Enoch Wines

February 17, 1806 (age 72)

He abandoned a brief experiment with a classical school in Washington, D. C. , in 1829 to become schoolmaster of midshipmen on the United States frigate Constellation, an experience that provided material for his Two Years and a Half in the Navy (2 vols. , 1832). Purchasing the Edgehill Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, in the same year, he conducted a boys' school on the pattern of the German gymnasia. Declining fortunes at the school led him in 1839 to try an instructorship at the People's College in Philadelphia, but within a few years he purchased another classical school in Burlington, New Jersey, which likewise failed to flourish. During this period he published several tracts and for a short time edited a monthly magazine, the American Journal of Education, agitating for the establishment of normal schools, and describing educational developments in Prussia and elsewhere. In the late forties he turned to the study of theology and produced a fat volume of Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews (1853), in which he attempted to demonstrate the Biblical origin of the essential principles of civil liberty and popular government. In 1849 he was licensed to preach by the Congregationalists and filled successive pulpits at Cornwall, Vermont, East Hampton on Long Island, and Washington, Pennsylvania. During the six years of his last pastorate (1853 - 1859) he likewise filled the chair of ancient languages at Washington College. A call to the presidency of the newly founded City University of St. Louis took him west in 1859, but the outbreak of the Civil War closed its doors in 1861. Returning east, he accepted the secretaryship of the reviving Prison Association of New York and thus at the age of fifty-six entered upon his major life work. His energetic appeals to local churches and to the city and state authorities increased the revenues of the society from an average of $2, 349 during its first thirteen years to $12, 768 in 1863 and made possible a greatly expanded program. When his inspection of the state prisons revealed desperate overcrowding and other unsatisfactory results of a politically unstable administration, Wines proposed that the society undertake a comprehensive study of the problem in order to prepare a reasoned program for presentation at the forthcoming state constitutional convention. Accordingly in 1865, with Theodore William Dwight, he visited all the prisons of the northern states and prepared a monumental Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada (1867). In conclusion the authors recommended the creation of a nonpartisan board of commissioners whose terms should be staggered over a period of years in order to secure a permanent program of prison development. Although the state failed to adopt the necessary constitutional changes, this document and succeeding annual reports by Wines greatly stimulated a widespread movement towards prison reform and encouraged such experimenters as Zebulon Reed Brockway at Detroit. Simultaneously in 1866 Wines and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn gave wide publicity in America to the Irish-Crofton system of graded prisons and ticket-of-leave discharge, ideas which shortly germinated into the American systems of parole and indeterminate sentence and the young men's reformatories. Meanwhile Wines undertook to organize the agitation for reform by calling a national convention in 1870. The "Declaration of Principles" adopted by the Cincinnati Congress provided a sufficient program for prison reformers for the remainder of the century. Wines was chosen secretary of the National Prison Association which resulted from this first gathering and remained its guiding spirit until 1877, when it was temporarily disbanded. Following one of his own recommendations approved at Cincinnati, he secured a joint resolution from Congress creating a special United States commissioner empowered to invite the countries of the world to an international congress on prison reform. When in 1871 he was appointed to the position he visited most of the countries of Europe, studying their prison methods and inviting their cooperation. Largely as a result of his efforts twenty-two nations were represented at the first International Penitentiary Congress at London in 1872, from which sprang an international and several national organizations. Wines was chosen honorary president of the second international congress when it convened at Stockholm in 1878. Fortunately, before his death he had completed his final work, The State of Prisons and of Child-Saving Institutions in the Civilized World (1880). He died on December 10, 1879, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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A Trip to Boston: In a Series of Letters to the Editor of the United States Gazete (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from A Trip to Boston: In a Series of Letters to ...)

Two Years and a Half in the American Navy : Comprising a Journal of a Cruise to England, in the Mediterranean, and in the Levant, on Board of the U.S. ... in the Years 1829, 1830, and 1831

(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

Letters to school-children

(Letters to school-children. This book, "Letters to school...)

Adam and Christ: Or the Doctrine of Representation Stated and Explained (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from Adam and Christ: Or the Doctrine of Represen...)

A Descriptive Catalogue of the Chinese Collection, in Philadelphia: With Miscellaneous Remarks Upon the Manners, Customs, Trade, and Government of the Celestial Empire

(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

The Promises of God: Considered in Their Nature, Source, Certainty, Freeness, Preciousness and Sanctifying Power (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from The Promises of God: Considered in Their Nat...)

The state of prisons and of child-saving institutions in the civilized world

(The state of prisons and of child-saving institutions in ...)

Hints on a System of Popular Education: Addressed to R. S. Field

(This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curat...)

Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews &C

(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)

How Shall I Govern My School?: Addressed to Young Teachers

(This work has been selected by scholars as being cultural...)

An Essay on Temptations

(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

International Congress On The Prevention And Repression Of Crime, Including Penal And Reformatory Treatment: Preliminary Report Of The Commissioner ... In The Congress, In Compliance With A Joint

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

Enoch Cobb Wines Edit Profile

clergyman educator reformer

Background

Enoch C. Wines was born on February 17, 1806, in Hanover, New Jersey, the son of William Wines and his first wife, Eleanor Baldwin, and was the descendant of an old Welsh family. The family shortly moved to a farm at Shoreham, Vermont.

Education

There Enoch prepared himself for Middlebury College, from which he was graduated in 1827.

Career

He abandoned a brief experiment with a classical school in Washington, D. C. , in 1829 to become schoolmaster of midshipmen on the United States frigate Constellation, an experience that provided material for his Two Years and a Half in the Navy (2 vols. , 1832). Purchasing the Edgehill Seminary at Princeton, New Jersey, in the same year, he conducted a boys' school on the pattern of the German gymnasia.

Declining fortunes at the school led him in 1839 to try an instructorship at the People's College in Philadelphia, but within a few years he purchased another classical school in Burlington, New Jersey, which likewise failed to flourish. During this period he published several tracts and for a short time edited a monthly magazine, the American Journal of Education, agitating for the establishment of normal schools, and describing educational developments in Prussia and elsewhere.

In the late forties he turned to the study of theology and produced a fat volume of Commentaries on the Laws of the Ancient Hebrews (1853), in which he attempted to demonstrate the Biblical origin of the essential principles of civil liberty and popular government. In 1849 he was licensed to preach by the Congregationalists and filled successive pulpits at Cornwall, Vermont, East Hampton on Long Island, and Washington, Pennsylvania. During the six years of his last pastorate (1853 - 1859) he likewise filled the chair of ancient languages at Washington College. A call to the presidency of the newly founded City University of St. Louis took him west in 1859, but the outbreak of the Civil War closed its doors in 1861.

Returning east, he accepted the secretaryship of the reviving Prison Association of New York and thus at the age of fifty-six entered upon his major life work. His energetic appeals to local churches and to the city and state authorities increased the revenues of the society from an average of $2, 349 during its first thirteen years to $12, 768 in 1863 and made possible a greatly expanded program. When his inspection of the state prisons revealed desperate overcrowding and other unsatisfactory results of a politically unstable administration, Wines proposed that the society undertake a comprehensive study of the problem in order to prepare a reasoned program for presentation at the forthcoming state constitutional convention. Accordingly in 1865, with Theodore William Dwight, he visited all the prisons of the northern states and prepared a monumental Report on the Prisons and Reformatories of the United States and Canada (1867). In conclusion the authors recommended the creation of a nonpartisan board of commissioners whose terms should be staggered over a period of years in order to secure a permanent program of prison development. Although the state failed to adopt the necessary constitutional changes, this document and succeeding annual reports by Wines greatly stimulated a widespread movement towards prison reform and encouraged such experimenters as Zebulon Reed Brockway at Detroit. Simultaneously in 1866 Wines and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn gave wide publicity in America to the Irish-Crofton system of graded prisons and ticket-of-leave discharge, ideas which shortly germinated into the American systems of parole and indeterminate sentence and the young men's reformatories.

Meanwhile Wines undertook to organize the agitation for reform by calling a national convention in 1870. The "Declaration of Principles" adopted by the Cincinnati Congress provided a sufficient program for prison reformers for the remainder of the century. Wines was chosen secretary of the National Prison Association which resulted from this first gathering and remained its guiding spirit until 1877, when it was temporarily disbanded. Following one of his own recommendations approved at Cincinnati, he secured a joint resolution from Congress creating a special United States commissioner empowered to invite the countries of the world to an international congress on prison reform. When in 1871 he was appointed to the position he visited most of the countries of Europe, studying their prison methods and inviting their cooperation. Largely as a result of his efforts twenty-two nations were represented at the first International Penitentiary Congress at London in 1872, from which sprang an international and several national organizations. Wines was chosen honorary president of the second international congress when it convened at Stockholm in 1878.

Fortunately, before his death he had completed his final work, The State of Prisons and of Child-Saving Institutions in the Civilized World (1880). He died on December 10, 1879, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Achievements

Enoch Cobb Wines was a remarkable clergyman and prison reformer, whose time and attention has been devoted to a philanthropic endeavor to ameliorate the condition of prisoners, not only in the United States, but throughout the world.