It was at one time thought that the great panacea for the prevention of crime was education. Undoubtedly education has an important bearing on criminality, but we now know that the mere intellectual rudiments of education have very little influence indeed in preventing crime, though they may have a distinct influence in modifying its forms. Such education merely puts a weapon into the hands of the anti-social man. The only education that can avail to prevent crime in any substantial degree must be education in the true sense, an education that is as much physical and moral as intellectual, an education that enables him who has it to play a fair part in social life. The proportion of criminals with some intellectual education is now becoming very large; the proportion of criminals who are acquainted with any trade still remains very small; the proportion of criminals engaged in their trade at the time of the crime is smaller still. We seem to be approaching a point at which it will become obvious that every citizen must be educated to perform some useful social function. In the interests of society he must be enabled to earn his living by that function. If we close the social ranks against him he will enter the anti-social ranks, and the more educated he is the more dangerous he will then become.
All education must include provision for the detection and special treatment of abnormal children. We cannot catch our criminals too young. Taverni has found that criminals in childhood are marked especially by their resistance to educative influences. It is our duty and our interest to detect such refractory and abnormal children at the earliest period, to examine them carefully, and to ensure that each shall have the treatment best adapted to him. It is much easier, and much cheaper, to do that, than to wait until he has brought ruin on himself and shame on his friends. This is beginning to be recognised and acted upon in those countries that are most alive to the meaning of education; in Sweden, for instance, there is a careful medical supervision of schools, by medical officers who are not subordinate to the teachers, although this supervision is confined to the physical condition and capacities of the child. It is indispensable, if we are to deal effectually with the criminal, that we should be able to refer to the record of his physical, mental, and moral dispositions during childhood. In England recently a committee, consisting of the most eminent medical men specially qualified for the task, was appointed to examine into the condition of children in primary schools. This committee, owing chiefly to the enthusiasm and labour of Dr. Francis Warner, accomplished much valuable work, but the London School Board refused to allow any access to its schools. The London School Board consists, one may suppose, of intelligent persons, genuinely interested in education, and representing the sense of the community, yet they refused to consider one of the most serious problems that the educator has to face. So true it is that every society has only the criminals that it deserves.