“If all the corrective methods that are now stamped with the approval of public sentiment could be maintained to the best advantage in a single prison, there would be no need of any central authority. It could not be contended that a general board would be any wiser in appointments than the local boards of management. Nor could there be any larger or more humane interest in the affairs of a particular prison, than is shown by the supervisors who have only one prison under their charge. But it would be manifestly impossible, in the larger States at least, to include in a single establishment all the various agencies that are needed for the discipline, the training and the treatment of prisoners; and it is therefore essential that different places should be provided to furnish opportunities best suited to the capacities and the needs of the widely differing individuals. “The managers of one prison cannot command a knowledge of all the prisons as well as a central board, and if the methods that are now employed are to be used for the greatest good, and to be made available for the largest number of offenders, there must be some general authority to rearrange and reassign prisoners after they have been committed. “I have no intention here of proposing that the State should take absolute control of all the penal institutions, or even that the authority of all boards of management should be measurably disturbed; but only that some central board should so far possess authority over all the penal establishments as to be enabled to make a rearrangement that would promote efficiency of effort. “In order to show how such a degree of centrality might be sufficient for large reforms let me outline briefly what I believe would be the best method of classification of prisoners if all suitable facilities could be given by the legislature: “I would recommend the establishment of one receiving prison for all persons convicted of serious crimes and sentenced to hard labor; in this place prisoners would be held under continual observation for a period long enough to allow the authorities to decide where the prisoner would apparently be likely to receive the most benefit, or where he could be kept with the most advantage to the State. “As accessories to this place I would provide departmental prisons, in each of which some particular element of instruction or discipline or treatment should be brought to the highest possible degree of efficiency, such as schools for the illiterate, the manual-training school and schools for trade instruction.