Criminal Reform and National Education
By Editor
Judge Henry E. McGinn of the State Circuit Court of Oregon propounds a new theory for the reformation of criminals. According to his statement he divides men guilty of crime into three classes,—(1) the first offender, a young man with a previously clean record; (2) the weakling, the man who is good or bad according to his environment; and (3) the professional criminal, the man who has lost all moral sense and has become incorrigible. Only the latter class, he thinks, ought to be sentenced to the penitentiary, and that only because science offers no other means of dealing with him. Says the "Western Watchman:" "A unilingual people can not hope to keep pace with other and better educated peoples in the race for power and progress in our day. South America is forging to the front and will soon pass us, owing to the fact that the people of the republics to the south of us are better educated, vastly more moral, and ask of their neighbors no favors they do not themselves accord." Of these last affirmations there would be serious differences of opinion, we are afraid.