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 ,.>Si<Z Turner in the Newburgh Journal. 
 IF 
 
 AT THE COUNTER AND THE SHOW WINDOW 
 
 for surer diagnosis. If these terms cannot 
 unended to the satisfaction of the association, 
 Late medical service is to be organized, which 
 yd-George has sketched as follows as applied 
 town of 200,000 inhabitants : 
 
 At the head of the service would be a prin- 
 al medical officer, who would be responsible 
 the working of the service and .would be not 
 y a skilled clinician thoroughly competent to 
 ervise and appreciate the work of his subordi- 
 but also a highly efficient administrator, 
 lediately under him would be a staff of skilled 
 cialists, who would help the general prac- 
 oners of the service in any case of difficulty, 
 en would come the general practitioners of 
 i service, of whom some would be junior prac- 
 lioners, and others senior practitioners of wide 
 perience. These would work on an organized 
 F stem, proper provision being made for night 
 lls and other emergencies, and they would be 
 ^iHsisted by an efficient staff of nurses. Their 
 '%• rk would be done under competent supervision, 
 i J they would be able promptly to secure skilled 
 ^ ~ istance in cases of difficulty. Such a service 
 _woihld naturally work in close co-operation with 
 
 I 'he public health authority and the education au- 
 hority.” 
 
 M The London Nation, commenting on the pro- 
 P (, sals of the government, even as they now stand, 
 alls them undeniably generous. They would 
 insure an income of $2,450 for every thousand 
 insured persons, which sum includes extras and 
 
 December 14, 1912. 
 
 mileage. It is estimated that one doctor could 
 well do the necessary work in a village of moder- 
 ate size which, with surrounding hamlets, might 
 number two thousand souls. His income would 
 be increased by at least a part of the 6d. allowed 
 for additional drugs if necessary, and there is 
 also the maternity benefit, a part of which goes 
 to the doctors for their services. 
 
 The Nation predicts that for the doctors to 
 continue resistance and thus permit the inaugura- 
 tion of a state service will spell ruin to their as- 
 sociation, a collapse of the organization, and an' 
 internecine war, the effects of which will endure 
 for years. Acceptance of the terms with such 
 amendments as the government can afford to ac- 
 cede to, even though it involves a surrender of 
 some minor details, means, on the other hand, to 
 quote the Nation, a triumphant and early success 
 of the largest measure of social reform that Eng- 
 land has ever seen. 
 
 DOPE, DIPLOMACY AND 
 A DELIBERATIVE CONGRESS 
 
 In his first message to Congress this year, 
 President Taft called especial attention to the 
 fact that Congress has been overnegligent in its 
 attitude toward the anti-narcotic legislation which 
 has been before it for some time, the passage of 
 which he recommended in an earlier communica- 
 tion. The situation is a curious one, and 
 
 319 
 
THE SURVEY 
 
 320 
 
 illustrates the slow acting nature of the federal 
 law-making body. Moreover, it is an internation- 
 ally embarrassing one, since this government took 
 the initiative in the International Opium Con- 
 ference of two years ago, and is now affording 
 the spectacle of refusing to do its share of work 
 in the establishment of a reform which its diplo- 
 matic representatives have ardently advocated. 
 
 There are now before the lower House two 
 bills recommended by the International Confer- 
 ence. Both these measures were introduced in 
 June, 1912, by Representative Harrison of New 
 York. One provides that a heavy internal rev- 
 enue tax shall be levied upon smoking opium 
 manufactured in the United States ; the other im- 
 poses a tax upon and regulates the production, 
 manufacture, and distribution of opium, mor- 
 phia, coca leaves, cocaine, chloral, cannabis, their 
 salts, derivatives, or preparations. It is believed 
 by experts that the passing of these bills would do 
 much, to use President Taft’s words, ‘to correct 
 the deplorable narcotic evil in the United 
 States.” He further points out that they have 
 behind them “not only the moral sentiment of the 
 country, but the practical support of all the legi- 
 timate trade interests likely to be affected.” 
 
 BOOKS AND 
 PRISONERS 
 
 Plans are on foot for the establishment by 
 the New York Public Library of carefully 
 selected branch libraries in the penal institutions 
 of the city. In many of these the inmates re- 
 main only a short time, but there are at least six 
 in which residence is for a period long enough to 
 make consecutive reading among well-selected 
 
 Decembe 1 
 
 14 
 
 :ity 
 
 books quite possible. It is not unusual for 
 libraries to maintain “traveling libraries” — set$ of 
 books regularly replaced by other sets — in fails 
 or prisons, but so far as is known, no place has 
 yet established actual branches such as are scat- 
 tered about the larger cities for use by local 
 neighborhoods. Various plans for the super- 
 vision of the proposed branches have been Sug- 
 gested, one being the appointment of a superin- 
 tendent to have general charge of all with “trus- 
 ties” as librarians in each branch. 
 
