During the last decade the efforts for prison progress have been principally directed to the matter of the treatment of prisoners, the construction of buildings, prison labor, food and clothing, classification, indeterminate sentence, parole, education and the mental study of inmates. Comparatively little has been done to improve the methods employed for the selection of officials and subordinates, and practically nothing has been done to provide means for the necessary training of such officers and subordinates. These matters have, indeed, been discussed from time to time, but no more. This angle of the prison problem surely is of no small importance and is as essential to substantial progress as the features enumerated above. Penal institutions are gradually being looked upon as serving either of two purposes. First, for the reformation of offenders, and secondly, for the permanent detention of those who need custodial care. The public should learn that the supervision and treatment of offenders is essentially a task for persons with certain natural qualifications and specialized training. It is interesting to note that the New York State Legislature in 1847 enacted a law providing as follows: No appointment shall be made in any of the state prisons of this state on the grounds of political partisanship; but honesty, capacity and adaptation shall constitute the rule for appointments, and any violation of this rule shall be sufficient cause for the removing from office of the officer committing such violation. Time has shown us that both the spirit and the letter of this law have been violated, and if the penalty of imprisonment had followed conviction for every violation, it is probable that many of our prison officials would have found themselves included among those whom they were appointed to supervise. In one of our prisons alone in the space of some seventy years we have had thirty-six wardens. Surely this was not because men increasingly fit for the job were found in such quick succession. A noted lawyer has been quoted as saying that there are two kinds of laws, one kind to be strictly observed and the other to satisfy the reformers. On the basis of experience it would