New York, N. Y., June 2--The decision of Harvard University to inaugurate next fall a training course for prison wardens, the executive heads of penal and similar institutions, seems likely to meet with the hearty approval of penologists. Two of the most active men in the field in the vicinity of New York, Warden Lewis E. Lawes of Sing Sing and Commissioner of Corrections Richard C. Patterson, Jr. of New York City, today were enthusiastic over the possibilities of such a course, according to the New York Evening Post.

Warden Lawes hailed the departure as bringing into the prison administration field a new class of men who, possessing intelligence as well as a humanitarian background, will adopt the work as a career to replace the haphazard political appointees serving as wardens in almost all prisons outside of New York State.

"The fact that Harvard is doing that," he said, "recognizes the need for competence and intelligence in prison direction. The man so trained, mostly in theory I take it, could then step into practical prison work better equipped for intelligent direction."'

The importance of practical experience and its lessons was strongly stressed by Warden Lawes, however, who said that most works on penology "are by college professors who know nothing about the work."

"No layman can have any idea of the multiplicity of qualifications which a man must have to administer a large prison efficiently, economically and with the best results both to the prisoner and the society which imprisons him," said Commissioner Patterson. "In addition to natural qualifications of tact, poise, firmness, tolerance and the ability to understand the other man's viewpoint, wardens must know something of finance, buying, mass feeding, discipline, agriculture, education, recreation, medicine, psychiatry and many other things in order to administer a prison efficiently and along modern lines."