Morning journal and courier., 1882-06-24
LOCAL NEWS.
The DeForest Speaking.

The Prize Awarded to Benj amin Rrews-
 ter. of New Haven.
 The Townsend orations for the DeForest prize were delivered yesterday afternoon in the Battell chapel before fairly large aud as follows:
 l. The Relations of Psychological Studies to the
 By Walter Murphy, Philadelphia Ps. g. Roger Williams
 By Harry Chambers Fries, Philadelphia Pa. 3. Roger Williams.
 The of rEp aTnss h
 America" Tested by the Facts of the Present
 By Cyrus Bentley, jr., Chicago. H.
 By Benjamin Brewster, New Haven.
 By Joseph Ernest Whitney. Cornwall, Ct. At the close of the speaking the general sentiment was that the DeForest lay between Messrs. Bentley and Brewster, although MT. Fries delivered one of those clear-out straight forward orations which keep the close atten- ton of an audience. The taking of the De- Forest is considered the greatest honor of the college course, except the John A. Porter prize, which is open to the university, for it is open to the whole graduating class and is always competed for by the most brilliant men, whatever may have been their standing in class. It was soon announced that the prize had been given to Mr. Ben iamin Brews- ter, of New Haven. His oration was as fol- lows:
 JOHN STUART MILL.
 With his warm heart and his acute mind Stuart Mill strove to cure the practical ills of society. Looking deeper into nature and man he saw mystery, the mystery of mind and the mystery of matter, and he sought to explain it.
 Coming of age just on the wave of the great reform movement, Mill plunged head long into the stream and outswan his fellows With notions of abstract right out of all keep ing with slow-going English constitutional ism, with social optimism that stopped at no dreams of ultimate perfection, with the doc. trines of a school whose very standard of right and wrong was ''the greatest happiness of the greatest number, he was 8 Radical from first to last He at once became the centre of 8 coterie of free thinkers. the editor of a Benthamite journal, an agitator of agl- tators, and legislator to legislators. The party he espoused was uncompromisng. It was at one with Liberals, like Grey and Rus sell, iu removing the plainest obstacles from the path of progress. It cheered on those | statesmen as they pushed through such | sweeping changes as the Catholic emancipa- l ton act the parliamentary reform bill and the repeal of the corn laws. But though | these mighty strides seemed to give England | a chance to breathe the utilitarian Radicals hoped and worked for giant progress as 1 though some political yen-league boots | were in their keeping.
 ] But the temper of John Mill and his con- ! rades was far removed from demagogism. It meant downright reform, not indiscri mi nate overthrow. It meant bitter hatred of anomalies and worn out customs, 8 burning scorn for oppression and opprsssors ii meant generous fellow feeling for those whom the world calls it's working classes ;' ! it meant a far-reaching hope for the better ! ing of society. But since reason was in spired by sympathy, not dethroned by ex, oitement nor overruled by sentimentalism il did not mean the destructive spirit of Chart ism; 1t never meant @ chmerical desire for equality of possessions. If between the radi calism of Mill and the liberalism of Russell there stood 8 barrier 8 mountain rose be tween that radicalism and the vagaries of So. cialists. For he was no builder of air cas- ties, this bold and earnest radical. He was sound economist, knowing we'll the true re lations of credit and capital, enforcing strict ly the immovable conditions for the produc tion of wealth. If h1s heart opened to tht white slave of European work shops, as i opened to the black slave of southern cottor fields, it a just and states manlike reasoner that he urged the poor tt learn self-help instead of seeking proteotio,