JOHN AMORY LOWELL. 423 



" record of his own intellectual breadth and scope, as well as 

 of his large administrative capacity." We all know with what 

 good judgment, with what liberality, and with what success 

 this peculiar trust has been administered, and how on the one 

 hand a series of most distinguished men have been attracted 

 into its service, while on the other the efforts of younger men 

 have been stimulated and rewarded at the period when such 

 encouragement was most important to them. Suffice it to 

 mention the names of Lyell and Agassiz, — the former early 

 and also a second time brought from England for courses of 

 lectures at the Lowell Institute, the latter a permanent acqui- 

 sition to us and to our country. Through Mr. Lowell's 

 discernment, moreover, the first encouragement to devote his 

 life to scientific pursuits was afforded to Jeffries Wyman, by 

 the offer of the curatorship of the Institute as well as of a 

 lectureship. The intellectual and the financial interests of 

 this trust have equally prospered in Mr. Lowell's hands ; for 

 while the number of lecture-courses has been doubled, and 

 various subsidiary lines of instruction have been developed, 

 the principal of the fund has been increased to thrice its 

 original amount. 



Mr. Lowell's fondness for botany developed shortly after he 

 left college, and was incited by the botanical intercourse be- 

 tween his father and the late Dr. Francis Boott, with whom 

 he maintained a lifelong friendship. But it was only in about 

 the year 1844 or 1845 that he began the formation of an 

 herbarium and botanical library ; and this was actively prose- 

 cuted for several years, in evident expectation of comparative 

 leisure which he could devote to scientific studies. He sub- 

 scribed liberally to the botanical explorations in our newly- 

 acquired or newly-opened western territories ; and when in 

 Europe, in 1850 and 1851, he added largely to his store of 

 rare and costly botanical books. But just when he was ready 

 to use the choice materials and appliances which had been 

 brought together, the financial crisis of 1857 remanded him to 

 business. The grave duties and responsibilities which he re- 

 sumed he carried tap nearly to the age of fourscore — carried 

 as it were with the vigor of early manhood and the cheerful 



