ANDREW PRESTON PEABODY. 353 



can Review, succeeding Dr. John Gorham Palfrey in that office. 

 His direction of the Review was always fresh, and it was kept well 

 up to the literary requisitions of the time. He enlisted a large num- 

 ber of writers who had not worked for it before, and the volumes 

 published under his direction will be found to take a courageous and 

 generous view of public exigency. 



The years from 1830 to 1850 would generally be spoken of in New 

 England history as the epoch in which the system of lyceum lectures 

 was developing, and perhaps when it reached its culmination of use- 

 fulness. In the early days of such courses of lectures, public-spirited 

 men undertook them, with a direct view, in which experience con- 

 firmed their foresight, of lifting up the level of popular education. 

 Those were not the days of large " honorariums " for such service ; 

 they were days in which public speakers carried their best wares, and 

 were thankful if a fit audience met them. Among the young men 

 who devoted themselves heartily to the work of thus building up 

 the lecture system, Dr. Peabody was foremost, and in after life he 

 would frequently receive his reward when he found that some of his 

 hearers of those days remembered counsels or information which he 

 had then given. In later life, he delivered several of the courses of 

 the Lowell Institute. Of these courses of lectures, one was printed 

 in the year 1844, under the title, " Lectures on Christian Doctrine." 



In his transfer to the University, he still had the vocation of a cler- 

 gyman, and he had more than one avocation. He was the Preacher to 

 the University, with the distinct understanding, under the very terms 

 of the Plummer trust, that he was to be the counsellor and adviser of 

 the undergraduates in any of their difficulties, spiritual, intellectual, 

 and even physical. His devotion to this part of his task was such that 

 the young men, particularly those from distant points, came to regard 

 his house as a place where they might come for any counsel which 

 they needed. He was himself proud of this confidence, and he never 

 lost it, even after he retired from the nominal duties of his professor- 

 ship. During this period he became an active member of the Acad- 

 emy, and his presence at our meetings will be gratefully remembered, 

 as is his presence at the meeting of many other societies instituted for 

 the best purposes of education or other philanthropy. 



A valuable collection has been published of the baccalaureate ser- 

 mons which, in more than twenty years, he addressed to as many 

 classes as they graduated. Here is quite a well adjusted statement of 

 the science of life. In no instance, among them all, did he satisfy 

 himself with discussing, however brilliantly or carefully, what may 



VOL. XXVIII. (n. 8. XX.) 23 



