New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-04-22
THIN ENOUGH TO SPREAD FREELY.

raoh, or of Herod the King.
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THIN ENOUGH TO SPREAD FREELY.
1t was said of Aristotle that he brought
philosophy down from the clouds to dwell!
among men, and it is reported that he taught
his pupils in peIambulatory way in the gar
dens of the Lyceum. The Free Trade League
of this city beats the old Stagrite ont of his
buslins, both as lowerers and Jewelers. OF
learning, and as peripatctics in their method
of indoctrnation but they have the advantage
of him of old in the fact that their audiences
are not students, nor need to be; and still
greater advantage IN the modern and popular
means and methods of propagandism. They
are getting mp a school, and trying for revl-
val by all the means and appliances, all the
appeals and persuasives, that parties, and pro-
moters, throughout the whole range Of agita-
ton and advertising, usually employ. In pub
LEGATION, every agency is used, from the formal
treatise down to the hand-bill and public
poster Buy paper of garden seed, and a
syllabus of their principles on tissue paper,
tumbles from the outer wrapper; turn your
eyes upon any dead wall or board ifcnce fac
ing the street, and placari five feet by two
and half, in white letters on blue
ground, flashes in your eyes the dozen of pref
" Probabilities which the aforesaid FreeTrade
League "Holds." They "keep it before the
people, in every form that politicians on the
eve of an election, OF pill-vcndcrs for the good
of the public, or showmen for their recrcations,
have ever resorted to, except the omnibus and
music OF the mcnageries and of the last nights
meetings of political candidatcs-but these will
doubtless come with the occasions. Money and
managing are not stinted in any thing that can
take the eve of the masses; and these mute
ministers of philosophy are thrust upon us
through every chink of opportunity. so that he
who runneth, no matter how fast, may read
however little time or ability he may have TO
mark, learn, and inwardly digest this political
gospel for the poor. Nor is this broadcast
display and hOlc-andcOrner inSinuation with
out the els tergO of authoritative Endorsement,
certfcaton, and reference. Last year these
plain propositions and proclamations o. the
highways and byways bore the subscription of
w. C.. Bryant; this year they are renewed over
tho signature of David Dudley Field. But
recently they have set on foot another
agency, which may still more properly be
called the Perry-patetic for whatever better
of projection. Public meetings in quick
cession are assembled wherever a local celebrity
can be found who will court or encounter the
distinction of presiding and introducing the
Professor of Political Economy, who has devoted
himself to the task of making science easy to
the mind of the million This is q lucky
thought. 1t ought to take for among Us,
though not one man in thousand pretends to
any knowledge of the arts, useful or ona-
mental TO any of the natural sciences; to the
philosophy of history. or the history of phoS-
ophy; to law, physc, or political economy
yet not one in thousand but feels entirely
competent to draft Constitution for a State,
or construct system of banking, or policy
of commerce. And here the Professor has them
in his hands on their own claim of entire COM
potency to understand and approve his easy
method of solving all the problems that can
be presented and discussed in an hour before
q popular audience
We must not be understood to mean that the
method of the lecture-rOom is unsuited to, or
incapable of, instruction in any system or
science which concerns itself with the business
affairs of men. Whatever the voters OF the
country must decide and control, ought to be
brought clearly within their apprehension, and
must be capable of such demonstration, and by
such means, to the responsible agents, as their
engagements allow; but we may be allowed to
say that popular lectures upon subjects that
embrace wide range of facts, a great knowl-
edge of practical Details large, and at the
same time an exact history of national ex-
pcrences in perplexing variety of conditions,
and an industrious comparison of data, which
only the most cautious and sedulOus study can
command are very apt TO be superficial and
ilusory in proportion to their popularity and
we may add that the dd cap tandam style and
drift generally adopted is specially liable to
thecharge of charatanism. For illustration, let
US Loeb mQmept at the neat little dozen OF
Free Trade aplorisms, in which the League has
embodied for popular use the soul and sub
stance of its doctrines
Our first objection is that the title of the
League is a manifest misnomer, and conceals
an illusion. 1t calls itself, broadly, The
american Free Trade League" 1t is in every
item of doctrine, and every object of endeavor,
a Free Foreign Trade League. Nor is 1t
in any proper sense American; but to all in
tents and purposes it is cosmopolitan, and, as
far "a such drift and aim can be carried, anti
American. In utterly excluding industry and
,,,J,ot;on n fully antilles itself to the lCSlg-