Indeterminate sentences, to be limited only by satisfactory proof of reformation. Education as a vital force in reformation, and hence the need of the prison school. Labor as the basis of all reformatory discipline. The abolition of contract labor as prejudicial to discipline, finance and reformation. Graded prisons, to include separate provision for the incorrigible, the untried, younger criminals, and for women. The uselessness of repeated short sentences for minor criminals. Preventive institutions for juvenile delinquents, including truant homes and industrial schools. More systematic and comprehensive methods for the saving of discharged prisoners. Indemnification for wrongful imprisonment. The duty of society to improve conditions that beget and The requirement from parents of full or partial support of Religion, of all reformatory agencies, as first in importance. On the foundation of these principles that I have thus hurriedly reviewed, what have we really builded in the intervening forty-five years? We have established in praetically all of the States special institutions for juvenile delinquents; in one-third of them reformatories for young men; and in five separate prisons or reformatories for women. We have pretty generally recognized, and in most of the Northern States adopted indeterminate sentence and parole laws. These laws operate to protect and save discharged prisoners. They also necessitate the adoption of grading systems that stimulate to good conduct through the bestowal of privileges and rewards. But no system can offer rewards for good conduct without withholding them for bad conduct. This in itself means discipline and punishment. We are still experimenting with prison labor with some fair hope that in the State Use Plan we have found a rational substitute for that half-brother of the Lease System, Contract Labor. The utilization of the labor of prisoners for the production of goods to be consumed by the State, and in road building, farming, forestry and other conservation work, has passed the experimental stage. We have proven beyond any question that prisoners may be safely and profitably employed outside the prison walls; but this is not true of all prisoners and we must have a care lest, in the application of this new idea, we grow over-sanguine. A prisoner who has not begun to feel "the restraining influences of liberty" is not fit to leave the prison either for the open work of the road, farm and forest, or upon parole. But if, as seems likely, from forty to sixty per cent. of the inmates of our state prisons and reformatories can, at some stage in their imprisonment, be worked outside these institutions, then the problem of the employment of the remainder within the walls becomes comparatively easy of solution. This system of employment is bringing about a recognition of the right of the prisoner to have some share in the product of his labor, especially when he has wife, children, or parents dependent upon him for support. This right, or, if it is not a right, then this privilege has already been recognized by legislation or practice in a number of States. Possibly we may eventually go one step further and require him, from his earnings, to make restitution either to the State or individuals for the wrong committed by him. We have not yet recognized the principle of indemnification by the State for wrongful imprisonment. Our prison school systems, with a few notable exceptions, are systems largely in name only. We have gone all too slow in requiring parents to pay for the whole or partial support of their delinquent children. We are still guilty of the folly of punishing chronic misdemeanants by repeated short sentences. It is needless for me to dwell upon the efforts now being made by society to improve "conditions that beget and foster crime." Numberless influences are at work. Among these are recreation centers, public playgrounds, better home conditions, special and vocational schools, laws regulating or prohibiting the sale of drugs and liquors, and a growing sense of civic responsibility. How far have we gone in organizing a real prison system? Not far! Our prisons and reformatories and jails and workhouses. are administered as separate and independent units, with a consequent utter lack of system. All of these institutions should be placed under the supervision and direction of the State, to the end that out of the present chaotic condition a real and efficient state penal and correctional system may be established. An initial step will be the abolition of our present county jail system and the substitution therefor of houses of detention in each county for all persons held for trial or detained as witnesses; with a system of county or district workhouses to which all persons sentenced to imprisonment for minor crimes and misdemeanors shall be committed. With these we must have laws that shall, first, make compulsory the absolute separation, each from the other, of all persons during the time they are held in such houses of detention; second, that shall provide for indefinite sentences to such workhouses, with provision for parole, for all persons convicted and sentenced for misdemeanors or minor crimes, and third, that shall provide for the setting aside of a reasonable portion of the earnings of the prisoner for the use of his or her dependent family, or as an aid to rehabilitation at the time of parole, or for restitution to those who suffered by his criminal conduct. The State, as the lawmaking power, must itself assume the custody and direct the treatment of those who are charged with the violation of its laws. Therefore, in the construction and management of such houses of detention and workhouses, as well as of county jails, the State should have a controlling voice. Our county jails have been indicted, tried, and found guilty as unsanitary, immoral, medieval, crime breeders. The English language has been exhausted in describing their pernicious and vicious influence, and the truth of all that has been said we are forced to admit. They are pouring the virus of crime, of immorality and disease into our social system. We can abolish these institutions by the establishment of workhouses for convicted misdemeanants and of houses of detention for the untried. The control of crime leads toward the final abolition of all prisons; failure to control leads toward the abolition of law. There are but the two roads. We have chosen the first. This may seem ideal? It is. And the realization of this ideal very, very remote? It is. But ideals are necessary antecedents to progress and the higher the ideal the higher we climb. If we fall short of perfection let it not be because we failed to aim at it. We have tried, are still trying, to eliminate crime by legislative enactment; but laws, human laws, do not in themselves make men moral. That is something that works from within; the process, however, is greatly encouraged and expedited by external influences and many of these are at work. But we have been spending our efforts very largely to improve the physical and mental. Let us hope that we shall finally reach up and into the moral and spiritual, which is the final step in all our work, to re-create in man not only the image but the attributes of his Maker. THE ANNUAL SERMON. Sunday Morning, November 10. REV. FRANCIS J. VAN HORN, D. D., PASTOR FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed."— John 8:36. We find in the midst of Jesus' long discussion with the Jews this great statement: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." Jesus is here saying there is a difference, that not all of those are free that seem to be free; neither are all of those bound who seem to be bound; that there are those outside of bondage who might well be confined and that there are those confined within prison walls, who in spirit are free. There is a difference, Jesus is saying. There is a real freedom. and a false freedom. There are those who think they are free or those who are persuaded they are free, who are, nevertheless, born slaves, shackled and bound, and there are those who are bound and shackled who in spirit roam far abroad in perfect freedom. He tells us the basis of all real freedom is the freedom of the spirit-spiritual freedom. It is, as he phrases it, the freedom and liberty of the children of God, and there is no other, he declares. He puts his declaration in flat contrast and contradiction with those who are discussing and disputing with him. They say, "We are free". He says, once and again, "You are not free". "You are the servants of sin and therefore the slaves of sin". "You are not free; you are not even Abraham's seed, though you may be in the flesh, for you do not do the deeds of Abraham. You are not the children of God because you do not show His spirit, and there is no freedom except the freedom of the spirit and there is no liberty except the liberty of the children of God." This morning, in the presence of those who have spent their lives in the study of the problems of the prisoner, I will not undertake to discuss any of those problems. Let me rather stick to my task as a preacher of the gospel; and yet I may do it using some of |