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MISSOURI ISTORICAL REVI EW. CONTENTS Missouri As A Pioneer In Criminal Court Reform A. C. Breckenridge and W. G. Colman Educational Opportunities In Early Missouri, Part II Margaret McMillan and Monia Cook Morris Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins* Part VIII Edited by C.B. Rollins Missouriana Historical Notes and Comments Missouri History Not Found In Textbooks 5TATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY of MISSOURI VOL. XXXIII JULY 1939 No. 4 OFFICERS OF THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI, 1939-1942 ALLEN McREYNOLDS, Carthage, President. WALTER B. STEVENS, St. Louis, First Vice-President. GEORGE A. ROZIER, Perryville, Second Vice-President. MARION C. EARLY, St. Louis, Third Vice-President. B. M. LITTLE, Lexington, Fourth Vice-President. OHN T. BARKER, Kansas City, Fifth Vice-President, OY H. MONIER, Carrollton, Sixth Vice-President. £R. B. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer. FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Secretary and Librarian. BOARD OF TRUSTEES Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1940 JESSE W. BARRETT, St. Louis. W. J. SEWALL, Carthage. ALBERT M. CLARK, Richmond. H. S. STURGIS, Neosho. HENRY J. HASKELL, Kansas City. JONAS VILES, Columbia. McMILLAN LEWIS, St. Louis. L. M. WHITE, Mexico. WM. R. PAINTER, Carrollton. Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1941 BEN L. EMMONS, St. Charles ISIDOR LOEB, St. Louis. STEPHEN B. HUNTER, E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville. Cape Girardeau. CHAS. H. WHITAKER, WALDO P. JOHNSON, Osceola. Clinton. LANGDON R. JONES, Kennett. ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville. Expires at Annual Meeting, 1942 LUDWIG FUERBRINGER, WM. SOUTHERN, Jr., St. Louis. Independence. HENRY KRUG, Jr., St. J HENRY C. THOMPSON, DULANY MAHAN, Hannibal Sonne xcrrc JU STUS R. MOLL, Springfield. GEORGE H. WILLIAMS, JOOH N F. RHODES, St. Louis. Kansas City. CHARLES L. WOODS, Rolla. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-six trustees, the President and the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and * of the University of Missouri, constitute the Executive Committee. THE MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW VOL. XXXIII JULY 1939 NO. 4 CONTENTS Page Missouri As A Pioneer In Criminal Court Reform 471 A. C. BRECKENRIDGE and W. G. COLMAN Educational Opportunities In Early Missouri, Part II 477 MARGARET MCMILLAN and MONIA COOK MORRIS Letters of George Caleb Bingham to James S. Rollins, Part VIII. 499 Edited by C. B. ROLLINS Missouriana 527 Historical Notes and Comments 558 Missouri History Not Found in Textbooks 594 rfS85>!ta FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Editor The Missouri Historical Review is published quarterly. It is sent free to all members of the State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $1.00 a year. All communications should be addressed to Floyd C. Shoemaker, The State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri. The Society assumes no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. "Entered as second-class matter at the postoffice at Columbia, Missouri, under Act of Congress, October S, 1917, Sec. ^22." CONTRIBUTORS BRECKENRIDGE, A. CARLYLE, native Missourian, is a graduate assist­ ant in the department of political science at the University of Missouri. He received his A. M. degree from that institution in 1938. COLMAN, WILLIAM G., a native Missourian, is a graduate student in the department of political science at the University of Missouri. He received his A. M. degree from that institution in 1939. MCMILLAN, MARGARET, is an instructor in history and geography in Christian College at Columbia, Missouri. She received her A. M. degree from the University of Missouri. She has taught history in the summer sessions of the Central Missouri State Teachers College at War­ rensburg and of the Northwest Missouri State Teachers College at Mary­ ville. She and Monia C. Morris are joint authors of a Workbook in Mis­ souri History. MORRIS, MONIA COOK, is research associate in the State Historical Society of Missouri. She is a native Missourian and received her A. M. degree from the University of Missouri. She held the position of cor­ respondence instructor in history in the University of Missouri from 1928 to 1938. She is also an instructor in social science in Christian College at Columbia, Missouri. ROLLINS, C. B., native Missourian, is a graduate of the University of Missouri. He is interested in all phases of Missouri history and is an occasional contributor to the Missouri Historical Review. His home is in Columbia, Missouri. MISSOURI AS A PIONEER IN CRIMINAL COURT REFORM BY A. C. BRECKENRIDGE and W. G. COLMAN Although Missouri has been credited with leadership in varied fields of legislation, her leadership in liberal legisla­ tion for criminal rehabilitation and reform has not been given true recognition. In the field of probation and parole, Mis­ souri led in the progressive movement away from the idea that the function of the criminal courts was to inflict punish­ ment rather than to aid in the rehabilitation of the