St. Tammany farmer., 1906-02-10
entertainment PLAN
HOW TO ARRANGE FOR POPULAR
LECTURES AND CONCERTS.

The Writer Of the Popular Book Will
Draw Large Houses ~ Scientific
Lecture o6ers Novel Entertain
ment - Lecturer : with squeaky
Voice Will Never Enthrall Audi
ence-Musical Programmes Usual
" Too Long Simple old-Fash-
ioned Songs Most Likely to Please.
By MARGARET E. sANGsTER.
Copyright, 1906. by Joseph b. Bowles)
In the days when life used to be
much simpler than now, we, in this
republic. made much Of our winter
evening lecture courses and our win
ter evening concerts.
AS cur great cities have grown cos
mopolitan, the number OF evening en-
tertainments, Of every sort and va
riety, has been multiplied, and people
may freely choose what they will in
theatrical representation, operate
singing, or scientific instruction from
the lecture platform. In the smaller
towns and villages and in suburbs linn
tied by hourly trains, there Is less lib
erty OF selection, and judicious prep
arat1on beforehand u essential il the
winter is not to be barren Of profit.
In the old days. we had philosophers
like Ralph Waldo Emerson, states
men like Horace Greeley, men of let
ters like Oliver Wendell Holmes, or
George William Curtis, and fiery ora
tors like Wendell Philips and Edward
Everett to fill the places in our lecture
courses, and season after season they
appeared and lifted the public taste
and enlarged popular ideas. From
across the water came Charles
Dickens. w. M. Thackeray and Mat
thew Arnold, giving their hearers
full tithes Of satisfaction and car
rying back with them lavish har-
vest Of American gold. The great
singers came, both men and wom-
en-, and while the cities heard them
first in opera, most OF them later com
descended to the palmer concert stage
IN places where operas could not be
rendered.
Still the great singers come to us,
and still we have lectures from the
other side. Only q few months ago,
from the white house down, people
were interested in listening to the
broken English Of the author OF
The Simple Life Let man write
= popular book, and those who read
1t wish to look in his face, hear his
voice, and Judge ii they may what
manner Of spirit he is of. 1t would be
invidious to discriminate and give the
names OF the popular lecturers Of the
hour, but we know who they are, and
let the night be ever SO cold, the snow
ever 80 deep, the roads ever SO icy,
we shall 60 and hear them when they
come to our town.
In planning lecture course, good
committee is the first requisite. Mo
notony is to be avoided. Novelty is
to be sought. There is wonderful
charm In new face, new voice, and
. new subject, but there is also an
irresistible fascination in familiar
presence and in meeting again with
an old friend. This is why certain
names among us belong to the lee
ture platform, and why certain men
are able to command almost any
price they choose to ask in return for
the lecture they give.
In the programme for the wiuter
there ought to be, for example, lee
ture on some astronomical or other
scientific theme, which shall be given
by an expert, or scholar whose
knowledge can be trusted, and whose
name is q guarantee for accuracy
Such lecture should be illustrated by
views. Another should
take up country, island or continent,
on which public attention has been
fastened. Lectures on the far east
will be timely, and ought to be pop
ular in the coming season. We have
to reconstruct q great many of our
notions; we are most Of us rather
ignorant about the underlying con-
ditions which have brought Russia to
it's present crisis, and pushed Japan
to the front, as the champion OF the
east, and, as we have not time to read
exhaustively for ourselves, we need
the lecturer who can supply US with
facts carefully collated, and with In
formation In . concrete form. A his
torical subject, or one purely literary,
one that takes up the social life Of
ancient Rome, or OF medieval Ger
many, or Of England under Queen
Anne, will ind host Of captivated
listeners. A lecture is supposed to
embody and epitomize the substance
of many hooks. II It is worth hear
Ing 1t all. 1t must be in the nature Of
! picture, and II not eloquent, must
It least be- agreeable and have no
dull passages.
A lecturer who reads his manu-
script closely, or who has squeaky,
ineffective voice, need never hope to
snthrall his audience. The audience
% to speak, at ! lecture, have seats In
he parlor car, and they are not ex-
,ected to undergo any discomfort that |
an be saved them. The lecturer who
:annot be heard with ease, In every
corner OF the room, need not expect
] second engagement.
It is incumbent, however, on the
to provide . hall for lee
ures in which the acoustic proper
les are good. shall not soon for
.et an experience / had, one evening,
d Canada, where for an hour ! lis
ened TO brilliant and distinguished
ecturer, and heard q mocking echo re-
neat word by word. cadence by CO
[ence. the whole effort, until was
.1mnsf distracfed / learned later