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Show L . Students Behind Bars! . 1 i" , A. I v st w if t, , . j, .4 Above, a classroom In the "convict "con-vict college" at San Quentin penitentiary. pen-itentiary. At the right is E. M. Steigers, director of education in this unique college. y U Hundreds In 'College' At San Quentin J tive tongue. In a corner is an ink-black ink-black southern negro "con" teaching teach-ing a larger group the Spanish he learned in the Mexican oil fields. Small groups all over create a hum of low voices as the trusty "professors" impart their butter education to minds long fallow. Some 9 different courses are offered, of-fered, and these are supplemented 1 by the best prison library in the country, one of 12,000 volumes. Wants S 1 00,000 Building E. M. Steigers, an adult educator By NEA Service SAN QUENTIN, Calif., Sept. 7. The biggest and best "convict coW lege' in the United States is growing grow-ing yearly behind the gray walls of this overcrowded and oversized penitentiary. The "college" is housed in an ancient brick building 45 years old. The lights are poor, the ceiling low, the room noisy and the "faculty," for the most part, home talent. May Be National Movement But here in the dingy quarters are the beginning of what some day will be a national movement in the education of this country 100,000 penal servitors, a movement designed de-signed to send men forth their heads filled with more than the dark thoughts bred of their incarceration. incar-ceration. Education is elective in San Quentin "college." Yet so far 1665 inmates have enrolled as students. Of these, 438 are taking Univresity of California extension courses; 61 go to night school in the low-roofed room and 463 attend the Jay courses given by the home talent teacher-trusties. One day yju'Il witness a strange sight. Bending over a small group of gray-clad men is an ex-German sailor, a "lifq.r," speaking low, laboriously la-boriously spelling out words un a blackboard as he teaches his na- who used to teach plantation workers work-ers in Hawaiian sugar fields, id director di-rector of the school, and hopes soon to move his classes into a $100,000 building. "The minds of our students .ire no more dull nor exceptional than the average on the outside," said Steigers. "They represent the gen-oral gen-oral average of the draft army, typical typ-ical of American intelligence. They are easily taught, even the older men. We find that men as old as 60 and 65 learn readily and remember remem-ber what they learn. "What is needed is more vocational voca-tional training to go with the theoretical the-oretical teaching. We should turn men cut fitted to do special tasks. A few cents, say 10 cents, added to the tax rate the country over would give this to our 100,000 convicts. con-victs. It would be well worth it in fewer repeaters and a mitigating of crime." |