[1] See D. D. Addison, Lucy Larcom; Life, Letters and Diary (Boston, 1897).
LOWELL INSTITUTE, an educational foundation in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A., providing for free public lectures, and endowed by the bequest of $237,000 left by John Lowell, junior, who died in 1836. Under the terms of his will 10% of the net income was to be added to the principal, which in 1909 was over a million dollars. None of the fund was to be invested in a building for the lectures; the trustees of the Boston Athenaeum were made visitors of the fund; but the trustee of the fund is authorized to select his own successor, although in doing so he must “always choose in preference to all others some male descendant of my grandfather John Lowell, provided there is one who is competent to hold the office of trustee, and of the name of Lowell,” the sole trustee so appointed having the entire selection of the lecturers and the subjects of lectures. The first trustee was John Lowell junior’s cousin, John Amory Lowell, who administered the trust for more than forty years, and was succeeded in 1881 by his son, Augustus Lowell, who in turn was succeeded in 1900 by his son Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who in 1909 became president of Harvard University.
The founder provided for two kinds of lectures, one popular, “and the other more abstruse, erudite and particular.” The popular lectures have taken the form of courses usually ranging from half a dozen to a dozen lectures, and covering almost every subject. The fees have always been large, and many of the most eminent men in America and Europe have lectured there. A large number of books have been published which consist of those lectures or have been based upon them. As to the advanced lectures, the founder seems to have had in view what is now called university extension, and in this he was far in advance of his time; but he did not realize that such work can only be done effectively in connexion with a great school. In pursuance of this provision public instruction of various kinds has been given from time to time by the Institute. The first freehand drawing in Boston was taught there, but was given up when the public schools undertook it. In the same way a school of practical design was carried on for many years, but finally, in 1903, was transferred to the Museum of Fine Arts. Instruction for working men was given at the Wells Memorial Institute until 1908, when the Franklin Foundation took up the work. A Teachers’ School of Science is maintained in co-operation with the Natural History Society. For many years advanced courses of lectures were given by the professors of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but in 1904 they were superseded by an evening school for industrial foremen. In 1907, under the title of “Collegiate Courses,” a number of the elementary courses in Harvard University were offered free to the public under the same conditions of study and examination as in the university.
For the earlier period, see Harriett Knight Smith, History of the Lowell Institute (Boston, 1898).
LÖWENBERG, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Silesia, on the Bober, 39 m. E. of Görlitz by rail. Pop. 5682. It is one of the oldest towns in Silesia; its town hall dates from the 16th century, and it has a Roman Catholic church built in the 13th century and restored in 1862. The town has sandstone and gypsum quarries, breweries and woollen mills, and cultivates fruit and vegetables. Löwenberg became a town in 1217 and has been the scene of much fighting, especially during the Napoleonic wars. Near the town is the village and estate of Hohlstein, the property of the Hohenzollern family.
LÖWENSTEIN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Württemberg, capital of the mediatized county of that name, situated under the north slope of the Löwenstein range, 6 m. from Heilbronn. Pop. 1527. It is dominated by the ruined castle of the counts of Löwenstein, and enclosed by medieval walls. The town contains many picturesque old houses. There is also a modern palace. The cultivation of vines is the chief industry, and there is a brine spring (Theusserbad).
Löwenstein was founded in 1123 by the counts of Calw, and belonged to the Habsburgs from 1281 to 1441. In 1634 the castle was destroyed by the imperialists. The county of Löwenstein belonged to a branch of the family of the counts of Calw before 1281, when it was purchased by the German king Rudolph I., who presented it to his natural son Albert. In 1441 Henry, one of Albert’s descendants, sold it to the elector palatine of the Rhine, Frederick I., and later it served as a portion for Louis (d. 1524), a son of the elector by a morganatic marriage, who became a count of the Empire in 1494. Louis’s grandson Louis II. (d. 1611) inherited the county of Wertheim and other lands by marriage and called himself count of Löwenstein-Wertheim; his two sons divided the family into two branches. The heads of the two branches, into which the older and Protestant line was afterwards divided, were made princes by the king of Bavaria in 1812 and by the king of Württemberg in 1813; the head of the younger, or Roman Catholic line, was made a prince of the Empire in 1711. Both lines are flourishing, their present representatives being Ernst (b. 1854) prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, and Aloyse (b. 1871) prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. The lands of the family were mediatized after the dissolution of the Empire in 1806. The area of the county of Löwenstein was about 53 sq. m.