322 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a comment, while the author of the statement boldly affirmed his 

 unshaken faith in a theory the facts of which he had himself 

 impugned. What deference should we pay to thought unless 

 based upon correct observations, and of what utility are facts and 

 experiences unless their teachings are heeded and their meaning 

 properly interpreted ? 



In his "Political Science" Woolsey tells us that "the fall of 

 the Roman Empire was an effect of a moral ruin." Yet all will 

 admit that Rome and the other civilizations of antiquity were 

 richer and more learned in the time of their decay than during 

 the period of their infancy and growth ; but the moral correlative 

 being wanting, they tottered to their fall. 



Just look at the records of our mentally and morally deranged 

 as exhibited in our statistics of insanity and crime and vice, and 

 they alone are enough to cast doubt upon the claim that a public- 

 school education for our illiterates is sufficient to insure a decrease 

 of mental and moral delinquency. For it remains to be explained 

 why, in the decade ending with 1880, population having increased 

 thirty per cent and illiteracy only ten per cent, a relative decrease ; 

 that the number of criminals during the same period present the 

 alarming increase of eighty-two per cent, while of insane persons 

 there appears the enormous addition of one hundred and forty- 

 five * per cent ? 



Can it be possible that with greater educational facilities there 

 is to be increased crime, and that every enlargement in the seat- 

 ing capacity of our schools is to be followed by a larger corre- 

 sponding demand for insane accommodations, and additional 

 felons' cells ? Perish the thought ! Yet if the instruction of our 

 common schools subdues the tendency to crime, why is it that the 

 ratio of prisoners,! being one in 3,442 inhabitants in 1850, rose 

 to one in every 1,647 in 1860, one in 1,021 in 1870, and one in 837 

 in 1880 ; while, upon the authority of the Rev. S. W. Dicke, the 

 amount of liquor consumed per capita was three times as great 

 in 1883 as in 1840 ? 



One naturally looks to the large and constant influx of foreign 

 immigrants as a partial explanation of this growing dispropor- 

 tionate increase of crime ; but the facts deny the hope, for the 

 great increase is to be found among the native-born. The Rev. 

 F. H. Wines, who conducted this branch of the " Tenth Census 

 Report," says that, while in 1850 the ratio of foreign criminals to 

 population was five times that of the native-born, in 1880 the 



* It is but fair to state that this enormous increase of insanity has led the compiler to 

 question the accuracy of the returns of insane persons made in 1870, yet it is admitted 

 that, after making every allowance, the ratio of increase is out of all proportion to that 

 of population. (See page 1660, "Compendium of the Tenth Census.") 



\ "Proceedings of the National Prison Congress," 1886, p. 134. 



