There is, of course, the question of brains. It is a great mistake to assume that brains are the monopoly of any class, or that they play a more prominent part in the work of professional men than in that of others. So far as the training is concerned, there is no ground for assuming that selected inmates of reformatory institutions could not be had who are as well qualified by natural endowments to receive instruction of an academic character, in as large numbers, as others who would be fitted to receive instruction in the working of wood or of metal. Of course there are other reasons why ministers should not be trained in prison. There is the question of moral character; and though reformed desperadoes have become noble beings before now, I do not think that even the most enthusiastic evangelist would consider it safe to assume that a man who has failed to conform to the laws of the community is a safe person to train for the ministry. This question of character would not be so generally admitted against any proposal to train the inmates of a reformatory institution as lawyers; but although a man might acquire all the useful information and general knowledge that are required for examination as a preliminary to admit him to the study of the laws of his country; although he might master the text-books and become learned in the records of legal decisions quite as well in a prison as in a lodging outside; no lawyer would admit that thereby he could qualify to practise his profession. He would insist that there is something more required in his experience than the mere knowledge of the laws and of case-books. Being a lawyer, he could set out at length what that something is. So there is something that marks off the man who has been trained under the artificial conditions which exist in an institution from the man who has been trained outside. I knew of a blacksmith who was a very useful tradesman while he remained in the institution where he had learned that trade. He obtained work outside on several occasions, but he lost it always, not through any misconduct on his part, but through sheer inefficiency. Some things he could do, but most things he could not do; and his employers found him an unprofitable servant, partly because of his limitations and partly because his methods impaired the efficiency of those with whom he worked. In my day I have served an apprenticeship both to a handicraft and to medicine, and I have no doubt whatever that it would have been as easy for me to train for my medical qualification in prison as to have qualified myself as an artisan in an institution. It is assumed that what the offender needs is above all to be trained in habits of obedience, as though that were not what he has always been taught when in any prison; and much good our training has done him.