Elias Nason, The Life and Times of Charles Sumner: His Boyhood, Education and Public Career.

[90] G. Howe, the Rev. Francis Wayland, and other gentlemen, became deeply interested in the course of the Boston Prison Discipline Society, and in the improvement of the condition of the prisons of our own country. Of the various systems in vogue, Mr. Sumner deprecated that of the promiscuous commingling of prisoners in one company, and also that of absolute solitude, endangering the health and preventing reformation. With the distinguished M. de Tocqueville, he favored the Pennsylvania system which embraced these element,--separation, labor in the cell, exercise in the pen air, visits, and books, together with moral and religious instruction. In a speech of much power before the Boston Prison Discipline Society, at the Tremont Temple, June 18, 1847, he criticised the partial and inefficient course of that body, and presented his enlightened views upon the subject, which gave fresh impulse to the efforts made for the amelioration of the systems of our penal institutions.

The next notable literary effort of Mr. Sumner was an address entitled “Fame and glory,” delivered before the literary societies of Amherst College, at their anniversary, Aug. 11, 1847. Although the theme was commonplace, the genius of the speaker unfolded it from such a lofty standpoint, and so affluently illustrated it with classic lore, as to impart