So by permission of the authorities and with your help, I am coming here to learn what I can at first hand. I have put myself on trial in the court of conscience and a verdict has been rendered of "guilty"--guilty of having lived for many years of my life indifferent to and ignorant of what was going on behind these walls. For this crime I have sentenced myself to a short term at hard labor in Auburn Prison (with commutation, of course, for good behavior). I expect to begin serving my sentence this week. I am coming here to live your life; to be housed, clothed, fed, treated in all respects like one of you. I want to see for myself exactly what your life is like, not as viewed from the outside looking in, but from the inside looking out. Of course I am not so foolish as to think that I can see it from exactly your point of view. Manifestly a man cannot be a real prisoner when he may at any moment let down the bars and walk out; and spending a few hours or days in a cell is quite a different thing from a weary round of weeks, months, years. Nor is prison a mere matter of clothes, they cannot make a convict any more than they can make a gentleman. I realize perfectly that my point of view cannot be yours; but neither when I go to Paris is my point of view that of a Frenchman. Just as an American may perhaps understand some things about Paris which are not so clear to the average Frenchman, so perhaps a short residence among you here may enable me to judge some things about the Prison System more accurately than those who live too close to the problem to see it in its true perspective. A word to the officials. My plan will not altogether succeed unless I am treated exactly like these other men. I ask you, therefore, to aid me by making no discrimination in my favor. Relax your regular discipline not a jot because I am here. Give me the same guidance as these others--but no more. If I offend against the rules, deal out to me the same punishment--I shall expect it. Here again I do not deceive myself; I realize perfectly that I shall not see the Prison System in quite its normal running order. Things can hardly, with the best intentions, keep going exactly the same while I am here. Long ago when I was a very young school commissioner I found out that neither teachers nor scholars can behave quite naturally when a member of the school board is present. But let me assure you that I come not on any errand of official investigation. I come in no sense as a spy upon officers or inmates; I come not to discover anything; I come solely to test, so far as I can, the effect of the system upon the mind of the prisoner. I shall study myself, rather than you; or rather, I shall study you through myself.