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FAMOUS GIVERS AND THEIR GIFTS
* * * * * *
MRS. BOLTON'S FAMOUS BOOKS.
"_Mrs. Bolton never fails to interest and instruct her
readers._"--Chicago Inter-Ocean.
POOR BOYS WHO BECAME FAMOUS $1.50
GIRLS WHO BECAME FAMOUS 1.50
FAMOUS MEN OF SCIENCE 1.50
FAMOUS AMERICAN STATESMEN 1.50
FAMOUS ENGLISH STATESMEN 1.50
FAMOUS AMERICAN AUTHORS 1.50
FAMOUS ENGLISH AUTHORS 1.50
FAMOUS EUROPEAN ARTISTS 1.50
FAMOUS TYPES OF WOMANHOOD 1.50
FAMOUS VOYAGERS AND EXPLORERS 1.50
FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG MEN 1.50
FAMOUS LEADERS AMONG WOMEN 1.50
FAMOUS GIVERS AND THEIR GIFTS 1.50
STORIES FROM LIFE 1.25
_For sale by all booksellers. Send for catalogue._
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
NEW YORK & BOSTON.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: STEPHEN GIRARD.
(Used by courtesy of Henry A. Ingram.)]
FAMOUS GIVERS AND THEIR GIFTS
by
SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON
Author of "Poor Boys Who Became Famous," "Girls Who Became Famous,"
"Famous American Authors," "Famous American Statesmen," "Famous Men of
Science," "Famous European Artists," "Famous Types of Womanhood,"
"Stories from Life," "From Heart and Nature" (Poems), "Famous English
Authors," "Famous English Statesmen," "Famous Voyagers," "Famous Leaders
Among Women," "Famous Leaders Among Men," "The Inevitable, and Other
Poems," etc.
"_For none of us liveth to himself._"
New York: 46 East 14th Street
Thomas Y. Crowell & Company
Boston: 100 Purchase Street
Copyright, 1896,
By Thomas Y. Crowell & Company.
Typography by C. J. Peters & Son,
Boston, U.S.A.
TO
THE MEMORY
OF
William Frederick Poole,
THE ORIGINATOR
OF
"POOLE'S INDEX."
PREFACE.
While it is interesting to see how men have built up fortunes, as a
rule, through industry, saving, and great energy, it is even more
interesting to see how those fortunes have been or may be used for the
benefit of mankind.
In a volume of this size, of course, it is impossible to speak of but
few out of many who have given generously of their wealth, both in this
country and abroad.
The book has been written with the hope that others may be incited to
give through reading it, and may see the results of their giving in
their lifetime. A sketch of George Peabody may be found in "Poor Boys
who became Famous;" a sketch of Johns Hopkins in "How Success is Won."
S. K. B.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
JOHN LOWELL, JR., AND HIS FREE LECTURES 1
STEPHEN GIRARD AND HIS COLLEGE FOR ORPHANS 29
ANDREW CARNEGIE AND HIS LIBRARIES 58
THOMAS HOLLOWAY; HIS SANATORIUM AND COLLEGE 89
CHARLES PRATT AND HIS INSTITUTE 108
THOMAS GUY AND HIS HOSPITAL 128
SOPHIA SMITH AND HER COLLEGE FOR WOMEN 153
JAMES LICK AND HIS TELESCOPE 173
LELAND STANFORD AND HIS UNIVERSITY 201
CAPTAIN THOMAS CORAM AND HIS FOUNDLING ASYLUM 234
HENRY SHAW AND HIS BOTANICAL GARDEN 247
JAMES SMITHSON AND THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 258
PRATT, LENOX, MARY MACRAE STUART, NEWBERRY,
CRERAR, ASTOR, REYNOLDS AND THEIR LIBRARIES 264
FREDERICK H. RINDGE AND HIS GIFTS 283
ANTHONY J. DREXEL AND HIS INSTITUTE 285
PHILIP D. ARMOUR AND HIS INSTITUTE 291
LEONARD CASE AND HIS SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE 297
ASA PACKER AND LEHIGH UNIVERSITY 301
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT AND VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 306
BARON MAURICE DE HIRSCH 312
ISAAC RICH AND BOSTON UNIVERSITY 315
DANIEL B. FAYERWEATHER AND OTHERS 318
CATHARINE LORILLARD WOLFE 323
MARY ELIZABETH GARRETT 326
MRS. ANNA OTTENDORFER 328
DANIEL P. STONE AND VALERIA G. STONE 331
SAMUEL WILLISTON 332
JOHN F. SLATER AND DANIEL HAND 336
GEORGE T. ANGELL 347
WILLIAM W. CORCORAN 351
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER AND CHICAGO UNIVERSITY 357
JOHN LOWELL, JR.,
AND HIS FREE LECTURES.
