1869.] PEABODY ACADEMY OP SCIENCES. 317 



laws of their classification, but objects so prepared and arranged 

 that he can readily obtain the information desired. Such is the 

 plan upon which the museum has been arranged. We cannot 

 say it is yet fully completed, but we trust it may in some degree 

 meet the requirements for which it is intended. While the 

 completion of the museum has been the main object thus far, 

 the trustees were of opinion it would be wise to begin at once 

 upon a small scale what at some time we hope to do on a large 

 and extended scale. Provision was therefore made in our by-laws 

 for lectures and also for the publication of papers strictly 

 scientific, to be called the " Memoirs of the Peabody Academy of 

 Science^ One paper has already been published, which we trust 

 will be the first of a continuous series. One course of lectures 

 has been given by Messrs. Putnam, Morse, and Hyatt, and it is . 

 hoped that we may commence another season with a course of 

 lectures to be delivered by the above named gentlemen, assisted 

 by some of the trustees from various portions of the county. 

 These may be regarded as the commencement of a series of lectures, 

 regular and systematic, which will be one of the chief instru- 

 mentalities for the difi"usion of that knowledge which Mr. Pea- 

 body intended to afibrd to the county of Essex. 



The lectures must be given chiefly in the rooms and the halls 

 of the academy, when finished, but at stated periods they 

 should be delivered in the several cities and towns ol the county, 

 and before various local societies, schools, and classes. 



And here it may be remarked that lectures affording solid ins- 

 truction in an agreeable and interesting way, are much needed in 

 this community. The persons who for tlie most part supply the 

 popular lecture platforms are either prufessional lecturers, given 

 to sensational declamatory fine writing, gentlemen of some general 

 reputation obtained in other fields, or the advocates of some 

 particular hobby or reform. Lectures are given and attended, 

 not for instruction and improvement, but to gratify curiosity, or 

 to afford amusement or excitement to audience. 



The results is that the lecture now seldom instructs. Aiming 

 at other ends, the modest rewards of the scholar and man of science 

 are no longer the measure of payment, and the prices have risen 

 to an exorbitant rate. Lecturers swell their incomes by a winter's 

 tour at one or two hundred dollars a night. They are paid as 

 opera singers are paid. The lecture platform is thus forced 

 to pay a heavy tribute, and in the smaller towns and com- 



