I thought of the terrible destruction caused by floods in times past, and of the wonderful good that came from those same bodies of water when harnessed to machinery or when floating our great ships, laden with all the necessaries of life, to all quarters of the globe. The same is true with respect to the possibilities--good and bad--of all mankind. The population of our prisons is simply the misguided flood of Society’s stream, destroying everything that obstructs it, and polluting itself as it courses along its aimless path. The officials of penal institutions are doing their best to guide the wayward and polluted stream into cleaner channels of usefulness; but penal institutions are, at best, but weak dams, unable to cope with the situation unless something be done to check the cause, or source, of the flood. That crime is increasing, criminals becoming bolder, the prison population becoming larger each year, and new and larger prisons are being built, is ample proof of this contention. Pondering these matters, vital to society, to fond and ambitious parents and to growing children, my thoughts finally crystallized themselves into a plan that should at least prevent many future youths from swelling Society’s destructive and polluted stream of crime. Experience has shown how the reputations of many good men and women have been blasted in moments of temporary weakness when temptation beset them. They may have gone through life up to that time with little or no temptation, knowledge of the wickednesses of the world being withheld from them by watchful parents. Many have gone on offending for a long time before they are exposed; while others, tempted on all sides from youth upwards to commit crime, resist the temptations repeatedly by sheer force of character and will power. The tendency of youths in general, however, is in the direction of mischief when curiosity and temptation beckon; and from the knowledge that our faculties grow strong in proportion to our exercise of them, we may conclude that it is far wiser that children be taught to cultivate the power of resistance to evil than that that knowledge of evil be withheld from them. We know not how or when temptation may overcome us or those dear to us; but we do know that in the lives of even the worst of those that have fallen from grace, _there was a first fall_! And the crucial time, therefore, to begin crime prevention is _before that first fall_, during the time of youth.