have been driven back by the chilly, heartless reception they have met on the part of society. It is society, then, the mother, that destroys the good work of faithful chaplains and well-meaning prison officials, by refusing to receive her penitent child that is willing, at least often willing, to turn over a new leaf in the book of life.

Let me give you, ladies and gentlemen, but one instance of the many instances, illustrating this statement, that have come to my notice during the eighteen years I have been connected with prison work. A young man, having been discharged from prison, went to Brooklyn to answer an advertisement for work. He was asked by the employer, "Where have you worked before?" The young man, not wanting to start life anew with a lie the result of religious influence in prison, for many a man has found the first experience of his religious conviction in prison-answered frankly: "I have just been discharged from prison, but I mean to lead a good life." The man became furious, and he said: "Do you think that I am a prison keeper? How dare you apply to an honest man?" Then turning to his clerk, he said: "Frank, see this ex-convict out of the office, and tell the rest of the applicants that no man who has come from behind prison bars need apply."

How heartless, how inhuman! Do you wonder that many drift back into prison after being received so coldly and so indifferently? Yes, religious influence is a most potent power for good in prison work. There is no doubt about it. We need it in our prisons, we need it to reform our prisoners, but we need it also without the prison, to reform society, until men and women shall know that we have duties to perform towards our brother men, until they shall learn that great lesson, "I am my brother's keeper!" not only within, but also without the prison.

But, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that this duty addresses itself especially to this Conference, to these good, noblehearted men and women who have come here from all parts of this State to participate in these deliberations. Let us go out as

messengers of God Almighty bearing this noblest of gospels, preaching the true religion to love our brother man! Oh, may the time soon come when this coldness towards those erring children shall be transmuted into the warmth of kindness and compassion. Then, and not until then, friends, shall we be able to measure the real force, the real merit of religious influence in prison work.

CHAIRMAN MAYER: This is the time for a general discussion of this paper; but if no one cares to discuss this subject farther, we will proceed with the next paper. We are privileged to hear from Dr. Charles F. Howard, President of the Board of Managers of the Elmira Reformatory, whose paper is entitled, "Present Methods and Work of the State Reformatory at Elmira."

PRESENT METHODS AND WORK OF THE STATE REFORMATORY AT ELMIRA.

When I was asked to write a short paper on the Present Methods and Work of the State Reformatory at Elmira, I accepted the honor quite reluctantly.

To speak of the present methods and to present them to you. without arousing in the minds of some a lurking suspicion that I am placing the management of the institution of five years ago on the defensive, is a difficult matter.

I do not wish to detract in the least from the good work accomplished by Mr. Brockway during his twenty-three (23) years of valuable service. The general plan for the reformation of the young men committed to our care is the result of that man's genius. We have not changed the principles as laid down by him, but we have changed the methods of applying them.

DISCIPLINE.

A writer once said and very truly, ""Tis better to keep children to their duty by a sense of honor and by kindness than by fear of punishment." "The big stick" which we are hearing so much about nowadays may make nations stand in awe and fear of us, but it has never reformed a criminal.

Corporal punishment at the Reformatory was discontinued voluntarily by Mr. Brockway in 1899, more in deference to the wishes.

of the managers than from a conviction on his part that as a disciplinary measure it had been a failure. After its abolishment inmates who violated the rules of the institution were punished by a reduction from a higher to a lower grade, which meant to them several months longer service, or, if in the lowest grade, they were deprived of their meals or fed on bread and water for a certain period, and separated from the general population by being confined in their cells. On account of the large number of this class, frequent transfers were made to the State prisons.

In 1900 the board of managers after a careful investigation into the physical condition of those confined for a long time in the lowest grade, decided that deprivation of meals and the bread and water menu should be discontinued, and the result arising from this change, I assure you, was most satisfactory. It is an old saying that you can always reach a man through his stomach, and a well-fed and well-nourished person must necessarily be in a more normal mental condition and therefore more easily susceptible to moral treatment than one whose brain is crying out for the lifegiving elements which are absent from his blood through lack of nutrition.

We now have no physical punishment for infractions of the rules of the institution. A reduction to and the isolation of the lowest grade from the general population is the penalty for continued disregard of the requirements demanded. Those in that grade are required to do such light work as mending socks and clothing. If disobedient while there, they are compelled to do the work in their cells. A month's perfect record releases them, and they are restored to their place in the general routine. Few if any stay there longer than a month. The average number in that grade is thirty-five (35) out of a population of twelve hundred and seventy-five (1275). This, you must admit, is a very small percentage when you consider that these young men are felons, many steeped in vice and crime, and at that age when restraint is most irksome.

In 1900, one hundred and thirty (130) men were locked in cells for various offenses; at the present time not one is in solitary confinement. This improvement, in my opinion, has been brought about by carefully selecting the minor officers; by the action of