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Near him sits a young boy in his teens. His face is intelligent; he is not a born criminal. He is above the average in intelligence, and in him there are all possibilities of success and usefulness.

A boyish piece of criminal foolishness brought him there–and he must now spend years degenerating into real criminality under the influences around him.

There are the two extreme samples of humanity in that cage which we build to protect ourselves against ourselves.

It is a dismal garden set apart for human weeds and in it many a good plant is hopelessly driven into the weed class.

Of the men in that prison may truly be said what a great student of plant life–Luther Burbank– says of the poor weeds that we despise among plants:

There is not one weed or flower, wild or domesticated, which will not, sooner or later, respond liberally to good cultivation and persistent selection. * * * Weeds are weeds because they are jostled, crowded, cropped and trampled upon, scorched by fierce heat, starved, or, perhaps, suffering with cold, wet feet, tormented by insect pests or lack of nourishing food and sunshine.

Most of them have no opportunity for blossoming out in luxurious beauty and abundance. * * * When a plant once wakes up to the new influences brought to bear upon it the road is opened for endless improvement in all directions.

More pitiable than any weeds in a garden and more worthy of sympathy are those poor human weeds in the great prison.

Crowded and kept ignorant in youth, tempted, ill-fed, cold and worried in after years, their lot was hard–and their fall almost inevitable. They must be confined, they must be protected against themselves, they must suffer for the poor start given to them.

But the duty of those who are FREE and fortunate is to treat kindly those who fall, and especially to deal in such fashion with the young as shall minimize the crop of weeds later.

Fortunately, it may truly be said that humanity begins to realize its responsibilities in both lines of effort.

Kindness reaches the convict in his prison.

And Education, the thrice blessed AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOL, does steadily the work that makes useful plants of growing youth, diminishing year by year the crop of weeds.

Kindness and EDUCATION–go to Auburn prison and you will realize how much work they have still to do in our country.