 The need of the man in prison for wholesome 
 and informing reading matter, and the deplorable 
 scarcity in our prisons of books answering that 
 description, as well as the availability of trasny 
 or unsuitable material, are forcibly brought outS 
 by Miss Curtis elsewhere in this issue. An in- 
 teresting corroboration of her conclusions is fur-' 
 nished by an intensive study made recently by 
 Frederick W. Jenkins,, librarian of the New York* 
 School of Philanthropy library, of some of the 
 penal institutions in New York and read at tne 
 recent meeting of the New York Library Asso- 
 ciation at Niagara Falls. Comparison was made, 
 at this conference between the prison library and 
 the prison school, which in many places has been 
 raised to a reasonable degree of excellence. The 
 prisons of New York state have paid citizen in- 
 structors in charge of their schools. Yet it was 
 pointed out that the library is often guarded by 
 an ignorant convict who exercises his small 
 power autocratically. Not only the place of long 
 detention needs books, it was said ; the men in the 
 jails must be allowed to read also. Here was de- 
 clared to be a splendid field for co-operation with 
 local public libraries. 
 
 Mr. Jenkins found that the books at the work- 
 house and the penitentiary on Blackwell’s Island 
 were the best of the collections, but still nearly 
 worthless. Of the 650 books in these two places 
 the only ones of value, he declares, are a few 
 novels given by the New York Public Library. 
 Fully 90 per cent, he goes on, 
 
 “are of the Sunday school story type of fifty years 
 ago. They have been donated by persons at the 
 time of some house-cleaning or house-moving 
 period — The Next World Interviewed; Angel’s 
 Song; Little Prudy’s Dotty Dimple; School Girl’s 
 Garland (published in 1864) ; Above Rubies, a 
 Memorial of Christian Gentlewomen; Which: 
 Right or Left (published in 1859) ; Thoughts on 
 the Death of Little Children (published in 1861) ; 
 How Readest Thou (published in 1854) ; Violet’s 
 Idol; Wheat or Chaff (published in 1853). 
 
 After expressing the hope that the time is near 
 at hand when the person in charge will have 
 power to destroy as well as to save books intend- 
 ed for prison readers, Mr. Jenkins utters this 
 anathema : 
 
 “I trust some dire end awaits those people who 
 send their gifts, often utterly worthless material. 
 
BROADENING INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION 
 
 321 
 
 ?912 
 
 to the prison and the reformatory. There is 
 nothing worse than this, unless it is the act of 
 him who goes in persQn and distributes thousands 
 of sheets of religious literature, reminding the 
 man to whom it is given of the number of talents 
 which he has wasted. I have listened to the 
 flatulent remarks of such people. Men and wo- 
 men of this stamp and the books which they give 
 constitute the most serious menace to good work 
 among prison libraries. Much of the so-called 
 religious literature distributed is absolutely 
 worthless, unreadable by the inmates, and repre- 
 sents sheer waste of time and energy on the part 
 of the distributors. Worse than this, the broad- 
 cast distribution of leaflet and pamphlet makes 
 extra work for the prison officials It is thrown 
 unread on the floor and adds hugely to the waste 
 matter that must be removed. Is it any wonder 
 that the warden does not welcome the gener- 
 al diffusion of literature? All this should be 
 stopped, and no distribution made except through 
 the library.” 
 
 In answer to the question, What books are 
 really needed? Mr. Jenkins enumerates three 
 kinds ; first, those aiming to teach English to for- 
 eigners. This applies especially, of course, to in- 
 stitutions where there is a considerable percent- 
 age of immigrants, such as the prison on Black- 
 well’s Island, where there are many Italians and 
 Germans. Not a single book teaching English to 
 Italians is to be found there, yet the half dozen 
 German books have been read out of their covers. 
 Mr. Jenkins’s second suggestion is vocational 
 books, dealing with plumbing, stenography, car- 
 pentry, etc. It is for these two classes, he finds, 
 that there is the greatest demand from prisoners. 
 Third, he emphasizes good novels — “novels of 
 real life without a moral printed on every page, 
 dealing. with real people under real conditions.” 
 Finally, he urges that the desires and tastes of 
 the men themselves be studied. Let the library 
 represent an intelligent response to an ascer- 
 tained demand. Three hundred volumes, he 
 thinks, is enough for the shelves of any prison. 
 A printed catalogue should go into every cell, and 
 it should contain an invitation to the prisoner to 
 make his reading wants known. In conclusion he 
 says : 
 
