Vaux.) 662 [June 20, 
released. Visits from his family and judicious persons are encouraged. 
Every prisoner is, therefore, treated as his case requires. The purpose as 
to each of all is to try and change his course of life, and thus benefit him 
and society. It is believed this method is successful in a large majority of 
first convictions of first offenders. 
Incarceration is not punishment, it is only the condition under which it 
may reasonably be applied. Continuous labor during incarceration does 
not in itself constitute the entirety of punishment. It should be, how- 
ever, adopted as an instruction, an element or marked feature in the dis- 
cipline, with other instructions in the process of making punishment a 
personal benefit and an advantage to the public. Teaching a prisoner a 
trade, by which he may become self-supporting on his release from pun- 
ishment, is a gain both for him and the community, hat is labor which 
pays in morals, and as an industry intended to be both punitive and refor- 
matory, it pays as an economy, It is doubtful if the man or the State 
gains any practical good by the incarceration at labor only, of violators of 
luw. It is not doubtful that the outcome of congregating convicts at labor 
as their only punishment is dangerous to the general security. From this 
association a crime-class is established to war on the general welfare as its 
occupation. Punishment should attempt to reconstruct the enfeebled or 
irrational or misdirected character. 
To discover the crime-cause, the weaknesses, the untaught and corrupted 
conditions and the positive needs of each convict is the antecedent of any 
rational method for his treatment in prison, and for the application of any 
moral alterative or corrective. This is undoubtedly the purpose, the aim 
and the gain of punishment. In this view the subject is elevated out of 
the domain of benevolence to the character of an important social science. 
It is this philosophy which regulates and characterizes the individual 
treatment of the Eastern State Penitentiary. To attain this purpose re- 
quires trained and competent officials, who, by long service, become qual- 
ified for their duties. It must be for them a vocation. Their tenure of 
positions must originate in high character, and continue with their useful- 
ness in their responsible trust. 
In the fifty-three annual reports of the Inspectors of the Eastern State 
Penitentiary will be found the history of the growth of the experiment 
which originated in Philadelphia a century ago, These reports, from the 
year 1829 to the present time, contain very interesting descriptions of the 
merits, and the objections to the separate system, and, from 1870 to 1883 
inclusive, a thorough explanation of the changes and improvements in the 
system, and an exposition of the scientific principles which underlie them. 
It may be justly claimed that the reforms in prison systems, or their 
administration; in the United States, as well as in foreign countries, are 
the out-come of the century of labors, efforts, and experience of the be- 
nevolent and philosophic men who in Philadelphia originated and have 
given to the Pennsylvania system its renown. 
And it may with equal justice be maintained that those reforms in con- 
