From this year, 1878, the excellent work has been carried on. Every year George Washington's birthday is appropriately celebrated at the Old South Meeting-house, with speeches and singing of national patriotic airs by the children of the public schools. In 1879 Mr. John Fiske, the noted historical writer, gave a course of lectures on Saturday mornings upon The Discovery and Colonization of America. These were followed in succeeding years by his lectures on The American Revolution, and others that are now published in book form. These were more especially for the young, but adults seemed just as eager to hear them as young persons.
Regular courses of free lectures for young people were established in the summer of 1883, more especially for those who did not leave the city during the long summer vacations. The lectures are usually given on Wednesday afternoons in July and August. A central topic is chosen for the season, such as Early Massachusetts History, The War for the Union, The War for Independence, The Birth of the Nation, The American Indians, etc.; and different persons take part in the course.
With each lecture a leaflet of four or eight pages is given to those who attend, and these leaflets can be bound at the end of the season for a small sum. "These are made up, for the most part, from original papers treated in the lectures," says Mr. Edwin D. Mead who prepares them, "in the hope to make the men and the public life of the periods more clear and real." These leaflets are very valuable, the subjects being, "The Voyages to Vinland, from the Saga of Eric the Red," "Marco Polo's Account of Japan and Java," "The Death of De Soto from the Narrative of a Gentleman of Elvas," etc. They are furnished to the schools at the bare cost of paper and printing. Mr. Mead, the scholarly author, and editor of the New England Magazine, has been untiring in the Old South work, and has been the means of several other cities adopting like methods for the study of early history, especially by young people.
Every year since 1881 four prizes, two of forty dollars, and two of twenty-five dollars each, have been offered to high school pupils soon to graduate, and also to those recently graduated, for the best essays on assigned topics of American history. Those who compete and do not win a prize receive a present of valuable books in recognition of their effort. From the first, Mrs. Hemenway was the enthusiastic friend and promoter of the Old South work. She spent five thousand a year, for many years, in carrying it forward, and left provision for its continuation at her death. It is not too much to say that these free lectures have stimulated the study of our early history all over the country, and made us more earnest lovers of our flag and of our nation. The world has little respect for a "man without a country."
"Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?"