criminal offender. Probation was used only in exceptional cases in the United States during the nineteenth century. One of the first applications of probation was in the case of children who had become caught in the tentacles of the law. Children's aid societies began to carry on investigations for the courts and to assume the role of guardianship for certain of these juvenile offenders. The next step was toward leniency with adults which steadily gained judicial favor. Under English common law various methods had developed, such as suspending or withholding sentence or releasing the defendant on good behavior.1 However, it was not until the passage of the Massachusetts law of 1878 that any statutory enactments appeared to give these common law methods any legislative approval. That law was quite limited in its scope, since it was concerned only with the appointment of a probation officer for the city of Boston. In 1891, Massachusetts required the criminal courts of the State to appoint probation officers.2 Yet, these provisions constituted no radical change in the gradual development of greater leniency for criminal offenders. The use of probation provides the courts with two significant devices. First, the defendant's past is investigated 1Chute, Charles L., "The Progress of Probation and Social Treatment in the Courts," in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 24, p. 61. 2National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, Report on Penal Institutions, Probation and Parole, 1931, p. 151. (471) 472 MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW in order that all possible information be placed at the dis­ posal of the court. Second, for those persons deemed suitable, supervised release is provided. If the probation system is properly developed, the probation officer gives personal supervision for the guidance and discipline of the defendant.3 In the early practices, probation had taken the form of suspended imposition of sentence—that is, the offender was not sentenced at all, but was placed under the guidance of a probation officer for a certain period. Parole is a method providing for release of prisoners committed to prison upon conviction of crime. Groups in Missouri interested in legis­ lation of this nature aided in the adoption of a system which in reality constituted probation, since the offender was never committed to prison. The significance lies in the fact that the law permitted release before the offender had served any part of his sentence. This unique arrangement contained both parole and probation features. The technique of parole was applied in that sentence was imposed, though not executed. The feature of suspended execution of sentence was an in­ novation in American law, although it had been embodied in the system used by Australian courts.4 Suspended execu­ tion of sentence is now a familiar technique in the field of probation, but its origin is traced to Missouri legislation passed in 1897. The 1897 law employs the term "parol" (parole). The system provided by this law would now be considered an approach to probation. In view of the fact that the term parole is employed in the law itself, the treatment here will retain the use of that term. The Missouri law outlined several specific conditions with which paroled persons were to comply. The circuit and criminal courts of the State and the court of criminal cor­ rection of St. Louis were given power to parole persons con­ victed of a violation of the criminal laws of the State. Grant­ ing paroles to persons convicted of felonies was limited to those offenders under twenty-five years of age. Persons con- 3Chute, "The Progress of Probation and Social Treatment in the Courts,' op. cit., p. 61. 4Wines, Frederick Howard, Punishment and Reformation, p. 221. MISSOURI AS A PIONEER IN CRIMINAL COURT REFORM 473 victed of murder, rape, arson, or robbery were ineligible for parole under this 1897 law.5 The court was empowered to parole convicted persons subject to the rules prescribed by the court, providing the court was convinced that the offender would not again violate the law if permitted to go at large. The court was given the authority to terminate the parole at any time by simply in­ structing the sheriff to take the person into custody and execute the sentence already imposed. However, after the termination of a parole in this manner, the court was allowed to grant a second parole after the costs of the case had been paid by the defendant. The courts were limited by the law to two paroles to any one person under a single conviction. Any person confined in jail under judgment of conviction before a justice of the peace might be paroled. His parole could be terminated or an absolute discharge granted by the court having appellate jurisdiction from the justice court in that county in the same manner described above for the circuit and criminal courts in general.6 The court was given the authority to grant an absolute discharge to any paroled person under jail sentence after a period of six months from the time the parole was granted and to any felonious offenders under parole after two years.

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