This was work for which Clara Barton had no natural liking. It was very far from the type of work she would have chosen. She never supposed it to be a permanent position. She accepted it because she felt that her health was sufficiently assured to justify her in undertaking some definite responsibility, and this was a place where she could go for a limited time and from it honorably retire. She was glad of a definite position in some other work than the Red Cross, yet one which did not compel her to resign her responsibilities in that organization. She found time while at Sherborn to attend a national gathering of philanthropic organizations in Denver, and deliver an address on the Red Cross. And she continued general oversight of its affairs. She retired from the work with no desire ever to see the inside of another prison; but also with a deepened interest in all work of that character, and with increased faith that in such work, as everywhere, kindness and an appeal to honor and self-respect were more effective than punishments which degrade and destroy hope. She continued her work at Sherborn a little longer than she intended, because the term of Governor Butler was drawing to a close, and he did not wish to make a temporary appointment. She withdrew at the close of his term, and the day of her departure was a day of mourning in the prison at Sherborn. A few months afterward an international conference was held at Saratoga and she was invited to deliver an address on prison reform. The notes of that address are preserved: Some steps in life are accounted unwise, some foolish, some foolhardy. Until the present hour perhaps the most foolhardy step I have ever been led to take was the temporary superintendence of a State Prison for the management, control, and reformation of women. Though consenting, however unwillingly, to undertake a work of which I knew nothing, and under _such_ circumstances, I did undertake it. But, good, kind, and loving friends, in point of temerity and foolhardiness the effort of this present hour beggars that. That I, with literally no experience, no knowledge of the subject, with thoughts running always in other channels,--should in any way, however tacitly, have given consent to take my place at this desk this evening beside these gentlemen who embody in themselves the experimental knowledge of the world upon this subject, and before this audience, trained to thought, the cultivated cream of the land, is to me past human comprehension. The Lord directs--let us obey. In May, 1883, after four months of combined importunity from the then Governor, General Butler, and all the people interested in and controlling the penal institutions of the State of Massachusetts, that I take the superintendency of Sherborn Reformatory Prison (and it was, I believe, the only point upon which the Governor and the people ever did agree), I decided to take it for six months. I remained something longer.