PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND CRIME. 



321 



bounds of political liberty, enhanced the nation's wealth, and con- 

 tributed so largely to its power ? 



It, however, is further claimed, and almost universally allowed, 

 that the instruction of our public schools serves to ennoble the 

 emotions and to moderate the passions, to regenerate the viciously 

 inclined, and to correct and subdue the tendency to crime. De- 

 voutly as such a result is to be desired, the facts unhappily flatly 

 contradict the theory, and unless the glaring inconsistencies are 

 reconciled, and contravening evidence is satisfactorily explained, 

 the claim must be abandoned as unfounded. 



At a session of the National Prison Congress, held in Boston 

 during 1888, Mr. Brooker, chairman of the Board of Directors of 

 the South Carolina Penitentiary, having made the statement that 

 of a thousand convicts in the State not more than fifty were 

 whites, it was asked by a delegate, " What is the condition of the 

 education of the colored people ? " To this question Mr. Brooker 

 made the following reply : " Before emancipation, the colored peo- 

 ple had no opportunity for education. When made suddenly 

 free, all negroes were illiterate and ignorant. Since that time a 

 young generation has grown up, and of them a very considerable 

 number are well educated. But it is a fearful fact that a large 

 proportion of our prison population is of tlie educated class. 

 This is so much the case that the idea has become prevalent that 

 to educate the negro is to make him a rascal. But this idea is of 

 course superficial, and does not find lodgment in the minds of 

 thoughtful men. I am totally averse to it myself, and think that 

 all reasonable means should be exerted toward their enlighten- 

 ment and education." (" Proceedings of the National Prison Asso- 

 ciation/' 1888, p. 72.) 



The constructing engineer is to our industrial, commercial, and 

 mechanical development all that the statesman and student of 

 sociology is to our moral, social, and political progress. If in a 

 convention of engineers a verified report had been made that 

 bridges of accepted form were showing visible signs of weakness, 

 the report would have been listened to with the greatest con- 

 sternation and dismay. The convention would have instituted 

 the closest inquiry and most searching examinations; it would 

 have stopped the construction of such bridges until the causes of 

 failure had been determined and the remedy ascertained, and 

 failing in this the construction of such bridges would have been 

 permanently abandoned and more perfect structures substituted. 



But here was the most astounding fact that in South Carolina, 

 which in 1880 had more than half its population returned as 

 illiterate, the educated negroes furnished a large proportion of 

 its criminals, pressed upon a representative body of philanthro- 

 pists, publicists, and statesmen, and it did not so much as provoke 



