Famous Givers and Their Gifts. Bolton Sarah Knowles
of life are entire. As for swimming, I have not strength for that, especially in my clothes, and so thorough a ducking and exposure might of itself make an end of me."
Finally they were rescued, and sailed for Mocha, reaching that place on the 1st of January, 1836. Mr. Lowell was much exhausted from exposure and his recent illness. His last letters were written, Jan. 17, at Mocha, while waiting for a British steamer on her way to Bombay, India. From Mr. Lowell's journal it is seen that the steamboat Hugh Lindsay arrived at Mocha from Suez, Jan. 20; that Mr. Lowell sailed on the 23d, and arrived at Bombay, Feb. 10. He had reached the East only to die. After three weeks of illness, he expired, March 4, 1836, a little less than thirty-seven years of age. For years he had studied about India and China, and had made himself ready for valuable research; but his plans were changed by an overruling Power in whom he had always trusted. Mr. Lowell had wisely provided for a greater work than research in the East, the benefits of which are inestimable and unending.
Free public lectures for the people of Boston on the Lowell foundation were begun on the evening of Dec. 31, 1839, by a memorial address on Mr. Lowell by Edward Everett, in the Odeon, then at the corner of Federal and Franklin Streets, before two thousand persons.
The first course of lectures was on geology, given by that able scientist, Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale College. "So great was his popularity," says Harriette Knight Smith in the New England Magazine for February, 1895, "that on the giving out of tickets for his second course, on chemistry, the following season, the eager crowds filled the adjacent streets, and crushed in the windows of the 'Old Corner Bookstore,' the place of distribution, so that provision for the same had to be made elsewhere. To such a degree did the enthusiasm of the public reach at that time, in its desire to attend these lectures, that it was found necessary to open books in advance to receive the names of subscribers, the number of tickets being distributed by lot. Sometimes the number of applicants for a single course was eight or ten thousand." The same number of the magazine contains a valuable list of all the speakers at the Institute since its beginning. The usual method now is to advertise the lectures in the Boston papers a week or more in advance; and then all persons desiring to attend meet at a designated place, and receive tickets in the order of their coming. At the appointed hour, the doors of the building where the lectures are given are closed, and no one is admitted after the speaker begins. Not long since I met a gentleman who had travelled seven miles to attend a lecture, and failed to obtain entrance. Harriette Knight Smith says, "This rule was at first resisted to such a degree that a reputable gentleman was taken to the lockup and compelled to pay a fine for kicking his way through an entrance door. Finally the rule was submitted to, and in time praised and copied."
For seven years the Lowell Institute lectures were given in the Odeon, and for thirteen years in Marlboro Chapel, between Washington and Tremont, Winter and Bromfield Streets. Since 1879 they have been heard in Huntington Hall, Boylston Street, in the Rogers Building of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Since the establishment of the free lectures, over five thousand have been given to the people by some of the most eminent and learned men of both hemispheres, – Lyell, Tyndall, Wallace, Holmes, Lowell, Bryce, and more than three hundred others. Sir Charles Lyell lectured on Geology, Professor Asa Gray on Botany, Oliver Wendell Holmes on English Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, E. H. Davis on Mounds and Earthworks of the Mississippi Valley, Lieutenant M. F. Maury on Winds and Currents of the Sea, Mark Hopkins (President of Williams College) on Moral Philosophy, Charles Eliot Norton on The Thirteenth Century, Henry Barnard on National Education, Samuel Eliot on Evidences of Christianity, Burt G. Wilder on The Silk Spider of South Carolina, W. D. Howells on Italian Poets of our Century, Professor John Tyndall on Light and Heat, Dr. Isaac I. Hayes on Arctic Discoveries, Richard A. Proctor on Astronomy, General Francis A. Walker on Money, Hon. Carroll D. Wright on The Labor Question, H. H. Boyesen on The Icelandic Saga Literature, the Rev. J. G. Wood on Structure of Animal Life, the Rev. H. R. Haweis on Music and Morals, Alfred Russell Wallace on Darwinism and Some of Its Applications, the Rev. G. Frederick Wright on The Ice Age in North America, Professor James Geikie on Europe During and after the Ice Age, John Fiske on The Discovery and Colonization of America, Professor Henry Drummond on The Evolution of Man, President Eliot of Harvard College on Recent Educational Changes and Tendencies.
