468 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
with rare exceptions, should include sheets and pillow slips. For the sake of health, self-respect, and the cultural influence of the general appearance, scrupulous cleanliness should be maintained and the prisoners kept appropriately groomed.
3. A liberal prison dietary designed to promote vigor. Dep- rivation of food, by a general regulation, for a penal purpose, is deprecated ; and is a practice only tolerable in very exceptional instances as a tentative prison disciplinary measure. On the other hand, the giving of food privileges for favor or in return for some special serviceableness rendered to the prison authori- ties is unadvisable and usually becomes a troublesome precedent. More variety, better quality and service of foods for the higher grades of prisoners is serviceably allowable even to the extent of the a la carte method, whenever the prisoners, under the wage system, have the requisite credit balance for such expenditure. Also, for some of the very lowest intractable prisoners, a special, scientifically adjusted dietary, with reference to the constituent nutritive quality, and as to quantities and manner of serving, may be used to lay a foundation for their improvement otherwise unattainable.
4. All the modern appliances for scientific physical culture : a gymnasium completely equipped with baths and apparatus; and facilities for field athletics. On their first admission to the reformatory all are assigned to the gymnasium to be examined, renovated, and quickened ; the more defective of them are longer detained, and the decadents are held under this physical treat- ment until the intended effect is accomplished. When the popula- tion of the Elmira Reformatory was 1,400, the daily attendance at the gymnasium averaged 429.
5. Facilities for special manual training sufficient for about one-third of the resident population. The aim is to aid educa- tional advancement in the trades and school of letters. This special manual training, which at Elmira reformatory included, at one time, five hundred of the prisoners, the training given in addition to other exercises in other departments covered me- chanical and freehand drawing; sloyd in wood and metals;
