644: AUGUSTUS LOWELL, 



which he found infinite satisfaction. His roses were his chief delight. 

 And fine they were — no finer than the feeling with which he showed 

 them off. But nothing vegetal was alien to him. He would point out 

 with almost as much zest, punctuated by a wink, a foi*eign thorn-tree, 

 which flanked the avenue, a platted mass of thorns a foot long, the 

 despair of squirrels and cats. 



His botany was of the old-fashioned kind. He did not pursue it as a 

 science, but cultivated it as an art. His plants were rather pets than 

 subjects for vivisection. Philosophically he was not concerned with their 

 genealogy or relationship and disbelieved Darwinism to the day of his 

 death. But in his intercourse with them he knew the life and the merits 

 or demerits of each, and took pleasure in their thriving with something 

 like affectionate interest. He behaved like a distant relative, the while 

 stoutly denying that he was one. Indeed the relation did not seem so 

 very distant, for he was never tired of attending to them, and took a 

 paternal pride in their introduction to others. He would conduct you to 

 view some bush at the moment in flower, and point out in what lay its 

 peculiar praiseworthiness with the care of long acquaintance. Pretty 

 much every tree upon his place — and it included some rare ones — was 

 personally known to him. And if you strolled round with him he would 

 talk fine print about each with you. He was constantly importing new 

 plants and then watching them succeed. Though he made no parade of 

 knowledge or of success, he not infrequently had plants which knew no 

 rival in the neighborhood. A contrast this side of his life made with 

 that of his morning down-town, where he played so prominent a part in 

 the active affairs of men. 



The long list of business offices held by him might lead one to infer 

 that his time in the city must have been fully occupied by them alone. 

 But he was much too busy a man for such to be the. case. With all his 

 industrial and financial concerns he found time for an equal employment 

 in educational affairs. His ability was of the executive kind, which was 

 as vital to the one as to the other. It thus came about that side by side 

 with his business, and almost hand in hand with it, so practical was he 

 in his workings, went another employment — usually only on speaking 

 terms with the first, and then those of a beggar — the conduct of educa- 

 tional concerns. Busy as Mr. Lowell was with purely business affairs, 

 he was equally engaged in matters of mind. Partly the accident of 

 birth, partly the possession of ability, placed him in positions of authority 

 in two important educational institutions : the Lowell Institute in the 

 first place, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the second. 