 “Of course, no appeal, however sincere, can 
 reach all or even the great majority, but it may 
 go far. I am told that the men sometimes muti- 
 late the books; so do the readers of any public 
 library. I am told that they underline certain 
 passages of personal interest; not all *who do this 
 are in jail. And finally I am told that the men 
 show their disapproval for some of the literature 
 handed out to them by spitting in the book and 
 calmly returning it. In polite society this could 
 not be countenanced, but after an examination 
 of the library on Blackwell’s Island, I am of opin- 
 ion that such an act shows a valuable power of 
 discrimination; it is proof that the man doing it 
 :1s capable of and deserving of something better.” 
 
 Philadelphia Star 
 THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS 
 As felt by the tired cash girl 
 
 BROADENING INDUSTRIAL 
 EDUCATION 
 
 WINTHROP D. LANE 
 
 Any change in our educational system is the 
 vital concern of the social worker. Among the 
 changes proposed at the present time, none is per- 
 haps more drastic than the one vaguely described 
 as industrial or vocational education. The phil- 
 osophy back of this suggestion, and others grow- 
 ing out of the same observed social needs, is 
 that education, taken in its broadest sense, is co- 
 extensive with environment. In this view, edu- 
 cation ceases to be a mere preparation for life 
 and becomes life itself, to use a phrase made 
 current by Prof. John Dewey. It is this phil- 
 osophy which is increasingly leading educators, 
 social workers and others to try to recast the 
 public educational system so that it will offer to 
 a maximum degree the actual environment of 
 life. 
 
 Where in this scheme of recasting does voca- 
 tional education take its place? Distinction 
 should be made between what are called prevo- 
 cational and vocational instruction. One of the 
 proposed means of securing greater harmony be- 
 tween the public school system and the actual 
 environment of life is the making over of the 
 elementary curriculum to include, side by side 
 with reading, writing and arithmetic, training in 
 manual dexterity, in ' the purposes and use of 
 tools, and perhaps in some of the elementary pro- 
 cesses which may be found to underlie modern 
 
322 
 
 THE SURVEY 
 
 December 14 
 
 trades. The need for and nature of such pre- 
 vocational instruction, the purpose of which 
 should be not to fit for specific vocations but 
 only to secure a more all-round development of 
 the child during the age of eight or ten to four- 
 teen, were discussed in the recent conference 
 held in New York . 1 
 
 Another proposed means is that of real voca- 
 tional education, the purpose of which shall be 
 to fit for successful wage-earning occupations, 
 and which shall begin where elementary educa- 
 tion stops for large numbers of American chil- 
 dren, namely at the age of fourteen, and con- 
 tinue for two or four years, as may be found 
 necessary. 
 
 This second proposal was thrashed out 
 at the sixth annual meeting of the National 
 Society for the Promotion of Industrial Educa- 
 tion, last week in Philadelphia. In spite of the 
 phrase “industrial education” in the title of the 
 society, it was vocational education which was 
 discussed and which was defined to include the 
 following three forms of specialized training, the 
 controlling purposes of which are to fit for use- 
 ful occupations; industrial education, designed 
 to meet the need of the manual worker in the 
 trades and industries; agricultural education, 
 which fits for occupations connected with the till- 
 age of the soil and the care of domestic animals; 
 and household arts education. 
 
 The facts showing the need for instruction of 
 this sort are substantially the same as those cited 
 to prove the need for prevocational instruction, 
 namely the glaring unfitness of boys and girls 
 who leave school at fourteen to do the work 
 which nearly all of them go into, with the con- 
 sequent shifting from job to job where nothing 
 is learned and advance is impossible. A hopeful 
 sign at Philadelphia was that these facts were 
 taken for granted. No one thought it necessary 
 to demonstrate the need for vocational education. 
 