There is often something pathetic about a great gift. The only son of
Leland Stanford dies, and the millions which he would have inherited are
used to found a noble institution on the Pacific Coast.
The only son of Henry F. Durant, the noted Boston lawyer, dies, and the
sorrowing father and mother use their fortune to build beautiful
Wellesley College.
The only son of Amasa Stone is drowned while at Yale College, and his
father builds Adelbert College of Western Reserve University, to honor
his boy, and bless his city and State.
John Lowell, Jr., early bereft of his wife and two daughters, his only
children, builds a lasting monument for himself, in his Free Lectures
for the People, for all time,--the Lowell Institute of Boston.
John Lowell, Jr., was born in Boston, Mass., May 11, 1799, of
distinguished ancestry. His great-grandfather, the Rev. John Lowell, was
the first minister of Newburyport. His grandfather, Judge John Lowell,
was one of the framers of the Massachusetts Constitution in 1780. He
inserted in the bill of rights the clause declaring that "all men are
born free and equal," for the purpose, as he said, of abolishing slavery
in Massachusetts; and offered his services to any slave who desired to
establish his right to freedom under that clause. His position was
declared to be constitutional by the Supreme Court of the State in 1783,
since which time slavery has had no legal existence in Massachusetts. In
1781 he was elected a member of the Continental Congress, and appointed
by President Washington a judge of the District Court of Massachusetts;
in 1801 President Adams appointed him chief justice of the Circuit
Court. He was brilliant in conversation, an able scholar, and an honest
and patriotic leader. He was for eighteen years a member of the
corporation of Harvard College.
Judge Lowell had three sons, John, Francis Cabot, and Charles. John, a
lawyer, was prominent in all good work, such as the establishment of the
Massachusetts General Hospital, the Provident Institution for Savings in
the City of Boston, the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and other
helpful projects. "He considered wealth," said Edward Everett, "to be no
otherwise valuable but as a powerful instrument of doing good. His
liberality went to the extent of his means; and where they stopped, he
exercised an almost unlimited control over the means of others. It was
difficult to resist the contagion of his enthusiasm; for it was the
enthusiasm of a strong, cultivated, and practical mind."
[Illustration: JOHN LOWELL, JR.
(From "The Lowell Institute," by Harriette Knight Smith, published by
Lamson, Wolffe & Co., Boston.)]
Francis Cabot, the second son, was the father of the noted giver, John
Lowell, Jr. Charles, the third son, became an eminent Boston minister,
and was the father of the poet, James Russell Lowell. On his mother's
side the ancestors of John Lowell, Jr., were also prominent. His
maternal grandfather, Jonathan Jackson, was a generous man of means, a
member of the Congress of 1782, and at the close of the Revolutionary
War largely the creditor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was
the treasurer of the State and of Cambridge University.
John Lowell, Jr., must have inherited from such ancestors a love of
country, a desire for knowledge, and good executive ability. He was
reared in a home of comfort and intelligence. His father, Francis Cabot,
was a successful merchant, a man of great energy, strength of mind, and
integrity of character.
In 1810, when young John was about eleven years old, the health of his
father having become impaired, the Lowell family went to England for
rest and change. The boy was placed at the High School of Edinburgh,
where he won many friends by his lovable qualities, and his intense
desire to gain information. When he came back to America with his
parents, he entered Harvard College in 1813, when he was fourteen years
old. He was a great reader, especially along the line of foreign travel,
and had a better knowledge of geography than most men. After two years
at Cambridge, he was obliged to give up the course from ill health, and
seek a more active live. When he was seventeen, and the year following,
he made two voyages to India, and acquired a passion for study and
travel in the East.
His father, meantime, had become deeply interested in the manufacture of
cotton in America. The war of 1812 had interrupted our commerce with
Europe, and America had been compelled to manufacture many things for
herself. In 1789 Mr. Samuel Slater had brought from England the
knowledge of the inventions of Arkwright for spinning cotton. These
inventions were so carefully guarded from the public that it was almost
impossible for any one to leave England who had worked in a cotton-mill
and understood the process of manufacture. Parliament had prohibited the
exportation of the new machinery. Without the knowledge of his parents,
Samuel Slater sailed to America, carrying the complicated machinery in
his mind. At Pawtucket, R.I., he set up some Arkwright machinery from
memory, and, after years of effort and obstacles, became successful and
wealthy.
