James Russell Lowell and His Friends

by Edward Everett Hale

(Ah me! Why did I not accept forty acres of land between the lakes in Madison, Wisconsin, when they were offered me in 1842? The reader will perhaps pardon this digression!)

Of such a system of Wanderjähre in the education of a country, not the least benefit is that which is gained by the speaker. No man knows America who has not traveled much in her different regions. A wise United States Senator proposed lately that each newly elected member of Congress should be compelled to travel up and down his own country for those mysterious months after his election before he takes his seat. The men who have had such a privilege do not make the mistakes of book-trained men.

A good enough illustration of some of the deeper consequences of what may be called the lyceum movement may be found in the story often told of the divided committee who met Wendell Phillips in a place where he was quite a stranger. On his arrival he asked what was the subject he was to speak on. Should he read his lecture on the Lost Arts, or should he deliver an address on Anti-Slavery? It proved, alas! that the committee was equally divided, perhaps bitterly divided, and neither side would yield to the other. Phillips at once made the determination with his own prompt wit. He said he would deliver the lecture on the Lost Arts first, and then the Anti-Slavery address afterwards for any who wanted to stay and hear. Of course, after they had heard him, everybody stayed, and so he had the whole town to hear his radical appeal, where otherwise he would have had only that half the town which was convinced already.

Under a law which may be called divine, the students, in all colleges where they had the choice of anniversary orators, always elected the speakers who, as they thought, would be most disagreeable to the college government. So Emerson, Parker, and Phillips came to be favorite college speakers in colleges where the faculties would gladly have suppressed all knowledge of the men. Mr. Emerson’s address at Dartmouth in 1838 would never have been delivered but for the action of this law. This address, when printed, lying on the counter of a book-shop in Oxford, gave to Gladstone his first knowledge of the New England Plato.

It is amusing now, and in a way it is pathetic, to see how this youngster Lowell, even before he was of age, caught at the floating straw of a Lyceum engagement whenever he could, in the hope of earning a little money. This was simply that he felt the mortification which every bright boy feels when, after being told that he is a man by some college authority, he finds that he is still living in his father’s house, eating at his father’s table, wearing clothes which his father pays for, and even asking his father for spending-money. There is a note from him to Loring to ask if the “Andover Lyceum” will pay as much as five dollars for a lecture.

The reader must understand that in the “Lyceum system,” so called, it was considered as a sort of duty for educated men to have on hand a lecture or two which they were willing to read to any audience which was willing to ask them. This was, by the way, in precise fulfillment of that somewhat vague commission which constitutes the degree of a Master of Arts. The person who is fortunate enough to receive this diploma is told that he has the privilege of “speaking in public as often as any one asks him to do so.” This is my free translation of “publice profitendi.” Those words never really meant “public profession.” In our modern days we are a little apt to take this privilege without the permission of the university.

Educated men accepted such appointments as their contribution to public education. It was just as the same men served on the school committee or board of selectmen, and would have been insulted if anybody had proposed to pay them anything for doing it. In many cases, perhaps in most cases, no tickets were bought or sold. The selectmen gave the Town Hall for a lyceum, or the First Parish gave the use of its meeting-house for a lyceum, as they would have done for a temperance meeting or a missionary meeting. But, of course, it soon appeared that if the audiences were to have continuous courses of lectures, somebody must be paid for them, and somebody must pay. College professors were engaged to give elementary courses on scientific or historical subjects. As early as 1832 Mr. Emerson delivered a course of biographical lectures at the request of the Massachusetts Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge. And in the years of the 30’s in Boston there were maintained through the winter public courses almost every evening in the week, by at least five different organizations—the Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge, the Boston Lyceum, the Mercantile Library Association, the Mechanics’ Association, and sometimes the Historical Society. For all these courses tickets were sold at low rates, but for enough to enable the societies to pay the lecturers a small honorarium. From such arrangements as these the custom spread of recompensing the lecturer for his work; and at this moment, in an average New England town, people will not go to a lecture if they think the lecturer has “given” his service. The public thinks that if not worth pay, it is not worth hearing.

In this arrangement of the lyceum, Lowell found his place before he was of age. He was always an easy and a ready speaker, and, as I have said, he enjoyed public speaking. Before long, his interest in the temperance reform and the anti-slavery reform brought him occasionally on the platform. He spoke with perfect ease. On such occasions he spoke without notes, never speaking without knowing what he had to say, and always saying it. But I think he never delivered a lecture, as he would have called it, without a manuscript written out in full.

The first account he gives of his public speaking is that of the celebration of the Cambridgeport Women’s Total Abstinence Society on the Fourth of July, 1842. “There were more than three thousand in all, it was said. I was called out, and made a speech of about ten minutes, from the top of a bench, to an audience of two thousand, as silent as could be. I spoke of the beauty of having women present, and of their influence and interest in reforms. I ended with the following sentiment: ‘The proper place of woman—at the head of the pilgrims back to purity and truth.’ In the midst of my speech I heard many demonstrations of satisfaction and approval—one voice saying, ‘Good!’ in quite an audible tone. I was told that my remarks were ‘just the thing.’ When I got up and saw the crowd, it inspired me. I felt as calm as I do now, and could have spoken an hour with ease. I did not hesitate for a word or expression even once.“

Alas! the Boston papers of the day had Mr. Tyler’s “third veto” to print, and the news from England by a late arrival; and no word could be spared for poor James’s first essay. What saith the Vulgate? “Nullum prophetam in actis diurnis honorari.”