 Few thought it necessary, moreover, to ques- 
 tion the purpose of the education to be given. 
 Debate was chiefly over the machinery for ad- 
 ministering it and the training of teachers to 
 impart it. It was generally assumed that the 
 purposes of vocational education, beginning at 
 the age of fourteen, shall be to fit for specific 
 and limited occupations, such as plumbing, tin- 
 smithing, dairy farming, etc.- There was little, 
 if any, reference to the suggestion that perhaps 
 what the boy or girl of fourteen, who has had 
 only such elementary instruction as the present 
 school system affords, most needs is greater train- 
 ing of the brain through the hand, greater train- 
 ing of observation, of ingenuity, of imagination 
 and even of logical thought through a general 
 acquaintance with materials and machines. It 
 seemed also to be taken for granted that one’s 
 bent is quite determinable at the age of fourteen, 
 
 *See The Survey for November 23. 
 
 \ 
 
 in spite of the fact that Prof. George M. Forbes 
 of the University of Rochester described how 
 only fourteen out of eighty-three boys who had 
 received fairly adequate instruction in specific 
 vocations in a Rochester school were later found 
 to be following the trades which they had there 
 learned. Criticism of the discussion on these 
 grounds was accompanied by the further sugges- 
 tion that even if we are to train youths of four- 
 teen for specific occupations, we have not made a 
 sufficient study of industry to decide what should 
 be the content of vocational courses, nor just 
 what it is that rapidly changing trades require 
 to be taught; the point being that it is perhaps un- 
 wise to set up an elaborate scheme for teaching 
 something until you know what you are to teach. 
 The answer made to this was that a beginning 
 must be made, as it already has been made where 
 such schools have been established, by teaching 
 what is actually done now in the factory, the shop 
 and on the farm, and that the broader education- 
 al content of the courses will th$n be worked out 
 as industry is more intensively analyzed and the 
 common elements of trades are discovered. 
 
 Among the teachers, school administrators, so- 
 cial workers, manufacturers and law-makers 
 gathered together in Philadelphia there was prac* 
 tical unanimity of opinion that vocational educa- 
 tion aiming to fit for trades must be publicly pro- 
 vided for and that this provision must be made 
 jointly by the states and local communities. In a 
 statement of principles advocated by C. A. Pros- 
 ser, secretary of the society, and later adopted by 
 the members, it was held that local communities 
 should be permitted, if they so desire, to initiate 
 and maintain schools entirely apart from state 
 support and supervision, yet it was declared that 
 state aid would be found necessary to stimulate 
 and encourage them. The amount of state aid 
 should be, in general, sufficient to furnish this 
 encouragement and to justify participation on 
 the part of the state in control and administra- 
 tion, but not large enough to sacrifice local in- 
 itiative. Both Mr. Prosser and Edwin G. Cooley,, 
 former - superintendent of schools in Chicago, 
 thought that the best results are secured when 
 the local community is required to furnish the 
 school and equipment and pay one-half of the 
 operating expenses. This also was embodied in 
 the statement adopted. 
 
 Chief among the questions relating to the ma- 
 chinery for teaching vocations was that which 
 asked whether it is better to set up vocational 
 schools as integral parts of the present secondary 
 school system, or as a dual system provided for 
 by distinct laws, under distinct supervision, 
 housed separately, and having nothing in common 
 with the present school system except public 
 support. John A. Lapp, secretary of the Indiana 
 Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Edu- 
 
1912 
 
 WHAT THE CONVICT READS 
 
 cation pointed out that Massachusetts began sev- 
 eral years ago with separate schools under separ- 
 ate boards, both state and local, but changed to 
 permit either a separate school or a school as 
 an integral part of her former system. Wiscon- 
 sin has adopted the separate school idea and such 
 a plan is proposed in Illinois. New York, New 
 Jersey, Ohio and Maine on the other hand, make 
 the work a part of their old systems. This is 
 the recommendation of the Indiana commission 
 of inquiry appointed last year. 1 On behalf of the 
 separate school Mr. Prosser urged that that plan 
 leaves the vocational school freer at all times to 
 realize its dominant aim -of preparing for definite 
 occupations. In justification of joint adminis- 
 tration Mr. Lapp thought that it is easier to 
 modify existing school courses to meet vocational 
 » needs than to create new courses and that greater 
 harmony in public education will result. The one- 
 system plan is favored by the majority of educa- 
 tors connected with the present school system, a 
 notable exception being Mr. Cooley. The trend 
 seems to be in its direction. 
 
 Whatever the system of administration, the 
 vocational school, it was insisted, must approxi- 
 mate the actual conditions of the workshop, the 
 home and the farm. If it be an industrial school, 
 it must forego the formal air of the school room 
 and realize the freedom which surrounds the 
 bench and lathe. In the accomplishment of this, 
 of course, the teacher will be the vital factor, and 
 so there was earnest debate over the kind of 
 teacher required for this new type of instruction. 
 