Mr. Lowell determined to weave cotton, and if possible use the thread
already made in this country. He proposed to his brother-in-law, Mr.
Patrick Tracy Jackson, that they put some money into experiments, and
try to make a power-loom, as this newly invented machine could not be
obtained from abroad. They procured the model of a common loom, and
after repeated failures succeeded in reinventing a fairly good
power-loom.
The thread obtained from other mills not proving available for their
looms, spinning machinery was constructed, and land was purchased on the
Merrimac River for their mills; in time a large manufacturing city
gathered about them, and was named Lowell, for the energetic and upright
manufacturer.
When the war of 1812 was over, Mr. Lowell knew that the overloaded
markets of Europe and India would pour their cotton and other goods into
the United States. He therefore went to Washington in the winter of
1816, and after overcoming much opposition, obtained a protective tariff
for cotton manufacture. "The minimum duty on cotton fabrics," says
Edward Everett, "the corner-stone of the system, was proposed by Mr.
Lowell, and is believed to have been an original conception on his
part. To this provision of law, the fruit of the intelligence and
influence of Mr. Lowell, New England owes that branch of industry which
has made her amends for the diminution of her foreign trade; which has
left her prosperous under the exhausting drain of her population to the
West; which has brought a market for his agricultural produce to the
farmer's door; and which, while it has conferred these blessings on this
part of the country, has been productive of good, and nothing but good,
to every other portion of it."
At Mr. Lowell's death he left a large fortune to his four children,
three sons and a daughter, of whom John Lowell, Jr., was the eldest.
Like his father, John was a successful merchant; but as his business was
carried on largely with the East Indies, he had leisure for reading. He
had one of the best private libraries in Boston, and knew the contents
of his books. He did not forget his duties to his city. He was several
times a member of the Common Council and the Legislature of the State,
believing that no person has a right to shirk political responsibility.
In the midst of this happy and useful life, surrounded by those who were
dear to him, in the years 1830 and 1831, when he was thirty-two years of
age, came the crushing blow to his domestic joy. His wife and both
children died, and his home was broken up. He sought relief in travel,
and in the summer of 1832 made a tour of the Western States. In the
autumn of the same year, November, 1832, he sailed for Europe, intending
to be absent for some months, or even years. As though he had a
premonition that his life would be a brief one, and that he might never
return, he made his will before leaving America, giving about two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars--half of his property--"to found and
sustain free lectures," "for the promotion of the moral and intellectual
and physical instruction or education of the citizens of Boston."
The will provides for courses in physics, chemistry, botany, zoölogy,
mineralogy, the literature of our own and foreign nations, and
historical and internal evidences in favor of Christianity.
The management of the whole fund, with the selection of lecturers, is
left to one trustee, who shall choose his successor; that trustee to be,
"in preference to all others, some male descendant of my grandfather,
John Lowell, provided there be one who is competent to hold the office
of trustee, and of the name of Lowell." The trustees of the Boston
Athenæum are empowered to look over the accounts each year, but have no
voice in the selection of the lecturers. "The trustee," says Mr. Lowell
in his will, "may also from time to time establish lectures on any
subject that, in his opinion, the wants and taste of the age may
demand."
None of the money given by will is ever to be used in buildings; Mr.
Lowell probably having seen that money is too often put into brick and
stone to perpetuate the name of the donor, while there is no income for
the real work in hand. Ten per cent of the income of the Lowell fund is
to be added annually to the principal. It is believed that through wise
investing the fund is already doubled, and perhaps trebled.
"The idea of a foundation of this kind," says Edward Everett, "on which,
unconnected with any place of education, provision is made, in the
midst of a large commercial population, for annual courses of
instruction by public lectures, to be delivered gratuitously to all who
choose to attend them, as far as it is practicable within our largest
halls, is, I believe, original with Mr. Lowell. I am not aware that,
among all the munificent establishments of Europe, there is anything of
this description upon a large scale."
