The editor holds that the “prison field” includes efforts in behalf of the prisoner before imprisonment, after imprisonment, on probation and on parole. Very germane to the work and interest of prisoners and societies are movements for the care of those mentally and socially sick and tending toward delinquency and crime, such as the tramp and the vagrant, the inebriate, the feeble-minded offender, the youthful transgressor. So the REVIEW will give a share of its attention to such actual or proposed organizations or institutions as children’s courts and villages, farm colonies, hospitals and colonies for inebriates, psychopathic institutions for the study of the defective delinquent, as well as to all the movements and progress of general interest in the narrower prison field. During these four months W. D. Lane, a member of the New York School of Philanthropy, has been serving the REVIEW as Assistant Editor. His help has been of very material value. MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND MORAL DELINQUENTS FRANK MOORE, SUPERINTENDENT NEW JERSEY REFORMATORY To deal successfully with the prodigious problem of moral reform, no one thing seems more essential than a scientific study and a systematic treatment of the mentally deficient delinquent. Obviously, a classification of evil doers based upon their mentality is of vast importance. Before the work of reform can intelligently be begun there must be such a complete diagnosis of each individual case that the cause of the moral malady may be discovered, if possible. Mental deficiency is without question a cause of moral delinquency, and the reform of a large number of delinquents cannot wisely be undertaken until the existence of feeble mindedness is established in each case where it exists. In the work of reform, too little attention has been given to careful diagnosis; too much guessing has prevailed as to the criminal’s mental character, or too much ignoring of mental ability. Criminals, whether mentally normal or subnormal, have all been subjected to the same system, with the hope that the weak-minded and strong-minded alike would be made into good citizens. The reason for this has been, perhaps, that there have appeared to be few if any standards by which it has been thought the mental character of the criminal could be accurately judged. But certain systems recently have been developed that render guessing no longer a necessity, and hence a great mistake. Doctor Sante de Sanctis of Italy, Doctor De Croly of Germany and Doctor Alfred Binet of France have established admirable systems in dealing with this problem.