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 publicschool 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[1] per cent?
Can it be possible that with greater educational facilities there is to be increased crime, and that every enlargement in the seating capacity of our schools is to be followed by a larger corresponding 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,[2] 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 disproportionate 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.