After Mr. Lowell reached Europe in the fall of 1832, he spent the winter
in Paris, and the summer in England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was all
the time preparing for his Eastern journey,--in the study of languages,
and the knowledge of instruments by which to make notes of the course of
winds, the temperature, atmospheric phenomena, the height of mountains,
and other matters of interest in the far-off lands which he hoped to
enter. Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, gave him
special facilities for his proposed tour into the interior of India.
The winter of 1833 was spent in the southwestern part of France, in
visiting the principal cities of Lombardy, in Nice and Genoa, reaching
Florence early in February, 1834. In Rome he engaged a Swiss artist, an
excellent draftsman and painter, to accompany him, and make sketches of
scenery, ruins, and costumes throughout his whole journey.
After some time spent in Naples and vicinity, he devoted a month to the
island of Sicily. He writes to Princess Galitzin, the granddaughter of
the famous Marshal Suvorof, whom he had met in Florence: "Clear and
beautiful are the skies in Sicily, and there is a warmth of tint about
the sunsets unrivalled even in Italy. It resembles what one finds under
the tropics; and so does the vegetation. It is rich and luxuriant. The
palm begins to appear; the palmetto, the aloe, and the cactus adorn
every woodside; the superb oleander bathes its roots in almost every
brook; the pomegranate and a large species of convolvulus are everywhere
seen. In short, the variety of flowers is greater than that of the
prairies in the Western States of America, though I think their number
is less. Our rudbeckia is, I think, more beautiful than the
chrysanthemum coronarium which you see all over Sicily; but there are
the orange and the lemon."
Mr. Lowell travelled in Greece, and July 10 reached Athens, "that
venerable, ruined, dirty little town," he wrote, "of which the streets
are most narrow and nearly impassable; but the poor remains of whose
ancient taste in the arts exceed in beauty everything I have yet seen in
either Italy, Sicily, or any other portions of Greece."
Late in September Mr. Lowell reached Smyrna, and visited the ruins of
Magnesia, Tralles, Nysa, Laodicea, Tripolis, and Hierapolis. He writes
to a friend in America; "I then crossed Mount Messogis in the rain, and
descended into the basin of the river Hermus, visited Philadelphia, the
picturesque site of Sardis, with its inaccessible citadel, and two
solitary but beautiful Ionic columns."
Early in December Mr. Lowell sailed from Smyrna in a Greek brig,
coasting along the islands of Mitylene, Samos, Patmos, and Rhodes,
arrived in Alexandria in the latter part of the month, and proceeded up
the river Nile. On Feb. 12, 1835, he writes to his friends from the top
of the great pyramid:--
"The prospect is most beautiful. On the one side is the boundless
desert, varied only by a few low ridges of limestone hills. Then you
have heaps of sand, and a surface of sand reduced to so fine a powder,
and so easily agitated by the slightest breeze that it almost deserves
the name of fluid. Then comes the rich, verdant valley of the Nile,
studded with villages, adorned with green date-trees, traversed by the
Father of Rivers, with the magnificent city of Cairo on its banks; but
far narrower than one could wish, as it is bounded, at a distance of
some fifteen miles, by the Arabian desert, and the abrupt calcareous
ridge of Mokattam. Immediately below the spectator lies the city of the
dead, the innumerable tombs, the smaller pyramids, the Sphinx, and still
farther off and on the same line, to the south, the pyramids of Abou
Seer, Sakkârà, and Dashoor."
While journeying in Egypt, Mr. Lowell, from the effects of the climate,
was severely attacked by intermittent, fever; but partially recovering,
proceeded to Thebes, and established his temporary home on the ruins of
a palace at Luxor. After examining many of its wonderful structures
carved with the names and deeds of the Pharaohs, he was again prostrated
by illness, and feared that he should not recover. He had thought out
more details about his noble gift to the people of Boston; and, sick and
among strangers, he completed in that ancient land his last will for the
good of humanity. "The few sentences," says Mr. Everett, "penned with a
tired hand, on the top of a palace of the Pharaohs, will do more for
human improvement than, for aught that appears, was done by all of that
gloomy dynasty that ever reigned."
Mr. Lowell somewhat regained his health, and proceeded to Sioot, the
capital of Upper Egypt, to lay in the stores needed for his journey to
Nubia. While at Sioot, he saw the great caravan of Darfour in Central
Africa, which comes to the Nile once in two years, and is two or three
months in crossing the desert. It usually consists of about six hundred
merchants, four thousand slaves, and six thousand camels laden with
ivory, tamarinds, ostrich-feathers, and provisions for use on the
journey.