 Emphasis was laid on the need of teachers who 
 can make competent craftsmen of their pupils. 
 Mary Schenck Woolman, president of the Wo- 
 men’s Educational and Industrial Union, Boston, 
 and Florence M. Marshall, principal of the Man- 
 hattan Trade School for Girls, New York, who 
 spoke from the standpoint of girls, together with 
 David Snedden, commissioner of education for 
 Massachusetts, and Charles R. Allen, agent of the 
 Massachusetts State Board of Education, who 
 spoke from the standpoint of boys, were united 
 in the opinion that so far no satisfactory method 
 of producing such teachers has been worked out. 
 “At present,” said Mr. Snedden, “we are obtain- 
 ing teachers much as the early settlers obtained 
 their food — we are trusting to an accidental and 
 variable supply produced by no effort of our 
 own.” All four of these speakers agreed that 
 they can not be secured by drawing on the regu- 
 lar public schools and giving a little additional 
 training to the instructors there found, nor can 
 the present normal schools turn them out. They 
 must be trained specifically to meet the pedagogi- 
 cal demands of the vocational school, which has 
 problems peculiar to itself. We shall have to go 
 direct to the industries themselves, said Mr. Sned- 
 den, and select experienced workers with a gift 
 
 1 When ready, copies of their report may be secured 
 from Mr. Lapp, State Library, Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 
 \ 
 
 >323 
 
 for teaching. For such workers we can then 
 provide evening courses of instruction in such 
 pedagogical problems as the organization of 
 courses, methods of instruction and class man- 
 agement. Attendance at these classes can then 
 be followed by employment as assistant teachers 
 in actual vocational schools. Thus a normal* 
 training will be added to craftsmanship. In 
 the evident distress over the failure so far to se- 
 cure even good instructors in trades, it seemed 
 to be regarded as unimportant that the teacher 
 should be alert to the cultural value of all work; 
 that he should keep his students’ minds open to 
 the onward movements in the conservation of ma- 
 terial and in mechanical invention; that his per- 
 sonality might become as vital a factor in suc- 
 cess as that of the teacher of history, literature 
 and language. 
 
 A final point under discussion was one which 
 has long been the subject for debate in connection 
 with industrial schools in reformatories. What 
 shall be the output of the vocational classes and 
 how shall it be disposed of? Shall it be com- 
 mercial, and sold on the open market in compe- 
 tition with other products, the proceeds of the 
 sale being used to defray school expenses? 
 Helen R. Hildreth, director of vocational train- 
 ing for the Women’s Educational and Industrial 
 Union, Boston, and E. H. Fish, director of the 
 Worcester Trade School for Boys, Worcester, 
 Massachusetts, urged that only by making com- 
 mercial products can the schools supply those con-» 
 ditions to which the successful wage-earner 
 must be accustomed when he leaves. The work 
 of the school must be put upon a business basis, 
 said Mr. Fish. Miss Hildreth went so far as to 
 insist that products should be turned out for 
 which definite orders have been taken. To this 
 Harry S. Bitting, president of the Williamson 
 Free School of Trades, Pennsylvania, objected 
 that when a contract is entered into, the fulfilling 
 of that contract then becomes the absorbing aim 
 of the instructor and his . attention is diverted 
 from the primary task of teaching. Discussion 
 at Philadelphia failed to bring agreement and the 
 question is evidently an open one. The experi- 
 ence of our prisons, now slowly adopting the plan 
 of selling their products back to the state and its 
 political divisions, may hold a suggestion for the 
 vocational schools of the future which shall find 
 created wealth hanging heavy on their hands. 
 
 WHAT THE CONVICT READS 
 
 FLORENCE RISING CURTIS 
 
 Instructor University of Illinois Library School 
 
 There are about fifty thousand men and 
 women in the state and national prisons 
 and reformatories of the United States. Un- 
 der the operation of the present laws, from 70 
 to 80 per cent of these are confined from one to 
 ten years, at the expiration of which they will 
 
324 
 
 THE SURVEY 
 
 come out into the world again. The prison 
 doors are opening daily to the man who is going 
 out with the prison label still upon him, for the 
 new clothes taken from the piles in the outfitting 
 room are recognized at once by both the police- 
 man and the saloon-keeper. Ignorant, untrained 
 and uncontrolled, he came into prison chafing 
 at the “hard luck” or the “spite” which had put 
 him behind the bars. Detaining him for one year 
 or for ten has made little difference, if he comes 
 out with the same standards of conduct, the 
 same ignorance and lack of control. 
 
