66 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 
Furthermore, at Elmira a comprehensive and practi- 
cal scheme of school instruction has been developed. 
“The school and the library, supplemented by that 
unique weekly newspaper, the Summary, not only ad- 
vances the general good of the convicts, but strongly 
promotes good discipline, and are a signal aid to the 
industrial training. The method followed is, first, to 
have teachers of a high grade. Then to make much use 
of lectures, private reading, and written examinations at 
set times; and finally, to sharpen the intellect by discus- 
sions on serious topics, not to dull the mind by suppress- 
ing opinion or failing to encourage its freest expression. 
The class in practical ethics, composed of some 300 of the 
more advanced students, is the culmination of the school 
system, and is a debating society concerned with high 
and moral subjects of thought and feeling. Few whe 
have been present at its debates will ever forget the 
liveliness and shrewdness of these impassioned orators 
and causists.” 
The prison newspaper, the Summary, deserves a few 
words of explanation. It was first issued experimentally 
in 1883. It is used as a medium for the publication of 
rules and notices regarding the conduct of the institu- 
tion; it keeps the inmates informed in regard to affairs 
in the outside world, and it can be kept free from the 
defects of the ordinary newspaper. It now prints weekly 
some 2,500 copies, of which upward of 1,600 are used in 
the reformatory, while the rest are sent out to different 
cities and countries, where information is desired as to 
affairs at Elmira. 
“Not content with using the powerful agencies of 
hope and fear, reward and penalty, Mr. Brockway and 
his friends have created a complex, but symmetrically 
working, mechanism of daily schooling, occupation, sani- 
tation, drill and moral and mental training which keeps 
those primal agencies in constant activity. The convict 
is placed in a succession of movements which not only 
carry him along whether or no, but which sooner or 
later—and generally quite early in the process—convert 
his will to the promotion of his own improvement. The 
way is not so much made easy for him as it is made desir- 
able. Consequently, the public sentiment of the convicts 
