Records, however, do not show that before all prisons passed under the control of the Government a very serious effort had been made to grapple even with illiteracy, to say nothing of schooling in the more advanced subjects. When the Local Prisons were taken over by the Government in 1878, there were only 50 schoolmasters in 113 prisons. 'Hard Labour' was the dominant note in prison administration, regardless of the obvious fact that simple manual labour unaided by the increased aptitude that follows upon even a moderate cultivation of the mind, will not rehabilitate a man or enable him to rise to a higher level of existence. Half-an-hour a week, or even a quarter of an hour, was all that could be set aside from the demands of labour for such a purpose as teaching a prisoner to read or write, or perform those simple calculations in money, by which he could regulate the spending power of his wages, or estimate his domestic budget. No great advance was made even after the Government assumed control, though the subject of education in prison was, on more than one occasion, the subject of special inquiry. Even at that time, the question was considered whether the passing of the Compulsory Education Act in 1870 had not relieved the Prison Authority of the duty of adult teaching in its elementary sense, and whether it might not be assumed that all persons coming in later life to prison had acquired a sufficient learning in elementary subjects in the National schools. But statistics showed that in 1880 the number of illiterates coming to prison was practically the same as before the passing of the Act--about 33 percent., while the number of those who could only read and write imperfectly was no less than 62 per cent. It was obvious that some years must elapse before elementary teaching in Prisons could be dispensed with. If we examine statistics since 1880, it is true that we find a large decrease in the number of illiterates coming to prison. In 1890 there were 37,000 committed who could neither read nor write: in 1900, 28,000, and in 1913 (the last recorded year) the number had fallen to 18,000,--representing for each year 25, 19, and 13 per cent. of the total committals, respectively. The bulk of the prisoners fall within the category of those who "can read and write imperfectly, or with moderate proficiency," and concurrently with the decrease in the proportion of illiterates received, these have risen from 72 per cent. in 1890, and 75 per cent. in 1900, to 82 per cent. in 1913. But the remarkable feature of these statistics is that, after 50 years of compulsory education, over 18,000 should be committed annually who are unable to read or write. These disappointing figures may be explained in various ways. Either a large number of those forming the criminal class, by reason of vagrancy and absence of settled home and life, slip through the meshes of the educational net: or, in the