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education. Ninety per cent. of those who had attended school confessed themselves to have been chronic truants. But while the inmates of our reformatories are largely ignorant of books, it is their lack of skill in a trade or some useful vocation which seems to be the chief cause of their downfall. Hence great emphasis is laid upon industrial training in the Illinois reformatory, as in other similar institutions. Instruction is given in carpentry, brick and stone masonry, plastering, painting, paperhanging, tinwork, glazing, plumbing, gardening, electrical engineering, blacksmithing, shoemaking, tailoring, laundry work, stone- and granite-cutting, printing, bookbinding, cabinet work, music, photography, knitting, chairmaking, bookkeeping, and domestic service. "So skilled do many of the inmates become," we are told, "that it may be truthfully said that they could build a workshop or residence from foundation to roof, and paint it in good style, with but little outside assistance, and that of a supervisory character." The result is that the vast majority of "the graduates of Pontiac" earn an honest living after leaving the reformatory, and those who fall are without excuse, unless, indeed, “innate depravity" be considered an excuse for committing crime.

On October 1, 1900, there were 1,275 inmates in the reformatory, and they were organized into four battalions, each 300 strong, to whom military instruction and drill are given by competent officers. Workshops, cell-houses, and other buildings have been erected during the last decade, until this reformatory is now as well equipped as perhaps any similar institution in the country-save in one particular. As already stated, about two hundred small boys, between ten and sixteen years of age, are incarcerated with the older inmates. It is true that they are kept separate from the older boys—have separate schools, dining-rooms, playgrounds, and dormitories—and are not under as strict discipline as are the others. But the reformatory authorities admit that these young boys ought not to be confined in the same inclosure with the older and more vicious prisoners, and they have been asking for money for some time to erect cottages for the small boys outside the reformatory walls. But a still more serious objection to committing these small boys to

the reformatory is that they must be convicted of a felony, and thus legally stamped as "criminals," before they can be sent to this institution. Hence the best sentiment of the state is opposed to sending young boys to Pontiac at all, and other institutions have been provided or are being provided for them.

It is claimed that the discipline of the reformatory is mild, but firm, and there is no reason to doubt that this is true; at least it is true in the vast majority of cases. No doubt stern measures have to be adopted in certain cases, where an inmate proves to be wholly irresponsive to kindly influences. Such cases are found in all institutions (even in churches!), and rosewater treatment is not effective. Several newspaper attacks have recently been made upon the Pontiac Reformatory, but these attacks were based chiefly on the statements of a few discharged inmates, who, it appeared, had been very unmanageable while in the reformatory. The rules of discipline are certainly humane and reasonable in character, and the board of managers and superintendent and other officers of the reformatory are among the most enlightened and humane reformers in the state. Until recently the board of managers had the power to transfer prisoners who might prove to be incorrigible to the state penitentiary, but a recent decision of the supreme court has declared this feature of the law unconstitutional, null, and void.

What percentage of those who pass through the reformatory are reformed? Between 1891 and 1900 it received 5,316 inmates; 3,328 have been paroled; 624 have been returned for further treatment; 94 were transferred to the penitentiary; the sentences of 526 expired; 30 were pardoned, 53 died, 78 escaped, and 40 were released on a writ of habeas corpus-these latter being released in 1899 and 1900, since the juvenile-court law of 1899 went into effect. Making all due allowance for relapses, we seem justified in concluding that at least the vast majority of those who were paroled and some of those who served out their terms, or were pardoned, became law-abiding citizens; and, if so, the work of the reformatory must be considered a success.

CHICAGO PARENTAL SCHOOL.

T. H. MACQUEARY.

ARISTOPHANES AS A STUDENT OF SOCIETY.

THE fact that Aristophanes is a most important witness to the social and economic conditions prevailing in Athens in the latter part of the fifth century B. C. is generally recognized, even when his testimony has not been critically studied. The interest of the dramatist in social and economic problems, his tentative studies and theories along these lines, the testimony of his writings to the fact that many of the problems which a little later engaged the attention of Plato were commonly discussed in Athens a generation before Plato began to handle them— these matters have not been so generally either studied or recognized. In the present paper I have endeavored to collect some of the data on these lines and to classify them for further investigation. I shall speak first of Aristophanes's treatment of the motives of social activity and the fundamental postulates of society; secondly, of his analysis of the family and the state; and, thirdly, of his discussion of property and related economic questions.

