THE BIG HOUSES

The plan for a carefully worked out system of education for criminals has been proposed by A. H. MacCormick, assistant director of the United States Bureau of Prisons. The program is the result of a detailed study of penal conditions throughout the country which testified that immediate and drastic changes are necessary if American penal institutions are to fulfill their purpose effectively.

That there is need for some such system of instruction is demonstrated by the findings of the recent survey which discovered that almost 25 percent of the men and women in the prissons are illiterate, and so many as 75 per cent have never advanced beyond the sixth grade.

If such an attempt were made to educate criminals it would not be a case of shutting the stable after the horse had gone. In rare cases is imprisonment alone a complete deterrent to crime. Little is to be gained by freeing a man who has nothing but a feeling of bitterness against society and the state. Under the present regime it is debatable whether the released prisoner is any more competent to adjust himself correctly to the demands of organized society than before his incarceration. The educative plan of Mr. MacCormick has been urged with the end in view of remedying this primary evil of maladjustment, and to inculcate a fuller sense of social responsibility.