62 OCEAN TO OCEAN ON HORSEBACK. 



Symphony Orchestra and the Orpheus Club, speak—' 

 and right musically — of Boston's love for the art of 

 which Cecilia was patron saint. Music Hall, an im- 

 mense edifice near Tremont street, is the home of 

 music in Boston. Here the symphony concerts are 

 held weekly, and here all the musical ^' stars " whose 

 orbit includes Boston make their first appearance be- 

 fore a critical ^' Hub'' audience. Its great organ, with 

 over 5,000 pipes, is one of the largest ever made. 



The idea of a national university of music — sneered 

 at and scouted when a few enthusiasts first talked and 

 dreamed of it — took shape in 1867 in the now famous 

 New England Conservatory of Music, founded by 

 Eben Tourjee. It is a magnificent school in a mag- 

 nificent home — the old St. James' Hotel on Franklin 

 Square — with a hundred teachers from the very fore- 

 most rank of their profession. The conservatory has 

 possibly done more for New England culture than 

 any other influence save Harvard University. 



The literary life of Boston needs neither chronicler 

 nor comment. Such men as Thomas Bailev Aldrich, 

 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Francis Parkman, Prescott, 

 the historian, liOngfollow, Lowell and countless others 

 who, living, have made the city their home, or, dead, 

 sleep in its chambers of Peace, have cast a glamour of 

 books and bookmen and book-life around her until 

 her title of "The Athens of America" has passed from 

 jest to earnest. The earliest newspaper in America 

 was the Boston Nexcs Letter; and to-day its many 

 newspapers maintain the highest standard of ** up-to- 

 date" journalism in the dignified, not the degrading 

 sense of the word. Boston is indeed a "bookworm's 

 paradise," with its splendid free lending library and 



