en who have no better motive and no higher
mission than the stage-clown and the negro-minstrel.

But the career of triflers is always short. Only he who feels that he
has something to do in making the world wiser and better, and who, in a
bold and manly way, tries persistently to do it, is always welcome; and
this fact--an incontrovertible one--is a sufficient vindication of the
popular lecture from all the aspersions that have been cast upon it by
disappointed aspirants for its honors, and shallow observers of its
tendencies and results.

The choice of a subject has already been spoken of as a matter of
importance, and a word should be said touching its manner of treatment.
This introduces a discussion of the kind of lecture which at the present
time is mainly in demand. Many wise and good men have questioned the
character of the popular lecture. In their view, it does not add
sufficiently to the stock of popular knowledge. The results are not
solid and tangible. They would prefer scientific, or historical, or
philosophical discourses. This conviction is so strong with these men,
and the men themselves are so much respected, that the people are
inclined to coincide with them in the matter of theory, while at the
same time they refuse to give their theory practical entertainment. One
reason why scientific and historical lectures are not popular is to be
found in the difficulty of obtaining lecturers who have sufficient
ingenuity and enthusiasm to make such lectures interesting. The number
of men in the United States who can make such lectures attractive to
popular audiences can be counted on the fingers of a single hand. We
have had but one universally popular lecturer on astronomy in twenty
years, and he is now numbered among the precious sacrifices of the war.
There is only one entirely acceptable popular lecturer on the natural
sciences in New England; and what is he among so many?

But this class of lectures has not been widely successful, even under
the most favorable circumstances, and with the very best lecturers; and
it is to be observed, that they grow less successful with the increasing
intelligence of the people. In this fact is to be found an entirely
rational and competent explanation of their failure. The schools have
done so much toward popularizing science, and the circulating-library
has rendered so familiar the prominent facts of history, that men and
women do not go to the lecture to learn, and, as