Professor Tyndall, after his Lowell lectures, gave the ten thousand dollars which he had received for his labors in America in scholarships to the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Columbia College.
Mr. John Amory Lowell, a cousin of John Lowell, Jr., and the trustee appointed by him, at the suggestion of Lyell, a mutual friend, invited Louis Agassiz to come to Boston, and give a course of lectures before the Institute in 1846. He came; and the visit resulted in the building, by Mr. Abbott Lawrence, of the Lawrence Scientific School in connection with Harvard College, and the retaining of the brilliant and noble Agassiz in this country as a professor of zoölogy and geology. The influence of such lectures upon the intellectual growth and moral welfare of a city can scarcely be estimated. It is felt through the State, and eventually through the nation.
Mr. Lowell in his will planned also for other lectures, "those more erudite and particular for students;" and for twenty years there have been "Lowell free courses of instruction in the Institute of Technology," given usually in the evening in the classrooms of the professors. These are the same lectures usually given to regular students, and are free alike to men and women over eighteen years of age. These courses of instruction include mathematics, mechanics, physics, drawing, chemistry, geology, natural history, navigation, biology, English, French, German, history, architecture, and engineering. Through the generosity of Mr. Lowell, every person in Boston may become educated, if he or she have the time and desire. Over three thousand such lectures have been given.
For many years the Lowell Institute has furnished instruction in science to the school-teachers of Boston. It now furnishes lectures on practical and scientific subjects to workingmen, under the auspices of the Wells Memorial Workingmen's Institute.
As the University Extension Lectures carry the college to the people, so more and more the Lowell fund is carrying helpful and practical intelligence to every nook and corner of a great city. Young people are stimulated to endeavor, encouraged to save time in which to gain knowledge, and to become useful and honorable citizens. When more "Settlements" are established in all the waste places, we shall have so many the more centres for the diffusion of intellectual and moral aid.
Who shall estimate the power and value of such a gift to the people as that of John Lowell, Jr.? The Hon. Edward Everett said truly, "It will be, from generation to generation, a perennial source of public good, – a dispensation of sound science, of useful knowledge, of truth in its most important associations with the destiny of man. These are blessings which cannot die. They will abide when the sands of the desert shall have covered what they have hitherto spared of the Egyptian temples; and they will render the name of Lowell in all-wise and moral estimation more truly illustrious than that of any Pharaoh engraven on their walls."
The gift of John Lowell, Jr., has resulted in other good work besides the public lectures. In 1850 a free drawing-school was established in Marlboro Chapel, and continued successfully for twenty-nine years, till the building was taken for business purposes. The pupils were required to draw from real objects only, through the whole course. In 1872 the Lowell School of Practical Design, for the purpose of promoting Industrial Art in the United States, was established, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology assumed the responsibility of conducting it. The Lowell Institute bears the expenses of the school, and tuition is free to all pupils.
There is a drawing-room and a weaving-room, though applicants must be able to draw from nature before they enter. In the weaving-room are two fancy chain-looms for dress-goods, three fancy chain-looms for woollen cassimeres, one gingham loom, and one Jacquard loom. Samples of brocaded silk, ribbons, alpacas, and fancy woollen goods are constantly provided for the school from Paris and elsewhere.
The course of study requires three years; and students are taught the art of designing, and making patterns from prints, ginghams, delaines, silks, laces, paper-hangings, carpets, oilcloths, etc. They can also weave their designs into actual fabrics of commercial sizes of every variety of material. The school has proved a most helpful and beneficent institution. It is an inspiration to visit it, and see the happy and