Josiah Holbrook:— Diology, and in the Practical Application of FATHER of the This Knowledge to Human Progress

16 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. 12, No. 1 matter. Since this discovery, great ad- vance has been made in the science of ra- josiah holbrook:— diology, and in the practical application of FATHER OF THE this knowledge to human progress. In bi- LYCEUM ology we are using this information to in- THE Lyceum is my pulpit," said vestigate problems of heredity, for in radi- Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1836 when um and X-rays we have powerful weapons asked to accept the pastorate of a with which we can actually alter the struc- leading Boston church. He referred to a ture of chromosomes and so change the ex- system of lecturing before all sorts of audi- pected nature of offspring. The fact that ences in all sorts of places that has in recent these rays, if intensely used, will kill, has years become known as the American Lec- made them useful in treatment of cancer. ture System. Recently Milliken has discovered what he The Lyceum was the invention of Josiah terms "cosmic rays." These are believed to Holbrook of Derby, Connecticut, who come to us from outer space. They have a spread his idea for "associations of adults far greater penetrative power than any rays for the purpose of self education" in Oc- thus far discovered. We are constantly ex- tober 1826 issue of the American Journal of posed to their action, but as yet we have no Education. Holbrook was a graduate of idea of their action on living substance. Yale College, class of 1810, who in 1819 One of the problems awaiting biologists is had started a school on his farm near Derby to determine this. It has been suggested for boys, the first school in America where that the phenomena of degeneration accom- a popularized form of the natural sciences panying old age, may in some way be as- was taught, and where manual labor was sociated with the lifelong bombardment to combined with education. Poor boys were which we are subjected by cosmic rays. Be allowed to pay a part of their tuition by that as it may, it is "another story," not to laboring on the farm. be solved save through much labor. But Holbrook himself was so interested Believing that it is sometimes well for us in the study of geology that he soon forsook as teachers to pause and meditate, mayhap his school and began to study his favorite to dream in an orderly scientific manner, I subject by tramping over most of New Eng- have suggested a few of the fundamental land, studying the rock formations and lec- laws of biology with their bearing on human turing to whatever audiences would assem- life, both those whose operation, though in- ble in the Town Halls in the villages and definite, are yet deep in significance, and hamlets through which he passed. He was those whose understanding appears, be- immediately impressed by the hunger for cause pertaining directly to our bodies, to information exhibited by nearly every man be more immediately necessary. If this and woman that attended his lectures. In- presentation in any way helps its readers to tellectual hunger peered from their eyes understand, or stimulates them to look fur- night after night, and it bothered him to ther for biological help in living, it will have such an extent that he began to wonder if done its work. something could be done about it. A typical Ruth L. Phillips Yankee was this man Holbrook—and a born educator, too. A plan took form and finally found its In Nature there's no blemish but the way on paper, but that didn't help much. mind; none can be called deformed but the It only served to crystalize the plan more unkind. Virtue is beauty.—Shakespeare. fully in Holbrook's own mind. He finally 17 January, 1931] THE VIRGINIA TEACHER decided that the way to start a movement is Holbrook in November, 1826, could rightly to start it. After lecturing on geology in lay claim to being a genuinely national the little Town Hall at Middlebury, Mass., movement for adult self education. Holbrook's Plan he outlined his plan to the forty farmers and mechanics that composed his audience, But what did these Lyceums do? Hol- and asked them if they wished to do any- brook's plan was most comprehensive. It thing about it. Enthusiastically and unani- provided for the formation of an associa- mously they responded, and the organiza- tion of adults in every town, city, village, tion formed that November night in 1826 or community, which would be called a was called "Middlebury Branch Number "Lyceum." He obtained the name from One of the American Lyceum." the Greek Lyceum, originally a grove near After the Middlebury experience, Hol- Athens with tree-shaded walks consecrated brook formed a town Lyceum in every vil- to the Lycian Apollo, whose surname was lage he visited, but soon realized that he Lykios, "the wolf-slayer." Here, Aristotle needed help if this movement was to be- daily wandered up and down, teaching phi- come the influence that he had hoped for it. losophy, slaying the wolves of ignorance. Boston was then the intellectual and cul- Holbrook hoped to do the same thing with tural capital of the country, and Holbrook his Lyceums. They were to be organized laid siege to it. In November, 1830, as the in towns, in counties, in states, in nation— result of his work, the Boston Lyceum was and then there was to be an International formed with Daniel Webster, then at the Lyceum, of which Chancellor Brougham, of very pinnacle of his fame and power, as its England, was to be the president, with fifty- president. The Lyceum was now news; it two vice-presidents, one for each nation a had been approved by cultured Boston; it sort of League of Nations Lyceum! was now quite the thing to belong to a Ly- From 1826 to 1845, more than three ceum. Important people in every com- thousand town Lyceums were organized munity now were willing to sponsor the from Maine to Florida and as far west as new movement. And it grew by leaps and Illinois. bounds. Massachusetts, dissatisfied with And what were these organizations to the slow progress of the movement, formed do? It was so simple that at first the plan a State Lyceum Board whose duty it was to seemed unimportant to many people. The speed up the formation of Town and Coun- people of every community were to assem- ty Lyceums in order that the state might ble in the Town Hall or other place of as- have the honor of forming the first State semblage once a week and those who could, Lyceum. But New York State beat Mas- because of superior knowledge, should im- sachusetts by six weeks, and Florida quick- part their superior knowledge to their fel- ly followed with the third state organiza- low-townsmen. Debates became frequent. tion. If a member of a community took a trip to The New York State Lyceum Associa- Boston or to New York, and especially if tion immediately issued a call for a Na- it were a trip to Europe, he was expected to tional Lyceum Convention. It met in the benefit his townspeople as well as he could Court Room of the City Hall Building, by telling about it. There were readings of New York City, on May 4, 1831, with dele- essays, books, poems, discussions of town gates representing more than one thousand problems, national politics, in fact, almost town Lyceums. And with the holding of everything was grist for their intellectual this national convention amidst great en- mills. thusiasm, the movement started by Josiah And then the people grew tired of hear- 18 THE VIRGINIA TEACHER [Vol. 12, No. 1 ing only the home voices. At first the im- than a score of equally famous men. ported speakers weren't imported from very Among the women of that early day who far away; they were men (and later, after spoke to large audiences were Lucy Stone, Lucy Stone and others had broken the ice, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Anna Dickinson, women spoke too) from nearby towns who Julia Ward Howe. had made reputations for themselves as in- Where Is Holbrook's Lyceum Now! teresting speakers. These Lyceums afford- It isn't possible to trace the development ed excellent training quarters for would-be of this movement to the present within the orators and lecturers. Soon a few men had bounds of this short article. To do so achieved fame as lecturers and they became would require the writing of a fairly large so in demand that they were compelled to book. Hundreds of the most famous men ask a fee. and women of the past one hundred years Ralph Waldo Emerson became the first have taken part in the development of the outstanding lecturer, and all his essays after movement—a movement that has spread in- the .thin volume (Nature), were written to the smallest towns and that permeates all for lecturing purposes and delivered many of our largest cities. times before they were put between the cov- The many series of lectures of an infor- ers of a book. He gave solidity and intel- mational character that are offered in every lectual strength to this movement. But he community are all offspring of this move- did not long hold the platform alone. ment, no matter by what name they are Henry D. Thoreau, a fellow Concordite, called. The more than two hundred lec- began lecturing in the late thirties.

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