EDUCATION AND CRIME. 215 



one denied the murder, yet the papers tell us that the doctor 

 was triumphantly acquitted and honored by the society of the 

 city as a hero, instead of being counted by the census as a 

 criminal. 



And it is only in a high state of society that offenses against 

 virtue cease to be either overlooked or avenged by violence. In 

 this very State of South Carolina there are only four such offend- 

 ers reported in prison, while Michigan has forty and Massachusetts 

 over two hundred. The latter State, indeed, has more than all the 

 illiterate States together. Yet, are we to think that Michigan is 

 ten times as sinful as South Carolina, or that Massachusetts has 

 more vice than all the ignorant States combined ? McDow's case 

 shows that such vice exists, and how it is regarded. A clergyman 

 of the South recently asserted in the Nation — and he has not been 

 contradicted — that only a small minority of the colored women 

 were chaste ; yet the census makes them far more virtuous than 

 their white sisters of the North. We do, indeed, hear quite fre- 

 quently of negroes being lynched for such offenses, but they obvi- 

 ously do not count in the census. 



Therefore, though education may swell the list of criminals, 

 there are reasons for thinking that more education and not less is 

 what certain parts of our country need. They need more prison- 

 ers. If more men were punished for drunkenness and violence, 

 there would be less murder. If more murderers were executed 

 instead of being lynched or lionized, there would be less violence. 

 It is by checking the lesser offenses that the greater offenses are 

 avoided, though the prisons are filled thereby. And as civiliza- 

 tion improves in the South, no doubt the proportion of men in 

 prison will increase, at least for the present ; and the whole 

 country can not rise in its standard of moral conduct without 

 increasing the law-breakers, especially while we have to assimi- 

 late each year such a large and often lawless element from other 

 lands. 



One of the results of raising the mass to a higher moral level 

 is, that individuals here and there drop out ; and the higher we 

 are raised the more will drop, and this will continue till those in- 

 capable of self-control have disappeared. It is only among sav- 

 ages — where there is no chance to drop, because all are on the 

 ground — that we find no criminals or paupers. And Mr. Reece 

 actually sighs for the " perfect order " found associated with the 

 " densest ignorance " among the cave-dwelling Veddahs and other 

 tribes. Possibly we might attain this " perfect order " if we would 

 imitate the savages in leading a savage life. But that would be a 

 pretty dear price to pay for such order as savages secure. 



Most of us prefer civilization with all its drawbacks. We pre- 

 fer to see our country settled, though we know that jails will be 



