“The next type calling for special discipline is the _outrageous fellow_. I have asked myself what reason there is in psychology, in humanity or in common sense for making a prison a silent tomb. How can we hope to socialize young men by denying them communication by speech? If a man refuses to talk or laugh, incipient insanity is at once suspected. With these thoughts in mind, I thought I would do away with the rule requiring silence in the dining room. Hoary-headed tradition forbade it; prison administrators in whose wisdom I have the greatest confidence questioned it; but I was impelled to try it. All went well until one day the ‘outrageous fellow’ referred to was brought to court charged with quarreling with his neighbor at table, hurling a large porcelain bowl of tea into his opponent’s face, slightly burning him and cutting an ugly gash in his head. The most serious offense, however, was creating a condition in a crowded dining room favorable to riot. It was the opinion of our officers that he should be severely punished, their idea of punishment including the infliction of bodily pain. I agreed that he deserved whipping, but reminded the officers that this world was not entirely established on the basis of desert; that the best of us had little claim to heaven on that basis. We did not whip him, not because he did not deserve it, but because we owed it to him and to the institution to do that thing that would most positively quicken the moral sense and create a wholesome public sentiment. Calling him up, I told him that he had put me to shame; that he had justified all my critics who said that I would get into trouble by allowing the boys to talk at the table; that he was the only one out of a thousand that failed to appreciate what had been done for him. ‘Now,’ I said to him, ‘$1’ This method, I believe, had the approval of practically every inmate of the institution. The boy himself said that he would rather be whipped, as he felt that he had been whipped every time he came into the dining room and turned his back to the other inmates; they would all feel that he was unfit to be with them. After three weeks he made full amends and was allowed to join his fellows, and never gave trouble afterwards.