 When the evening and Sunday hours may not 
 be spent in handicraft, the prisoner eagerly 
 avails himself of the opportunity for reading. 
 The circulation per capita of the books in the 
 prison libraries is largely in excess of that re- 
 ported by the public libraries of the country. 
 Books serve to occupy his mind during the long 
 silent hours of the day; the scenes are lived 
 over again, the arguments debated, the char- 
 acters of the history, biography or novel are real 
 companions to these men taken away from 
 neighborhood and family life. 
 
 If the prison library has been the dumping 
 ground for gifts of literary rubbish, if the books 
 which are purchased are cheap in tone as well 
 as in price, if the language is vulgar, the char- 
 acters and situations low and suggestive, the 
 prison is providing bad company and poor ideals 
 for the men who are sent there for correction 
 and reformation. 
 
 A study of the catalogues of twenty-three 
 prison libraries shows that this is a matter which 
 should receive attention. These were limited 
 to no one section of the country, eight being in 
 the East, twelve in the Middle West, two in the 
 West and one in the South. With few excep- 
 tions, they are far below the grade of the aver- 
 age public library of the same size ; the classes 
 of history, biography and travel, which should 
 be especially strong, are often filled with out-of- 
 date and unreadable books. It is surprising that 
 detective stories figure largely in the fiction 
 lists, for it would seem dubious policy to fur- 
 nish stories of crime which suggest ingenious 
 plans and point out the weak spots in the method 
 of their execution. 
 
 Books which emphasize sensual details are 
 surely not good mental food for men taken out 
 of normal human intercourse and shut away with 
 their thoughts, yet the prison libraries contain 
 the novels of the modern “realistic” writers : 
 Lucas Malet, Robert Herrick, Robert Hichens, 
 David Graham Phillips, Robert W. Chambers, 
 George Gibbs and many others. Elinor Glyn’s 
 Three Weeks is probably not on the shelves of 
 a single American public library, but it is listed 
 in three of the twenty-three catalogues examined. 
 Such books as George Moore’s Evelyn Innes and 
 
 Sister Teresa, Anatole France’s Red Lily, and 
 Smollett’s Peregrine Pickle and Roderick Ran- 
 dom, interesting and often harmless to some, are 
 of questionable moral tone for such readers. 
 Fiction of inferior merit, with characters and 
 situations often at variance with real life, fills 
 page after page with such alluring titled as Wife 
 in Name Only, Between Two Sins, Maid, Wife, 
 or Widow, A Woman’s Temptation, Sharing 
 Her Crime, Lost for a Woman, The Changed 
 Brides, and A Beautiful Fiend. 
 
 The make-up of the prison library catalogue 
 is seldom good; of those examined, only fourteen 
 were classified and in many cases the divisions 
 were too general to be of much value. Two 
 were arranged only by author, four by title only ; 
 two had no authors given, and one of these was 
 arranged in the order of the receipt of the 
 books. In many catalogues the printing was 
 poor and the entries inaccurate. In one, the 
 books seemed to have been classified by the 
 sound of the title as the section of “Religious 
 Books” included The Sorrows of Satan, The 
 Breath of the Gods, The Conquest of Canaan, 
 The Little Minister, The Choir Invisible, and 
 The Fruit of the Tree. 
 
 The tabulation which follows shows the result 
 of an investigation of these twenty-three library 
 catalogues, applying to them the same tests that 
 a librarian would use in judging the catalogues 
 of as many public libraries. In the cases where 
 a large section was labelled “Miscellaneous” or 
 “General,” the lists were gone over carefully, in 
 the effort to decide the character of the books 
 which belonged to each particular class named 
 in the table. The libraries listing no foreign 
 books are in states where it is probable that some 
 foreign nationalities are represented in the 
 prison population. 
 
