The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-01-15

Only about half hundred people
were at the Albright library last night
to hear the lecture by Hon. Freeman
O. Wiley, of Orange, N. j., on "An
Hour With Three Great Questions"
1t was an audience, however, that could
appreciate the lecture for all that it
was worth.
Judge Wiley has attained some fame
as student of economics and has writ
ten a quite widely read book on the
subject of capital and labor. He has,
however, as yet failed to make him
self able to entertain as a lecturer on
economics-if his effort last night is
taken as a criterion. Much allowance
has to be made for the fact that it was
the first time the lecture was ever de-
livered; that it is a difficult task to
treat entertainingly of so much in such
little time, and last, but not least,
that the audience was not one, numer-
ically. that would call out any mans
best efforts.
A little of everything and not much
quantity underStood--of anything aptly
describes the lecture. The three sub
jects which the lecturer essayed to
treat of We're THE Ministry of
Thought" "The Language of Unrest"
and "The Struggle of Life"
DON'T THINK FOR THEMSELVES.
Under the first heading he contended
that people of the busy today are all
too prone to allow themselves to be
carried along by the tide of public
sentiment: that there are not enough
people doing their own thinking. Our
years are too few to permit us to do
more than merely skim over the great
number of subjects that crowd them
selves on our attention. There are not
enough who even skim over, let alone
probe into the subjects that present
themselves for solution.
The rugged exercise of our own ment-
al powers, the lecturer thought is what
is needed rather than burdening our
selves with the thoughts Of others, no
matter how sublime these thoughts
may be generally esteemed. Profess
sors and prelates laughed at Columbus
idea and the school philosophers said
impossible when Franklin advanced his
theory of Harvesting electricity. Think
ing should be stimulated. 1t is not
enough to go through life as we went
through school for the most part learn
ing to think and act as others did.
Under the second division of his lee
ture he defined unrest as being of two
kinds-healthy unrest, which is only
another way of describing active desire
of improvement, and the unnatural un-
rest which fills hearts with sorrow and
nations with grief, the unrest that
would thrust aside, hastily, present
institutions and substitute without
proper thought, other untred institu-
tions.
POPULAR OPINIONS DANGEROUS.
Popular opinion, the lecturer held, is
dangerously wrong in this respect, and
particularly in relation to the subject
Of capital and labor. 1t does not real
ize the oneness of their interests. their
interdependence. Capital, he argues,
cannot profit by the mpoverishment of
labor; labor benefits when capital
| thrives. Inequality in ownership Of
property has made our present civli-
zation. 1t is aggregated wealth that
makes employment of labor possible.
The main thought advanced in the
discussion of The Struggle of Life"
was "Sweet are the uses of adversity,"
| or, as the lecturer very cleverly put it,
"A calm sea never made a skillful
! mariner"