The Lecture Season

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THE LECTURE SEASON.

Of 1856-7 has hitherto been exceedingly unproductive, at all events in Williamsburg and Brooklyn. The weather, though generally unfavorable, has not been more so than it was last winter; the lecturers have in general been at least as talented, their themes equally interesting, their reputation as high, and their performances almost as creditable; yet neither have the lecturers of '56-7 been gratified by the presence of as large audiences, nor have the Committees been gladdened with so large receipts into the treasuries, as during last winter.

Two causes appear to have been at work which in conjunction have brought about this result. The more obvious and plausible way of accounting for it is to assume that after dwelling on the more exciting topics of the Presidential campaign it is difficult for the public mind to tone itself down so as to enjoy less stimulating food.¹ This cause has doubtless contributed in no small degree to lessen the interest which might otherwise have been felt in the lectures of the season; but that a still graver, because more permanent, cause of the growing comparative unpopularity of lectures exists, we think there can be no room to doubt.

The cause to which we refer is, not that our lecturers generally are deficient in oratorical power or enlarged information, but that the class of subjects they select, and still more the mode in which they treat them, is altogether inappropriate. For instance, one gentleman selects a historical subject, and instead of making a brief narrative the text for thoughtful reflections presents his audience with nothing but narrative, which, by the way has already been given them, in a form in every sense preferable, in the pages of the historian, from which the lecturer borrowed everything but his mere verbiage. Such a lecturer—and we could name more than one of them among the notabilities of the lecture desk—is not likely to entrap a sensible man into listening to him more than once. Such a lecturer is a mere plagiarist, a literary thief, and bad at that, for he makes no good use of that which he has stolen.

Then again we have the would-be witty lecturer, of all public speakers the most contemptible. This class will waste a page in the attempt to string into their effusions an effete pun, or a sickly joke—they cannot mention woman without a sneer at the size and cost of hoops—nor allude to the holiest of family relations without lugging in an allusion to Mrs. Caudle.²

The third and most numerous class of lecturers whom it has been our fortune to hear, are men who have a gift—for it surely cannot be an art—of elaborately amplifying nothing into an indescribable, unintelligible entity, and talking grandiloquently for half an hour about it. These people read, without let, hindrance, or intermission—without even stopping to cough or sneeze—for half an hour or more; they pour out all the while a continuous and mellifluent stream of words, ceaseless and unvaried as the earth's revolution upon its axis. The stream passes monotonously and swiftly through the head, in at one ear and out at the other, without presenting a single definite idea that the brain can receive—and the audience depart without having imbibed a particle of real information or of valuable reflection. They go away fatigued by their arduous but futile efforts to comprehend the drift of the lecturer's discourse; and if they at all value their time, will not again consume any portion of it in listening to another such strain of voluble small talk.

But there is—fortunately both for the public and the lecturer tribe—a fourth class, though a far less numerous one than it should be, who conscientiously labor to give their audiences the worth of the money they have paid for admission. These select a tangible, living subject—something that the public at large feel a veritable, bona fide interest in. And having selected such a subject, they do not "cram" from popular treaties, merely to rehash without digesting the information they may have gleaned; but bring a vigorous practical understanding to bear on the subject, so as to prevent it in its most lucid form, accompanied by the most useful deductions and suggestions which occur to them in the course of their meditations.

The last class of lecturers is not only small, but we fear decreasing—for the large proportion of bad lecturers as compared with the good, has so far loosened the hold of lectures on the public mind that few now go to an ordinary lecture except as a matter of habit—because it is delivered in the church they are accustomed to attend, because the lecturer is a personal friend, or because some intimate acquaintance is on the committee. To people who attend from such motives, it is a matter of comparative indifference whether they hear a good lecture or a bad one—consequently a shallow-pated empirie is able to pass off a tissue of superficialities as teh sterling coin of mental effort; and the man of modesty and merit retires from a field in which he can obtain no credit by surpassing such ignoble competitor.

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