Education And Crime

It has been claimed, evidently ( out due consideration of the facts, that . ed jcation has no tendency to prevent crime, and some have loosely said that t tends to increase it. Such assertions imply an ignorance of the facta as to what our schools are doing, if not an ignorance of what education is, They may be dHe, in part, to a narrow conception of education, as reBtricted to mere intellectual culture. But intellectual culture is not the whole work of the schools, liablo as one might be to infer ït from the , ular deniand for intellectual resulta. The wise parent and the competent teacher do not forget that moral ; etruction, the formation of character, the shaping of the life, and the care of the physical health, are all indispensable in the grand purpose of education. But whatever the drawbacks from an imperfect conception, or an imperfect esecution of educational work, the question is still asked, "Are our schools to be regarded as an influential agëncy in lessening vice and crime, and in lifting up the people to a higher plane of civilization? If universal, elementary education does not favor crime, and this is not often pretended, it is still asked, Are the highcr grades of education any safeguard aains,t criminal tendencies? Some two years ago, in a discussion on high schools in Massachusetts, the assertion was made that sixty per cent. of the convicta in the Philadelphia prisons were high school graduates. The truth of the statement was at onoe challenged, and a committee appointed to make inquiry on the subject. J. P. Wickeraham, LL. D., for fifteen years superintendent of public instruction in Pennsylvania, acted as head of the conimittee, and has recently made his report. He ascertains that in 1879 the Philadelphia penitentiary received 487 oonvicts. Of these, 82 had never attended school of any kind, five had attended college for an average of six years, seven had attended high school au average of two years; twelve had attended private schools, but never public, an average of seven and balfyears; 390 had attended pubic schools, 169 advancing to the jrammar grade, the average age at eaving school being 14, and the averge time of remaining in school, five ear?. From these figures it appears hat, instead of a large percentage of ïigh school graduates in the peniteniarv, only seven of all the eonvicts .i ti' i y j il i y v ' v vii j i míü v ' ■ ■ v- v - v ,hat year had ever attended a high chool, nol one of whom remained ong enough to become a gradúate. Tive reported themselves as having attended colleges, but they must have )een peculiar colleges to have permitted their attendnce, five, sevea and ten yeará, a3 they stated. The etatistica of the same prisen for 1880, also furnished by Dr. Wickersham, only reptat those oí' 1879, and amply refuto the statement made in the Massaebusetts meeting. The result reached is also forti fied by the comDined statement of Pennaylvania's Board of Public Charities, which shows the educational relations of all the convicts sentenced to the jails and work-houses of the state in 1879, including Moyamensing piison. Of 2,307 of thia class, only 13 claimed a superior education, and it does not appear that there was a college or high school gradúate amoDg them. Furthermore, it was found that of Ö71 convicts the same and succeeding year in the penitent iary of western Pennsylvania, only three were set down by the prison authorities as having what they called a superior education. A similar showing, we have no doubt, could be made by all the prisons of the land. As education is an influential factor in the life of man, the inference must be that if it it does not impel him in the direction of crime, it must influence him in the opposite direction. And prison statÍ8tic3 do show an immensely large proportion of the unlearned among the convicts. The census returns, which draw a sharp line between the literate and illiterate, help us to a knowledge of the fact that there is a much larger proportion of unlearned men in prisons than there are in the cominunities from which they come. The facts of the prison and the facts of the census, justify these conclusions. (1) That about one-sixth of all the crime in the eountrv is committed bv persons wholly ïlhterate. (J) That about one-third of it is committed by persons practically illiterate. (3) That the proportion of crimináis among the illiterate is about ten times as great as among those who have beer instructed in the elements of a common school education. It is not claimed that education and the schools accomplish all they ought to do, or may do, for the good of the young aiid for general society. Teachers are not always what they sbould be, and the best are nut always properly sustained in their work. A large portion of children reroain under the teacher's instruction only a short time, and at best only about onef ourth of the hours of the day. But with all disadvantages and drawbacks, the schools should be cheríshed as a potential agency for good to the rising generation, aud to be made, through the watchful suporintendence of patrons and the fidelity of the teacher, more than ever, a safeguard against the encroachments oí vice and crime.