I. THE ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL LIFE.

The theory of society which may be traced in the work of Aristophanes starts with the fact that economic needs-the need of food, of clothing, and of shelter-are at the basis of society. In perhaps the earliest of Greek dreams of the systematic reorganization of society on a communistic basis, in the Ecclesiazousæ of Aristophanes, these needs are to be supplied by the state itself. After land, money, and other property have been turned over to the women in control of the state, then they will care for its citizens; "everyone will have everythingbread, fish, cakes, clothing, wine, crowns," and women (605). Under ordinary circumstances, however, a man must earn the money to supply these needs, and thus they serve as the stimulus which gives rise to all the different arts and trades. "All arts and devices among men were discovered by reason of you [Wealth]; for one of us sits at the shoemaker's bench, another is a

blacksmith, another a carpenter, another gets gold from you and fashions it, another is a thief and a burglar, by Zeus, another cards wool, another tans leather," etc.; and all by reason of wealth.1 In the defense which poverty offers it is set forth clearly that it is the need of money to meet the fundamental necessities of life which makes men work; "if Wealth were to distribute himself equally, no man would trouble himself about skill in the arts or practical wisdom; and after these were gone, who would want to carry on the different arts, provided he could live in idleness neglecting them?" So then, the argument runs, poverty is a benefit both to the individual in that it makes him work, and to society in that it causes the production of much to satisfy human needs and in so doing binds society together. Conversely, the satisfaction of all needs by means of wealth breeds gout and inactivity and crime.3 Even the religious side of social life, from the materialistic standpoint set forth by the poet, depends ultimately on physical needs and the desire for money to satisfy these needs. Men no longer sacrifice to the gods when they have money to buy what they want, so that the priest who had shared these sacrifices complains bitterly that the presence of Plutus among men has taken away his livelihood; men no longer sacrifice to the gods, but to the birds, when it is the birds who look after the crops and cause human activities to prosper.5

The general thesis of the Acharnians is that war should cease because it interferes with natural pleasures. The war had seriously interfered with agriculture; it had limited the variety of food at Athens, nor could men get enough food of any kind; it had prevented the simple joys of the rural Dionysia; it broke up the new family by carrying off the bridegroom to serve as a soldier. In Megara there was famine such that the citizen brought his daughters to sell them in the market of Dicæopolis; in this case, also, hunger is a fundamental reason for commercial activity.

Again the Lysistrata is an absurd and obscene presentation of

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the fact that appetite and passion are fundamental factors in social life; in that it interferes with these, war is to be brought to an end. Finally the same motives which are behind normal social life are noted as causes of crime, so that under the system of communism proposed in the Ecclesiazousæ crime will cease; moreover, the same distribution of wealth which would check commercial activity would also check crime."

Imitation as a factor in social life is recognized by the poet. In Athens, and in the parody of Athens in the Birds, men are subject to crazes of imitation :

In the time before

There was a Spartan mania, and people went
Stalking about the streets, with Spartan staves,
With their long hair, unwashed and slovenly,
Like so many Socrates's; but, of late,

Birds are the fashion - Birds are all in all-
Their modes of life are grown to be mere copies
Of the birds' habits; rising with the lark,
Scratching and scrabbling suits and informations;
Picking and pecking upon points of law;

Brooding and hatching evidence.3

I

An example of this trait in the Athenian appears in the Ecclesiazousæ (787). Before yielding to the demands of the new communism, the citizen waits to see whether others propose to obey the law before he obeys it and turns in his property.

Aristophanes clearly recognizes that habit and tradition are conservative forces which lend stability to society. The birds lack stability of manner and persistence of purpose, a feature of the bird-city in which the Athenians could not but see reflected a lack of their own.5 One advantage in the new rule of the women proposed in the Ecclesiazouse is to be that love of the good old ways which marks women (215), while men are always ready to try some new thing (584 f.). Strepsiades in the opening of the Clouds laments that slaves are no longer under the control of masters, because the old social conditions are disI 1 Eccl., 698 f., 670.

2

Plut., 165 and 565 f.

3 Av., 1280; FRERE'S translation.

• Ibid., 165.

5 Cf. Eccl., 813 f.

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