Mr. Lowell writes in his journal: "The immense number of tall and lank
but powerful camels was the first object that attracted our attention in
the caravan. The long and painful journey, besides killing perhaps a
quarter of the original number, had reduced the remainder to the
condition of skeletons, and rendered their natural ugliness still more
appalling. Their skins were stretched, like moistened parchment scorched
by the fire, over their strong ribs. Their eyes stood out from their
shrunken foreheads; and the arched backbone of the animals rose sharp
and prominent above their sides, like a butcher's cleaver. The fat that
usually accompanies the middle of the backbone, and forms with it the
camel's bunch, had entirely disappeared. They had occasion for it, as
well as for the reservoir of water with which a bountiful nature has
furnished them, to enable them to undergo the laborious journey and the
painful fasts of the desert. Their sides were gored with the heavy
burdens they had carried.
"The sun was setting. The little slaves of the caravan had just driven
in from their dry pasture of thistles, parched grass, and withered
herbage these most patient and obedient animals, so essential to
travellers in the great deserts, and without which it would be as
impossible to cross them as to traverse the ocean without vessels. Their
conductors made them kneel down, and gradually poured beans between
their lengthened jaws. The camels, not having been used to this food,
did not like it; they would have greatly preferred a bit of old,
worn-out mat, as we have found to our cost in the desert. The most
mournful cries, something between the braying of an ass and the lowing
of a cow, assailed our ears in all directions, because these poor
creatures were obliged to eat what was not good for them; but they
offered no resistance otherwise. When transported to the Nile, it is
said that the change of food and water kills most of them in a little
time."
In June Mr. Lowell resumed his journey up the Nile, and was again ill
for some weeks. The thermometer frequently stood at 115 degrees. He
visited Khartoom, and then travelled for fourteen days across the desert
of Nubia to Sowakeen, a small port on the western coast of the Red Sea.
Near here, Dec. 22, he was shipwrecked on the island of Dassá, and
nearly lost his life. In a rainstorm the little vessel ran upon the
rocks. "All my people behaved well," Mr. Lowell writes. "Yanni alone,
the youngest of them, showed by a few occasional exclamations that it is
hard to look death in the face at seventeen, when all the illusions 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
earnest faces of the young workers, fitting themselves for useful
positions in life.
The Lowell Institute has been fortunate in its management. Mr. John
Amory Lowell was the able trustee for more than forty years; and the
present trustee, Mr. Augustus Lowell, like his father, has the great
work much at heart. Dr. Benjamin E. Cotting, the curator from the
formation of the Institute, a period of more than half a century, has
won universal esteem for his ability, as also for his extreme courtesy
and kindness.
John Lowell, Jr., humanly speaking, died before his lifework was
scarcely begun. The studious, modest boy, the thorough, conscientious
man, planning a journey to Africa and India, not for pleasure merely,
but for helpfulness to science and humanity, died just as he entered the
long sought-for land. A man of warm affections, he went out from a
broken home to die among strangers.
He was so careful of his moments that, says Mr. Everett, "he spared no
time for the frivolous pleasures of youth; less, perhaps, than his
health required for its innocent relaxations, and for exercise." Whether
or not he realized that the time was short, he accomplished more in his
brief thirty-seven years than many men in fourscore and ten. It would
have been easy to spend two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in houses
and lands, in fine equipage and social festivities; but Mr. Lowell had a
higher purpose in life.
After five weeks of illness, thousands of miles from all who were dear
to him, on the ruins of Thebes, in an Arab village built on the remains
of an ancient palace, Mr. Lowell penned these words: "As the most
certain and the most important part of true philosophy appears to me to
be that which shows the connection between God's revelations and the
knowledge of good and evil implanted by him in our nature, I wish a
course of lectures to be given on natural religion, showing its
conformity to that of our Saviour.
"For the more perfect demonstration of the truth of those moral and
religious precepts, by which alone, as I believe, men can be secure of
happiness in this world and that to come, I wish a course of lectures to
be delivered on the historical and internal evidences in favor of
Christianity. I wish all disputed points of faith and ceremony to be
avoided, and the attention of the lecturers to be directed to the moral
doctrines of the Gospel, stating their opinion, if they will, but not
engaging in controversy, even on the subject of the penalty for
disobedience. As the prosperity of my native land, New England, which is
sterile and unproductive, must depend hereafter, as it has heretofore
depended, first on the moral qualities, and second on the intelligence
and information of its inhabitants, I am desirous of trying to
contribute towards this second object also."
