Convicts are not to be classed as a peculiar species of genus homo, but are to be regarded as _individuals_, amenable to the same influences, the same treatment, the same hopes as other men. Charles Reade, in his famous book “It Is Never Too Late to Mend,” tells of two little children who come to see a thief just arrested. “Farmer Fielding,” says the little girl, courtesying, a mode of reverence which was instantly copied by the boy, “we are come to see the thief; they say you have caught one.” “Oh dear!” and her bright little countenance was overcast, “I couldn’t have told it from a man.” Prison sentiment is a powerful auxiliary in discipline, and the consciousness among the men that “a square deal” from the management can be depended upon for the cause of enlightenment, refinement, cheer and relaxation, is worth more than a regiment of soldiers. RELIGION AS A FACTOR Religion ought to be a mighty factor in correct prison discipline. If _good_ men need religion to help them and sustain them, certainly _bad_ men need it far more. This department of discipline should be presided over and directed by a strong, level-headed, pious God-fearing man, who may have at once the confidence of the warden and his subordinates, and the inmates as well, a very difficult undertaking. A chaplain who mistakes his mission and attends to matters not within his province, can tear up and destroy the discipline of a prison more quickly and effectively than anyone else in it. But his opportunities for good are as great as, or greater than, for evil, and if he can discern between those who desire real spiritual consolation and those who are after the loaves and fishes, between spiritual pardon and official clemency, and devote himself unreservedly to the one and resolutely eschew the other, no man can overestimate his value. The warden and the chaplain should go hand in hand, each sustaining the other. They need to have a perfect understanding, neither mistrusting the other. And with such an understanding, let the chaplain have entire charge of his church and other spiritual services, and resolutely exclude the self-constituted evangelist, the chance visitor, and forbid absolutely the spectacular and highly emotional harangues of people utterly unacquainted with the population with which they seek to deal. In nothing should there be more rigid censorship and more careful espionage than in the chapel and other religious services. To quote from an address made by me before the National Prison Association in Louisville in 1903: “The influence of sightseers and idle visitors to prisons, always bad, reaches the acme of its perniciousness in the chapel service, if unrestrained and unguided by prison officials of experience and firmness, who alone are in a position to know that sickly sentimentalism is the worst possible pabulum to offer men already too eager to justify their evil deeds.” THE DISCIPLINE OF OFFICERS