Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1880-03-04
The Lecture C0urse.-The St

LECTURE SOuIsS Was uulSutu Will LHt
appearance. of Hon. Schuyler Colfar.
The course was instituted by Mr.. L.
o. Schultz and the writer hereof, with
two ends in view. We ventured
largelyaupon an experiment. We be-
lieve that the aesthetic and literary
tastes Of our people, if aroused, were
suficisn5 IL. their development to
thoroughly support course, if not
with pecuniary profit, certainly Nith-
out pecuniary loss. Again. We wish
ed to cancel a little Indebtedness upon
the church organ, and devised this
method whereby to diminish it, if not
wholly wipe it out, That we have
not succeeded SO perfectly as we hoped,
is no secret. That we have demon
strated that course Of lectures, can
be sustained, is apparent. We inaug-
urated the course under, many disad-
Tantages. We had but a day to
accept or refuse the proposal made US
by telegraph by Col Edwin Dunbar
We accepted it, and then began the
work which under ordinary circum-
stances should have been done at the
outset. We disposed of only about
thirty season tickets where we ex-
pected to sell as least seventy-fvs.
Each lecture. apart from the sum paid
the speaker, involved an expense rang
ing from ten to twenty dollars, and to
meet these figures it behooved US TO
put forth every energy, lest we be
otertakep with an accuing indebted
ness. The end has come and we find
that we have made litnited success
OF the undertaking. All expenses
have been met, and trifing balance
has been placed to the credit side ct
the lecture account.
Another thing has been demonstrate
ed by the experiment made, viz, that
t"oictous advertising pays. Had it
not been for the persistent presenta-
ton of the good things spread before
the people through the columns of the
REPORTER and Tribune, the people
would not have partaken of the feast,
and herein is hint to our business
men, which need not be enlarged upon.
La connection with this subject of
lectures, and lecturers we wish to add
just one thought. The people are
paying tribu5o to talent and genius
altogether too largely. The sums
levied upon lecture committees for
speakers is out of all proportion to the
goods deiirered We believe we are
only just in our conclusions, when we
say that the lecturer who receives
sixty dollars for an evenings exercise
of mind and muscle receives about forty
dollars for which he renders no equiv
ilcnt. II is an imposition upon the
public, and ought to be looked upon
as system of stealing, though no
statutory provision prohibits it. But
the course is ended, and we congratu-
late our people upon the feast they
have enjoyed. Our winter has been
one Of mind improvement. We have
had continual least To say moth
ing of concerts, the usual Open Tenn
pie lectures, and the sociablss we
have had Milburne, Ann Eliza Young,
Fitzpatrick, Frank Beard, G. Paul
Smith, and Colfax, and we have the
promise of still another luxury. We
learn that d. Dudley of Eau Clair, a
very talented speaker will soon, give
us his most excellent lecture entitled
"The Hope of our Country Ger
tainly we have been favored, and we
believe another winter we may be
still more largely favored, if only we
will be mutual IN chr endeayors to
strive tor the best things.