George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[228] amuse you, too, with echoes, and long tin horns; and the children, as you toil up the mountains, come out with berries and flowers for you; so strikingly do similar local circumstances produce similar results, in habits and manners. We have, indeed, enjoyed the last three days more than the week that preceded them, and shall stop tomorrow in this wild, secluded spot.¹ After that, two days will easily take us to Franklin, Mr. Webster's fine farm, again; and therefore Thursday may well bring us home to Boston. . . . .

Meantime, console yourselves for my absence, as well as you can, with my best love, and with the assurance that I want to see you as much as you can desire to have me. Love to all, especially ‘uncles and aunts.’

Always your loving father,

G. T.

To Prince John, of Saxony.

Boston, U. S. A., October 30, 1846.

my dear Prince,—When I had the honor of writing to you, about a year since, I told you, I believe, that, in the spring of this year, I should send you a document of some moment on the subject of prison discipline. . . . . But the report of the small minority adhering to the Philadelphia or solitary, system, has appeared from the press only within a few days, and the report of the majority is not yet published at all.

The first—or the report of the minority, attacking the Auburn system and defending the Philadelphia system—I have now the honor to send you. It is the most important document that has been published in this country, on the side it espouses. More weight would be given to it if it dealt more with facts, and had its foundations more deeply laid in statistical results. But the truth is, we have not yet experience enough to furnish the materials for such an examination of the subject. I, therefore, regard it still as an open question; and in proportion as the discussion advances, and the materials for a wise decision accumulate, I shall be happy to be able to send you whatever is here published, that will be likely to interest you. Meantime, I console myself with the assurance, that both systems, wherever they are in practical operation, are doing much good, and are rapidly maturing results, which will enable good and faithful men to reach conclusions, upon which the best system of penitentiary discipline may be left to rest.