of the managerial purse. Ten or twelve lectures are
the usual number, although in some of the larger cities, beginning early
in "the lecture season," and ending late, the number given may reach
twenty.

The machinery for the management and support of these lectures is as
simple as possible, the lecturers themselves having nothing to do with
it. There are library associations or lyceum associations, composed
principally of young men, in all the cities and large villages, which
institute and manage courses of lectures every winter, for the double
purpose of interesting and instructing the public and replenishing their
treasury. The latter object, it must be confessed, occupies the
principal place, although, as it depends for its attainment on the
success of the former, the public is as well served as if its
entertainment were alone consulted. In the smaller towns there are
usually temporary associations, organized for the simple purpose of
obtaining lecturers and managing the business incident to a course. Not
unfrequently, ten, twenty, or thirty men pledge themselves to make up
any deficiency there may be in the funds required for the season's
entertainments, and place the management in the hands of a committee.
Sometimes two or three persons call themselves a lecture-committee, and
employ lecturers, themselves risking the possible loss, and dividing
among themselves any profits which their course may produce. The
opposition or independent courses in the larger cities are often
instituted by such organizations,--sometimes, indeed, by a single
person, who has a natural turn for this sort of enterprise. The
invitations to lecturers are usually sent out months in advance, though
very few courses are definitely provided for and arranged before the
first of November. The fees of lecturers range from fifty to a hundred
dollars. A few uniformly command the latter sum, and lecture-committees
find it for their interest to employ them. It is to be presumed that the
universal rise of prices will change these figures somewhat.

The popular lecture is the most purely democratic of all our democratic
institutions. The people hear a second time only those who interest
them. If a lecturer cannot engage the interest of his audience, his fame
or greatness or learning will pass for nothing. A lecture-audience will
forgive extravagance, but never dulness. They will give a man one chance
to interest them, and if he fails, that is the last o