They have broken some of the rules established for the protection
of all. They have misused their freedom, and in punishment their
freedom is taken away from them.
They live in small cells, in a very big prison.
Gray stone, iron bars, striped suits, enforced silence, enforced
work, enforced regularity of life--all these punish most keenly
those whose first crime was lack of self-control and lack of
regularity. ----
In every prison and in every prisoner there are lessons for each
of us. You will not waste time to-day if you walk through this
great Auburn prison and think of the men there think why they
came there, think how they could have been saved, think what will
gradually empty prisons and make them unnecessary.
A man with one arm opens the first iron gate--his mutilated body
foreshadows the mutilated minds and souls within.
Before the door of the prison there are bright flowers--the name
of the prison itself stands out in brightly colored blossoms to
prove the gardener's ability and strange sense of the
appropriate. Many of the causes that bring men there are written
out in just such bright colors--when first seen--and many a
prisoner must have thought of that as he passed through the iron
door.
A party of six or seven go through the prison with you.
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