trees, if you had had plenty of baths, if
you had had a school in the neighborhood. If you had taken some
interest in this family--some interest in this child--instead of
breaking into houses, he might have been a builder of houses.

There is, and it cannot be said too often, no reforming influence
in punishment; no reforming power in revenge. Only the best of
men should be in charge of penitentiaries; only the noblest minds
and the tenderest hearts should have the care of criminals.
Criminals should see from the first moment that they enter a
penitentiary that it is filled with the air of kindness, full of
the light of hope. The object should be to convince every criminal
that he has made a mistake; that he has taken the wrong way; that
the right way is the easy way, and that the path of crime never
did and never can lead to happiness; that that idea is a mistake,
and that the Government wishes to convince him that he has made a
mistake; wishes to open his intellectual eyes; wishes so to educate
him, so to elevate him, that he will look back upon what he has
done, only with horror. This is reformation. Punishment is not.
When the convict is taken to Sing Sing or to Auburn, and when a
striped suit of clothes is put upon him--that is to say, when he
is made to feel the degradation of his position--no step has been
taken toward reformation. You have simply filled his heart with
hatred. Then, when he has been abused for several years, treated
like a wild beast, and finally turned out again in the community,
he has no thought, in a majority of cases, except to "get even"
with those who have persecuted him. He feels that it is a
persecution.

_Question_. Do you think that men are naturally criminals and
naturally virtuous?

_Answer_. I think that man does all that he does naturally--that
is to say, a certain man does a certain act under certain circumstances,
and he does this naturally. For instance, a man sees a five dollar
bill, and he knows that he can take it without being seen. Five
dollars is no temptation to him. Under the circumstances it is
not natural that he should take it. The same man sees five million
dollars, and feels that he can get possession of it without detection.
If he takes it, then under the circumstances, that was natural to
him. And yet I believe there are men above all price, and that no
amount of temptation or glory or fame could mislead them. Still,
whatever man does, is or w