The friend of the people, Mr. Lowell desired that they should learn from
the greatest minds of the age without expense to themselves. It should
be an absolutely free gift.
The words from the Theban ruins have had their ever broadening influence
through half a century. What shall be the result for good many centuries
from now? Tens of thousands of fortunes have been and will be spent for
self, and the names of the owners will be forgotten. John Lowell, Jr.,
did not live for himself, and his name will be remembered.
Others in this country have adopted somewhat Mr. Lowell's plan of
giving. The Hon. Oakes Ames, the great shovel manufacturer, member of
Congress for ten years, and builder of the Union Pacific Railroad, left
at his death, May 8, 1873, a fund of fifty thousand dollars "for the
benefit of the school children of North Easton, Mass." The income is
thirty-five hundred dollars a year, part of which is used in furnishing
magazines to children--each family having children in the schools is
supplied with some magazine; part for an industrial school where they
are taught the use of tools; and part for free lectures yearly to the
school children, adults also having the benefit of them. Thirty or more
lectures are given each winter upon interesting and profitable subjects
by able lecturers.
Some of the subjects already discussed are as follows: The Great
Yellowstone Park, A Journey among the Planets, The Chemistry of a
Match, Paris, its Gardens and Palaces, A Basket of Charcoal, Tobacco and
Liquors, Battle of Gettysburg, The Story of the Jeannette, Palestine,
Electricity, Picturesque Mexico, The Sponge and Starfish, Sweden,
Physiology, History of a Steam-Engine, Heroes and Historic Places of the
Revolution, The Four Napoleons, The World's Fair, The Civil War, and
others.
What better way to spend an evening than in listening to such lectures?
What better way to use one's money than in laying the foundation of
intelligent and good citizenship in childhood and youth?
The press of North Easton says, "The influence and educational power of
such a series of lectures and course of instruction in a community
cannot be measured or properly gauged. From these lectures a stream of
knowledge has gone out which, we believe, will bear fruit in the future
for the good of the community. Of the many good things which have come
from the liberality of Mr. Ames, this, we believe, has been the most
potent for good of any."
Judge White of Lawrence, Mass., left at his death a tract of land in the
hands of three trustees, which they were to sell, and use the income to
provide a course of not less than six lectures yearly, especially to the
industrial classes. The subjects were to be along the line of good
morals, industry, economy, the fruits of sin and of virtue. The White
fund amounts to about one hundred thousand dollars.
Mrs. Mary Hemenway of Boston, who died March 6, 1894, will always be
remembered for her good works, not the least of which are the yearly
courses of free lectures for young people at the Old South Church. When
the meeting-house where Benjamin Franklin was baptized, where the town
meeting was held after the Boston Massacre in 1770, and just before the
tea was thrown overboard in 1773, and which the British troops used for
a riding-school in 1775,--when this historic place was in danger of
being torn down because business interests seemed to demand the
location, Mrs. Hemenway, with other Boston women, came forward in 1876
to save it. She once said to Mr. Larkin Dunton, head master of the
Boston Normal School, "I have just given a hundred thousand dollars to
save the Old South; yet I care nothing for the church on the corner lot.
But, if I live, such teaching shall be done in that old building, and
such an influence shall go out from it, as shall make the children of
future generations love their country so tenderly that there can never
be another civil war in this country."
Mrs. Hemenway was patriotic. When asked why she gave one hundred
thousand dollars to Tileston Normal School in Wilmington, N.C.,--her
maiden name was Tileston,--and thus provide for schools in the South,
she replied, "When my country called for her sons to defend the flag, I
had none to give. Mine was but a lad of twelve. I gave my money as a
thank-offering that I was not called to suffer as other mothers who gave
their sons and lost them. I gave it that the children of this generation
might be taught to love the flag their fathers tore down."
In December, 1878, Miss C. Alice Baker began at the Old South Church a
series of talks to children on New England history, between eleven and
twelve o'clock on Saturdays, which she called, "The Children's Hour."
From the relics on the floor and in the gallery, telling of Colonial
times, she riveted their attention, thus showing to the historical
societies of this country how easily they might interest and profit the
children of our public schools, if these were allowed to visit museums
in small companies with suitable leaders.
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?"
