Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - II. Chapter. The rise and development of the correction-system
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were pardoned, and the rest received permission to
work in the common workshops.
This sorrowful result of an attempt, on which
such great hopes had been placed, depressed many
minds, shook the conviction of others, and the
philanthropic idea, of endeavouring to unite the
criminal’s improvement as far as possible with his
punishment, ran the danger of being considered
as an empty and childish vision. But a great and
true idea, once uttered, is immortal; the
development of the good it aims at, can certainly be
delayed for some time by exterior circumstances, but
it can never be smothered or annihilated.
In the mean time a new system arose in the
prison at Auburn, in the State of New-York, in
which it was attempted, by a more enlightened,
middle course, to avoid the numerous faults in the
classification plan, and that according to which the
prisoners were together. The prisoners were shut up
at night in separate cells; but by day they laboured
in common workshops, under perfect silence; the
least whisper, the most trifling sign was punished,
immediately, with extreme severity. Through this
arrangement they endeavoured to put a stop to the
injurious effect which the prisoners exert upon each
other, by the communication of thoughts and
impressions, without depriving themselves of the
possibility of letting them be together, and thus
retain the great advantages arising to the work itself,
when a greater power is employed to a common
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