Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-01-17
THE LYcEUM PLATFORM.
Extracts From An old-T Time Lecturers
Open Letter to New England.

! tney yleiu TO the might OF ms lnSlStance
| and tell him their secret.
Now, have not such men something to
tell the people of this continent? Shall
the great advocate be smothered in the
little dingy court room? Shall the
great jurist, familiar with every code
and form of pleading from Justinian to
our day, not be able to explain and eX-
pound the principles by which men and
nations alike must live unless they
would go down to their destruction?
Would not New England pay well to
see Webster and Choate, Beecher and
Phillips, Horace Mann and Garrison
all children of her mind and soul and
cline, upon her platforms once more?
Would it not be worth year of life to
hear the applause and laughter, the
Kissing and the cheering; to see the
flashing eyes, the flushed faces, the fall
ing tears, and feel the mouse shake to
the jar of feet and the shifting of APP
plauding palms as the speakers thought
himself on fire-burned slowly into
them until they kindled to its ardor and
broke into spontaneous flames? 1t was
good time to live when we had men
among us able to take the moral slug
gishness of commercialized New Eng
land up and shake a spiritual conception
into it,
Therefore. ask: Is this the time,
darkness of the future, prints a huge
Interrogation mark and calls upon US
to translate the answer into act and
statute, to give up one of the chiefest
methods of instruction and the noblest
avenues along which to roll truth and
right onward to their triumph ever in
vogue among the people? In truth
such folly is too apparent to
be done while so many vet live
1scl11 how 49,,
was in the days preceding the great
revolution. Why it might also be said
that the lyceum between 1850 and 1866
was the revolution. For the life of a
generation and to three generations of
hearers it gave God a human voice of
such eloquence and commanding en-
phasis as mortal lips had never fur
n1sheu since Peiicles, plague stricken
sent farewell to Aspas;a and the voice
of Roman oratory died down to silence
In the marble tomb of Cicero.
There was Clay and Giddings, and
CorWin and Garrison and Beecher, and
ne OF lndescribable force and charm, the
Incompatible Phillips going from state
TO state, city to city and town to town.
preaching the evangel of liberty for the
slave ON, how they voiced Gods right
eousnessl Their audiences Kissed and
cheered, cursed and applauded, sneered
and wept, pelted them with stones and
eggs, burned them in effigy, chased
them into jaiis for safety, but still the
old lyceum grit held to the line God
snapped across their souls when their
mothers bore them, and under what
ever strain not finger of their grip
| loosened. 1t was as if Saul of Tarsus-
| that name of storm softened by holy
chureh to St Paul-had discovered his
LOST grave under the Capitoline Hill
ana through the debris of centuries had
ourst upward and multiplied tenfoId
was once more storming his way from
pagan state TO pagan state, converting
/ the gentiles.
But what was the old time lyeeum :?
was 1t a bit of machinery; bureau de
conYenance for merely making speaking
appointments, cunning invention
which enabled few gifted men to in
crease their incomes and a small cleri-
cal force to earn their 10 per cent COM
mission? No, a thousand times, MOI
Inc old-tlme lyeeum was no mere or
ganlzatlon whatever. 1t was the mind
and soul and heart of New England
seeking the right way to think and feel
and do. 1t was the latent thought, the
hidden emotion, the panied and out
ragged conscience of New England seek
| ing expression
In view of what has been said this
TACT stands forth strongly outlined: That
the old-tilne lyceum was not a system
OF entertainment only, but a method by
which the wants of the people along
lines of profound moral, ethical and re-
formative thinking and feeling could be
met How perfectly it met them is a
matter of record. Horace Mann's idea
of carrying the college to the people was
more than realized.
And they tell me that this magnificent
expression of our best culture and high
est need is broken down. 1t is not brok-
en- down if the peoples wishes and will
ingness to support it stand for it, But
If you refer to the machinery which
grew up around it and demoralized it.
converting it from noble service to a
mere money-getting employment, from
system of noble education and per-
suasion of the people to a sordid bu-
reaucracy Of money changers, where a
clerical force earned a small income by
making appointments for smaller folk
able to learn less-if you mean this aWk-
ward shell of a once noble embodiment
is broken DOWN. admit it, and thank
God for it. But it is not the bureaus"
and agencies" that are chiefly to blame
in the matter Their object was money
getting, that and nothing more-and the
people knew it and that rendered them
comparatively harmless But something
else. And l will tell you, what it is that
1lco5 OGyOllQ oil CloSs DIOhGu uOWH the
lyceum of New England.
The lyceum platform has been bro
ken down because now it is not called
upon to merely support itself, but ev-
cry imaginable cause" and charity"
and ''most worthy object" has been sad
died upon it. OF old time, if enough
tickets were sold to pay the local ex-
pense and the speaker, it was called a
success. That was the rule--to ask the
people to pay for just what they got
But now the people must pay for what
they get and a good deal more The
platform is expected now to not only
pay it's own expenses, but it must also
build hospitals, old ladies' homes and
newsboys' rooms. 1t must help out the
orphan girls fund and the reading room
for boys who would be better off if they
were orphans. 1t must help the cir
culating library, wipe out the minister's
back salary and buy the lumber for the
Methodist chapel. 1t must help pur-
chase goat for initiation into Masonic
rites and a gold scabbard and sword
blade-of softest iron-for any youthful
soldier who hopes to be member twixt
this and eternity of the governors staff
1t must assist at benefits for every To-
cal unfortunate and help resuscitate ev-
cry moribund sewing society whose
rigor mortis, when it came, was the
cause of mild but universal satisfaction.
/ appeal to the wise and humane
members of that noble profession which
IL Ill