 The Libraries of Twenty-three American Prisons 
 
 <C 
 
 Character of) 
 Books 
 
 ^Number of 
 Libraries 
 
 £ 
 
 4> 
 
 Religious 2 5 16 
 
 Philosophy and Sociology 6 3 9 
 
 Science 6 S* 3 12 
 
 Technical Arts and Trades.. 12 3 3 
 
 Essays, Poetry, Drama, etc 5 6 10 
 
 Travel 7. 4 12 
 
 History 4 6 13 
 
 Biography 3 3 17 
 
 Encyclopaedias, Dictionaries, 
 
 etc 3 2 13 
 
 Magazines 4 5 7 
 
 Fiction . : 2 6 15 
 
 In Foreign Languages .... \0 6 6 
 
 4 
 
 5 9 
 
 2 6 
 5 3 
 
 2 7 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 32 
 
 5 8 
 
 7 4 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 2 
 
 These libraries have received in bulk a large 
 number of the old Sunday School collections of 
 out-of-date religious and temperance books'; 
 they are decidedly lacking in readable informa- 
 tional literature — biography, travel, science and 
 books on present-day invention and progress. 
 Such literature is especially needed h^re, for it 
 is the experience of those in charge that prison 
 men tire of stories, and crave more solid reading. 
 
worker has evidently not been given a free hand. 
 Many excellent printed lists are available, chief 
 among them being the American Library Asso- 
 ciation Catalogue of 8,000 Books ; the 1912 sup- 
 plement containing 3,000 additional titles; and a 
 monthly annotated selection of best books, called 
 the A. L. A. Book List. 
 
 The last report of the General Prisons Board 
 of Ireland shows that the question of book selec- 
 tion is a subject for consideration there: 
 
 Having regard to the importance of the prison 
 library as a factor in the reformation of prisons, 
 the special notice of prison chaplains and gov- 
 ernors has been called to the fact that the 
 morbid and immoral tone of a great proportion 
 of modern English society novels renders them 
 unsuitable for officers’ or prisoners’ libraries, 
 which should be replenished by the selection of 
 instructive books on travel, history, biography, 
 science, etc., or standard English novels of a 
 healthy tone. 
 
 The prison of tocj^y is not intended to be 
 merely a place of punishment, nor a life abode 
 for the bad characters who have troubled society. 
 Every man who leaves prison behind should 
 bring to his new life a better equipment for 
 earning his living, better standards of conduct, 
 and confidence in his ability to make good. The 
 books he has read will play no small part in 
 determining whether a man, less ignorant and 
 dangerous than when he went in, is again “on 
 the outside.” 
 
 Books on the technical trades are being added 
 to the prison libraries in very fair proportion. 
 The fiction generally makes a poor showing, the 
 quality being usually inferior, although the 
 quantity is in good proportion. Detective 
 stories are listed in every catalogue examined, 
 the number of such books ranging from three 
 to one hundred and fifteen. A large amount of 
 the fiction was evidently furnished by the book 
 dealer who offered tb . lowest bid, for literary 
 “wall-flowers” known to the book trade as 
 “plugs,” form a large proportion of the fiction 
 lists. 
 
 The prison libraries need, first of all, trained 
 librarians, who know how to select books which 
 provide information and recreation, how to care 
 for these books, and how to get them read. In 
 several states of the Middle West an institutional 
 librarian co-operates with the board which 
 controls the charitable and penal institutions. It 
 is this librarian’s duty to visit each institution 
 during the year, in order to assist in the selection 
 of the books, to classify and catalogue them, and 
 to train the officers or inmates in simple and 
 practical library methods. If the employment 
 of special librarians- is at present impossible, the 
 library commissions of the several states stand 
 ready to furnish aia in the selection and the 
 cataloguing of the books. Several of the best 
 catalogues show that such assistance has been 
 received, although in some cases the commission 
 
 December 14, 1912. 
 
 825 
 
326 
 
 THE SURVEY 
 
 December 14 
 
 INTERSTATE IMMIGRATION, 
 LAND AND LABOR 
 PROBLEMS 
 
 FRANCES A. KELLOR 
 
 Chief Investigator Bureau of Industries and Immigration, 
 New York Department of Labor 
 
 Following the three interests represented in its 
 organization the National Conference of Immi- 
 gration, Land and Labor Officials, 1 representing 
 thirty-eight states, is now at work on a federal 
 bill to be presented to the new administration, 
 creating in the department of labor, which it is 
 hoped/will become a fact during this session of 
 Congress, a bureau of distribution which will 
 deal with interstate immigration, land and labor 
 •problems, and which will co-operate with the 
 various states in their work within state limits. 
 
