Thus, the reader will see, our school took a somewhat wide range. I would interest the mind, so far as could be, in what would profit, and thus beget a love for truth and turn the attention away from wrong. With the wholesome ideas gathered in these studies, I would also inculcate the moral, to elevate the thoughts and heart to the truly good. Here, I constantly kept in view the idea of the best interest of the prisoner and the State. This labor was most fatiguing. Standing there at the cell doors with no means of sitting, I would, at times, become so completely exhausted as to be obliged to retire to rest a while. Then, taking the air from the cells would occasionally be most repulsive and injurious to health, the whole weakening to the system. I attempted to have a short school exercise with the females twice a week, but word soon came that they could not be spared for that, and the effort was abandoned. The pupils did as much, perhaps, as could rationally be expected, under the circumstances. Could we have had the school in the chapel, greater results would have crowned our efforts, with much less labor. Though I was wholly cut off at first from having an evening school in the chapel, near the latter part of January, the warden informed me that I might have one there on Thursday evenings, if I would give up the prayer meeting, but not to begin till warmer weather. I could not harbor the idea, for a moment, of relinquishing the prayer meeting, and supposed I must wait for the proposed Thursday evening effort till the warden moved. At length, I found that he was waiting for me, when it was too late to move in the matter at all. Indeed, had we attempted the effort when first spoken of, it would probably have been more trouble than benefit. As to the penciling, nothing was said by any in disapprobation of it, yet, after that hearing, with the thought that possibly this might be one of the points of offense, I took from him all the materials except, perhaps, the slip on perspective, which he greatly regretted. 40. _Sabbath school success._ The prison year commences the first of May. The former warden continued some ten weeks into the second year, during which time the Sabbath school attendance remained as usual, averaging eighty-six. On the first Sabbath of the new order nearly the same number were in attendance. But many had no teachers provided, and I could have nothing to do about arranging for the school's best interest.[4] The following Sabbath brought a great falling off, still greater the next, and so on. In a few weeks the warden peremptorily dismissed one of the teachers he had invited, telling him that if he would call at another time, he would give his reason. [Footnote 4: In speaking of the Sabbath school teachers employed, page 69, the author intended to say, such a number that each teacher could have a guard stand by him and see that nothing contraband passed.]