Evening journal., 1888-09-24
colleees and the Tnrim.

The following is a copy Of a letter sent
by Joseph Wharton to the New York
Evening Post;
To the Editor Of the Evening Post
To-day mail brings to me from friend
your editorial Of Sd instant. headed Col
leges and the Tariff, which makes an
ERRONEOUS statement in connection with
my name
You say: "We believe that Mr.. Joseph
Wharton did establish such a professor
ship namely what you call chair of
protectlonism) "in the school which has
his name, and that it very soon went to
pieces.
Now the only professorship which /
have established is not in any school
bearing my name, but is In Swarthmore
College, and IL has not had time to 20 to
pieces for 1t Is not half year since the
endowment was made. 1t is true that |
founded The Wharton School Of Finance
and Economy" in the University of Penn
sylvania, and it is this, perhaps, that you
meant TO designate. for, among the var
ious things that are named in the deed Of
gift rs proper to be taught is the doc
trine that the nation is bound TO take
care Of its own.
That school aims TO teach branches
which are not included in the curricu-
lum of other institutions of learning, and
it, therefore, could not possibly md, as
ordinary schools can, ready made teach
ers and text books nor instantly con.
vince considerable number Of Young
men and their parents that knowledge Of
accounting, banking, the care of prop
erty, national economy and so ON. are
important parts Of reasonable modern
education
Though the years of probation are prob
ably not yet ended that school IS far
from having gone to pieces il has, on the
contrary become from year to year more
stable and of better repute, SO that it
now attracts the brightest young men.
and has about as many students as can be
properly attended to.
Your phrase, "Let the government
take care Of the rich, and the rich will
take care Of the poor, expresses no doe
trine or belief Of protectionists, neither
do protectionists concede as YOU assume
they do, that free trade is true in theory
and yet false in practice. They hold Il
to be the duty Of government to cherish
and protect the nations sources Of
strength, in order to permit the growth
and development Of the nation; they are
certain Of the sOundness Of the theory Of
protection to home industry, as we'll as
Of the practical beneficence Of that sys.
tenn to the entire community which
adopts it; they deduce this theory from
he facts.
The free trade theory on the other
hand is at variance with the facts. II
belongs, as did the Ptolmaic theory TO
which you allude, to the stage Of imper-
feet knowledge and the declining free
theory is lifted by its priests into the
position of a moral diction and almost
religious dogma very much as was done
by the priests for the Ptolmaic theory in
its declining days. But the parallel fails.
in so far that the priests do not now
burn the philosophers. You wonder that
some milionaires do not endow chairs of
/ protectionism. | wonder rather at
the patient credulity and long suffering
of our thrifty business men who give
their money to colleges in simple good
faith that sound, unbiased instruction
will thereby be promoted, and who see
their gifts prostituted to teaching that
their wealth, acquired by honest indus
try was stolen from their eountrvmen.
Fashions change. however. and the day
will come perhaps before the end Of Nov
ember' when it viii no longer be good
form even in New York to ape the Eng
lish, and when American IDEAS and In.
te 'ests viii prevail in America.
JOSEPH WHARTON
! Newport, r. l., Sept 8, 1888.