 This bureau will be concerned wholly with 
 matters in this country. In matters of 
 immigration it will include the supervision 
 and protection of admitted immigrants in 
 transit and the establishment of branches of the 
 bureau for this purpose at re-distribution centers ; 
 the licensing and regulation of steamship ticket 
 agents doing an interstate business; the distri- 
 bution of school children’s names from ports of 
 entry to school authorities, and the investigation 
 and adjustment of interstate complaints and dif- 
 ficulties which now arise. That this latter field 
 is large is seen from the fact that in the past 
 year the New York State Bureau of Industries 
 and Immigration has been called upon in hun- 
 dreds of cases to adjust matters between resi- 
 dents of California and Pennsylvania, and be- 
 tween the North and South in such matters as 
 steamship tickets, lost baggage, lost relatives, 
 colonization, employment contracts made in the 
 agencies in one state and consummated in a far 
 distant state. 
 
 In the matter of labor, it is proposed that this 
 new bureau shall include and extend the work 
 of the present division of information, which now 
 has one branch office in New York for distribut- 
 ing labor; shall license and regulate all private 
 agencies doing an interstate business, and shall 
 favor and co-operate with state free employment 
 
 J Tlie officers and executive committee for 1912-13 
 elected at the second conference of the organization held 
 in Chicago in November were : 
 
 Honorary President : T. V? Powderly chief of the 
 Federal Division of Information, Washington, D. ' C. 
 
 President: John R. Commons, meipber Wisconsin State 
 Industrial Commission, Madison, Wis. 
 
 Vice-President : J. F. Denechaud, secretary, Louisiana 
 State Board of Immigration, New Orleans, La. 
 
 Treasurer : Charles F. Gettemy, director, Massachusetts 
 Bureau of Statistics, Boston ; and 
 
 Secretary : Frances A. Keilor, chief investigator, Bu- 
 reau of Industries and Immigration, Department of 
 Labor, New York. 
 
 Members Executive Committee : Robert N. Lynch, 
 member California Immigration Commission, San Fran- 
 cisco ; John Nugent, commissioner of immigration in West 
 Virginia, Montgomery ; Charles Harris, director Kansas 
 Free Employment Agency, Topeka. 
 
 bureaus in fur" 
 clearing house 
 
 The enormoi 
 land and colons 
 ity of the states to reach settlers and farm 
 laborers make it necessary for this proposed 
 bureau to have the power and facilities for regis- 
 tering and furnishing information on lands of- 
 fered for sale. The bureau is also confronted 
 with the need of working out some plan of 
 having the federal government adopt a method 
 of providing long-time, low-interest loans to set- 
 tlers for the purpose of aiding them to purchase 
 land and make improvements on it or to dis- 
 charge indebtedness on the land. It also pro- 
 poses to make an investigation of such govern- 
 mental methods in use elsewhere. 
 
 All of these matters are interstate, and no 
 existing bureau is dealing with them. They are 
 fast becoming difficult problems to handle. This 
 bureau will have the opportunity to work out real 
 measures for the relief of congestion, at the 
 same time safeguarding the persons distributed 
 and making state connections which will give 
 them a fair chance for prosperity. 
 
 In its program for state activities the confer- 
 ence set itself the task of making a* study of 
 existing governmental agencies in the states and 
 in co-operation with state authorities to secure 
 sufficient appropriations, and new legislation for 
 whatever is needed. It will endeavor to have 
 established bureaus of labor where none exist, 
 and bureaus of immigration where needed. It 
 has adopted minimum standards for the establish- 
 ment of free employment agencies and the regu- 
 lation of private agencies. It is also at work on 
 means of getting the settler upon the land, and 
 of safeguarding him in his purchases and set- 
 tlement. In this respect it has taken up the mat- 
 ter of state advertising, the registration of lands 
 for sale, the approval of form of contracts for 
 the sale of land, the inspection of advertising ma- 
 terial and prosecution of fraud and the publica- 
 tion of accurate information concerning the land 
 for sale. 
 
 The need of a standard and the extension of 
 this state work in order that there may be co- 
 operation between the federal ancf state govern- 
 ments, may be seen from the fact that no state 
 now safeguards purchasers of private lands, nor 
 adequately reaches the settler through its pres- 
 ent advertising. Sixteen states have free em- 
 ployment bureaus, with no means of co-operation 
 between them; eighteen states regulate private 
 employment agencies, though in nearly one-half 
 of these only a license fee and bond is required 
 and there is no inspection provided for enforce- 
 ment of the law; thirty-fwe states are dealing 
 with the problem of labor with the greatest vari- 
 ation in scope, powers a /id appropriations. One 
 state has an industrial commission; six have 
 
 2 0619 
 
 9756