Mrs. Hemenway did not cease her good work with her free lectures for
young people. It is scarcely easier to stop in an upward career than in
a downward. When the heart and hand are once opened to the world's
needs, they can nevermore be closed.
Mrs. Hemenway, practical with all her wealth, believed that everybody
should know how to work, and thus not only be placed above want, but
dignify labor. She said, "In my youth, girls in the best families were
accustomed to participate in many of the household affairs. Some
occasionally assisted in other homes. As for myself, I read not many
books. They were not so numerous as now. I was reared principally on
household duties, the Bible, and Shakespeare."
Mrs. Hemenway began by establishing kitchen gardens in Boston, opened on
Saturdays. I remember going to one of them at the North End, in 1881,
through the invitation of Mrs. Hemenway's able assistant, Miss Amy
Morris Homans. In a large, plain room of the "Mission" I found
twenty-four bright little girls seated at two long tables. They were
eager, interesting children, but most had on torn and soiled dresses and
poor shoes.
In front of each stood a tiny box, used as a table, on which were four
plates, each a little over an inch wide; four knives, each three inches
long, and forks to correspond; goblets, and cups and saucers of the same
diminutive sizes.
At a signal from the piano, the girls began to set the little tables
properly. First the knives and forks were put in their places, then the
very small napkins, and then the goblets. In front of the "lady of the
house" were set the cups and saucers, spoon-holder, water-pitcher, and
coffee-pot.
Then they listened to a useful and pleasant talk from the leader; and
when the order was given to clear the tables, twenty-four pairs of
little hands put the pewter dishes, made to imitate silver, into a
pitcher, and the other things into dishpans, about four or five inches
wide, singing a song to the music of the piano as they washed the
dishes. These children also learned to sweep and dust, make beds, and
perform other household duties. Each pupil was given a complete set of
new clothes by Mrs. Hemenway.
Many persons had petitioned to have sewing taught in the public schools
of Boston, as in London; but there was opposition, and but little was
accomplished. Mrs. Hemenway started sewing-schools, obtained capable
teachers, and in time sewing became a regular part of the public-school
work, with a department of sewing in the Boston Normal School; so that
hereafter the teacher will be as able in her department as another in
mathematics. Drafting, cutting, and fitting have been added in many
schools, so that thousands of women will be able to save expense in
their homes through the skill of their own hands.
Mrs. Hemenway knew that in many homes food is poorly cooked, and health
is thereby impaired. Mr. Henry C. Hardon of Boston tells of this
conversation between two teachers: "Name some one thing that would
enable your boys to achieve more, and build up the school."--"A plate of
good soup and a thick slice of bread after recess," was the reply. "I
could get twice the work before twelve. They want new blood."
Mrs. Hemenway started cooking-schools in Boston, which she called
school kitchens; and when it was found to be difficult to secure
suitable teachers, she established and supported a normal school of
cooking. Boston, seeing the need of proper teachers in its future work
in the schools, has provided a department of cooking in the city Normal
School.
Mrs. Hemenway believed in strong bodies, aided to become such by
physical training. She offered to the School Committee of Boston to
provide for the instruction of a hundred teachers in the Swedish system,
on condition that they be allowed to use the exercises in their classes
in case they chose to do so. The result proved successful, and now over
sixty thousand in the public schools take the Swedish exercises daily.
Mrs. Hemenway established the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, from
which teachers have gone to Radcliffe College, Cambridge; Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; Drexel Institute, Philadelphia; their
average salary being slightly less than one thousand dollars, the
highest salary reaching eighteen hundred dollars. Boston has now made
the teaching of gymnastics a part of its normal-school work, so that
every graduate goes out prepared to direct the work in the school. Mrs.
Hemenway gave generously to aid the Boston Teachers' Mutual Benefit
Association; for she said, "Nothing is too good for the Boston
teachers." She was a busy woman, with no time for fashionable life,
though she welcomed to her elegant home all who had any helpful work to
do in the world. She used her wealth and her social position to help
humanity. She died leaving her impress on a great city and State, and
through that upon the nation.
New York State and City are now carrying out an admirable plan of free
lectures for the people. The State appropriates twenty-five thousand
dollars annually that free lectures may be given "in natural history,
geography, and kindred subjects by means of pictorial representation and
lectures, to the free common schools of each city and village of the
State that has, or may have, a superintendent of free common schools."
These illustrated lectures may also be given "to artisans, mechanics,
and other citizens."