It was at one time thought that the great panacea for the prevention of
crime was education. Undoubtedly education has an important bearing on
criminality, but we now know that the mere intellectual rudiments of
education have very little influence indeed in preventing crime, though
they may have a distinct influence in modifying its forms. Such education
merely puts a weapon into the hands of the anti-social man. The only
education that can avail to prevent crime in any substantial degree must
be education in the true sense, an education that is as much physical and
moral as intellectual, an education that enables him who has it to play a
fair part in social life. The proportion of criminals with some
intellectual education is now becoming very large; the proportion of
criminals who are acquainted with any trade still remains very small; the
proportion of criminals engaged in their trade at the time of the crime is
smaller still. We seem to be approaching a point at which it will become
obvious that every citizen must be educated to perform some useful social
function. In the interests of society he must be enabled to earn his
living by that function. If we close the social ranks against him he will
enter the anti-social ranks, and the more educated he is the more
dangerous he will then become.
All education must include provision for the detection and special
treatment of abnormal children. We cannot catch our criminals too young.
Taverni has found that criminals in childhood are marked especially by
their resistance to educative influences. It is our duty and our interest
to detect such refractory and abnormal children at the earliest period, to
examine them carefully, and to ensure that each shall have the treatment
best adapted to him. It is much easier, and much cheaper, to do that, than
to wait until he has brought ruin on himself and shame on his friends.
This is beginning to be recognised and acted upon in those countries that
are most alive to the meaning of education; in Sweden, for instance, there
is a careful medical supervision of schools, by medical officers who are
not subordinate to the teachers, although this supervision is confined to
the physical condition and capacities of the child. It is indispensable,
if we are to deal effectually with the criminal, that we should be able
to refer to the record of his physical, mental, and moral dispositions
during childhood. In England recently a committee, consisting of the most
eminent medical men specially qualified for the task, was appointed to
examine into the condition of children in primary schools. This committee,
owing chiefly to the enthusiasm and labour of Dr. Francis Warner,
accomplished much valuable work, but the London School Board refused to
allow any access to its schools. The London School Board consists, one may
suppose, of intelligent persons, genuinely interested in education, and
representing the sense of the community, yet they refused to consider one
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