We realized in the early years of its history that such a work as the one of which I write could only be seen and appreciated by the world at large in the years of the future when our "boys" had come back into liberty and had had time to prove the genuineness of their purpose. Already this day has dawned, and all over the country the forerunners of the thousands still to come are proving that the work is no experiment, though naturally many have neither seen them nor looked into the lives of those still in prison. It is hard to make the wholly uninformed concede that any good thing can come from such a place. Many a time when talking to friends after some drawing-room gathering, at a dinner table or in the cars, they will say with a look of almost compassion, "But are you not afraid to talk with these men? Is it not very dreadful to have to come into contact with them?" I try to explain that they are my friends, that the respect, courtesy and attention I receive from them could not be excelled in any circle of society; but the raised eyebrows and incredulous looks tell plainly that I have not answered the question, simply because to their minds all criminals are of the same stamp as Tracy, the James brothers and Czolgosz. They cannot conceive of men of education, refinement or gentlemanly instincts in prison. Constantly I am asked, "But how can you talk to these men; what can you say; how do you touch or appeal to such an audience?" I answer, "Precisely as I should to any lecture audience or from the pulpit of any fashionable church." I am talking, not to the criminal with the theft of a pocketbook or with manslaughter, burglary or murder on his record but to the man, to the soul, the heart. It is just here that a grave error could be made. If we always associate the prisoner with his crime, with the stripes, the cell, the surroundings, we get wofully far away from him and even find ourselves beyond the point where we can reach him at all. The crime was one incident of his life, his imprisonment is but the fact of to-day. Before he was a prisoner he was a man, and in the future world he will be simply a man, so why not talk to him and think of him as a man to-day. A lady was recently being shown over a penal institution (which will remain nameless save to say that it was not a state prison), and the officer who was explaining the system took her from room to room that she might understand their régime. He showed off company after company as a professor might exhibit specimens in the different classes of zoology, talking of them loudly in their hearing. At last coming to one of the lower grades he said, "You will note the inferior intelligence of these men, their poorer development. These are much lower in mental and moral capacity and there is very little hope for them. They are many of them very degraded and seem devoid of moral instinct." Certain malformed heads and many poorly nourished bodies were pointed out and all this while