FIELD MEETING AT BRADFORD. 37 



The President, after brief introductory remarks, pre- 

 sented Robert S. Rantoul of Salem, who called attention to 

 the origin of the Lyceum system. Mr. Rantoul said that 

 it had been claimed that the first Lyceum organization ap- 

 peared in the town of Millbury, near the City of Worcester ; 

 but from his own investigations he was satisfied that the 

 honor of originating the American Lyceum system be- 

 longed to the little town of Methuen in Essex County, and 

 that in this town a Lyceum was established more than two 

 years earlier than anywhere else in this country. Timothy 

 Claxton he thought was the man who originated the sys- 

 tem. In closing his remarks, Mr. Rantoul spoke of the 

 Peabody Academy of Science and of the Essex Institute, 

 which, while both were located in the City of Salem, be- 

 cause they must be located somewhere and no better point 

 offered, were county institutions nevertheless, both in their 

 spirit and in the terms of their charters, and it was the ar- 

 dent wish of the officers of both the Academy and the In- 

 stitute that the people of the county should understand 

 this fact and avail themselves freely of their privileges when 

 in Salem by visiting the rooms of the institutions, their 

 museums and libraries, and regarding both the Peabody 

 Academy of Science and the Essex Institute as not local 

 Salem affairs but as Essex county organizations established 

 solely far the use of the people of the whole county. 



Hon. George Cogswell remarked that Mr. Rantoul had 

 well stated the point which he himself had proposed to 

 make, to wit : that the people of the county should real- 

 ize the fact that the two Institutions before referred to, 

 while located in Salem, the railroad centre of the county, 

 were in fact Essex County societies, and that the residents 

 from the northern part of the county would be always and 

 warmly welcomed at the rooms of the Institute and of the 

 Academy, whenever in Salem. 



