Morning journal and courier., 1886-02-04
PROF. THOMPSON ON PROTECTION
Yale's New PrOfessOr-The Students Flock FO Hear Him Talk Despite
 

Yale,s New PrOfessOr-The Students Flock TO Hear Him Talk Despite The Snow Storm.
 The first of the series of lectures by Prof
 Thompson on protection was delivered at
 North Sheffield hall last evening before
 goodly number of students interested in this
 knotty social question. Prof. Thompson is
 a young man not oyer forty years of age and
 has been professor in the Wharton School of Political Science, which is connected with the University of Pennsylvania, ever since it's establishment in 1870. He has recently pub lished treatise of political economy in which he tries to set forth in more scien- tiic manner views advanced by Henry Carey. He has also written numerous magazine arti- cles on various social problems. This first lecture was intended to sketch ! briefly the history of the controversy which has arisen among political economists and to act as general introductory to the course. Professor Thompson said Briefly, this is | a contest between the theoretical and the I practical.
 On the one side are those who start with | theory and try to fit it to actual life, and on | the other are such statesmen as Colbert, Gus tavus Vasa, Frederick of Prussia, and in our
 
 Grant, who base their views on actual and living examples.
 Before the middle of the eighteenth eentu- " there was harmony between the differ ent schools of economists, which were, indeed, then schools of statesmen, not of economists. But the eighteenth cen tury was the dawning of new era. Previ- l ously the people had existed for the govern ment and not the government for the people, and so similarly in all branches of human interests. But now men began to have an inner consciousness of the falsity of the old of universal liberty. Now the eighteenth century has been of late much abus ed, but it had it's work to do and I it did it in manner which hope we of the nineteenth century may emulate. It was not creative age, but an age of criticism, and by thelr desire to be free from the old ideas they destroyed in many cases the goodness of what was in | many of the old institutions We are to be thankful to the men of that time for the en- quiries they made although we do not in all cases agree with them in every par ticular, nor accept without modi- fcation their views.
 He taught the private citizen to rely on him ! self and not on the government and thus gave great lift to personal thought and enter prise But this doctrine had it's limitations 1 due to it's age and when it passed away they left stranded high and dry. The 18th century | was an unhistorical one; it had no respect for | the past. Now onea class clings to the past as correct; the other says we are correct, the past is all wrong. Adam Smiths mis- take was in thinking that one law suffices for all ages He failed to see the different posi- ton of nation made and g nation in mak ing. The story of man is the most complete science in existence.
 No, gentlemen, the recognition of govern mental responsibility with individual liberty is in my opinion the true principle. The next lecture will be delivered this evening at the same tiae and place, and will treat of the general principles of protection.