indeterminate sentence would be in itself to any man a great stimulus to reform, because his reformation would be the only means of his terminating that sentence.  At the same time a man left to himself, even in the best ordered of our State prisons which is not a reformatory, would be scarcely likely to make much improvement.

I have not space in this article to consider the character of the reformatory; that subject is fortunately engaging the attention of scientific people as one of the most interesting of our modern problems.  To take a decadent human being, a wreck physically and morally, and try to make a man of him, that is an attempt worthy of a people who claim to be civilized.  An illustration of what can be done in this direction is furnished by the Elmira Reformatory, where the experiment is being made with most encouraging results, which, of course, would be still better if the indeterminate sentence were brought to its aid.

When the indeterminate sentence has been spoken of with a view to legislation, the question has been raised whether it should be applied to prisoners on the first, second, or third conviction of a penal offense.  Legislation in regard to the parole system has also considered whether a man should be considered in the criminal class on his first conviction for a penal offense.  Without entering upon this question at length, I will suggest that the convict should, for his own sake, have the indeterminate sentence applied to him upon conviction of his first penal offense.  He is much more likely to reform then than he would be after he had had a term in the State prison and was again convicted, and the chance of his reformation would be lessened by each subsequent experience of this kind.  The great object of the indeterminate sentence, so far as the security of society is concerned, is to diminish the number of the criminal class, and this will be done when it is seen that the first felony a man commits is likely to be his last, and that for a young criminal contemplating this career there is in this direction “no thoroughfare.”

   By his very first violation of the statute he walks into
   confinement, to stay there until he has given up the purpose of such
   a career.

In the limits of this paper I have been obliged to confine myself to remarks upon the indeterminate sentence itself, without going into the question of the proper organization of reformatory agencies to be applied to the convict, and without consideration of the means of testing the reformation of a man in any given case.  I will only add that the methods at Elmira have passed far beyond the experimental stage in this matter.

The necessary effect of the adoption of the indeterminate sentence for felonies is that every State prison and penitentiary must be a reformatory.  The convict goes into it for the term of a year at least (since the criminal law, according to ancient precedent, might require that, and because the discipline of the reformatory would require it as a practical rule), and he stays there until, in the judgment of competent authority, he is fit to be trusted at large.