AUGUSTUS LOWELL. 645 



Of the first of these he became the trustee in 1881, on the death of his 

 father. Even before this, however, much of the work had fallen to him. 

 The Lowell Institute is too well known to need description, but one 

 phase of it will bear raeution in connection with the man who for so long 

 was its trustee. Most institutions of learning live by begging. If they 

 happen to be possessed of presidents who are past masters in the art, 

 they thrive ; if not so blessed, they languish. That a president should 

 be an able intellectual director is unfortunately not so pressing a demand 

 as that he should be a persistent, importunate, and successful beggar. In 

 view of this fact deficits in college finances have lost their terror and 

 surpluses are unknown, a sympathetic public being with confidence relied 

 on to stand in the gap. Now the peculiarity of the Lowell Institute has 

 been not only that it is not dependent upon alms-giving but that it has 

 thriven and grown without it. Although on the one hand it has paid 

 larger salaries than any college or kindred institution to the teacher, it 

 has asked no fee whatever of the taught. Yet despite this liberality on 

 both sides, its funds have more than quadrupled in amount. Part of this 

 increase has been due to the wise terras of the endowment, part to the 

 like wisdom of the two successive trustees. Kindred wisdom it has been 

 in both senses, for by a provision of the testator the trustee must be of 

 the testator's family if a fit person exist of the name. How fit Mr. 

 Lowell was for the post this able result of his administration of the 

 finances attests. 



But besides being its financial head, Mr. Lowell was its intellectual 

 body and its executive arm as well. For the Institute is a one man 

 power, an absolute dictatorship. Mr. Lowell was president, corporation, 

 and treasurer all together. And the success he made of it shows ajrain 

 the wisdom of such a rule, provided only the ruler be fit. Of his capacity 

 as financier the property speaks ; of his ability in general adiniuistratiou 

 the list of lecturers before the institution sufficiently betokens. At the 

 time the Institute was founded lectures were a popular form of instruc- 

 tion, and the object of the testator was to secure for the people of Boston 

 lectures by the most eminent men at home and abroad, and to give these 

 to the public free of charge. His wish has been well carried out. On 

 the roster of the books are to be found a majority of the names which 

 are known the world over, and almost every one of those to whose pos- 

 sessors distance or age or language did not prove an impassable bar. 

 America, Europe, even Asia have contributed to the list. Some of these 

 men came more than once ; and many of them became well known per- 

 sonally to Americans. But the fact connected with them which speaks 



