Part 42
But the intellectual character of the lyceum entertainments has been gradually falling. There is seldom a lecture course nowadays that can get support from the general public as in former times. There will always be some one person more famous and universally popular than all the rest. Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain) is such a man. His books are in every home, and his name has been a household word for a generation, wherever the language is English. He could command a greater fee now than ever before in his life, but he says “No.”
Of those who are actively engaged in platform work, the one who to-day (1900-01) has reached the highest point of popularity--and that, too, by a sudden bound--is Ernest Seton-Thompson, the author of “Wild Animals I have Known.”
To be attractions, heroes must make the history they relate. There will never be another Stanley, unless Peary finds the North Pole. I doubt if there will be another George Kennan, who delivered two hundred lectures on two hundred consecutive secular nights, the season after his return from Siberia, and who is about as good a lecturer as we now have. Peary’s adventures have been the most hazardous and the most successful of any of our Arctic explorers. Here is Dr. Cook, the first man to set foot on the Antarctic continent. But his unique success does not create the excitement it merits. Times have so changed that it is impossible to bring this, one of the bravest of our young heroes, into public demand. Of late our people have had so much to read about and to talk about that even heroes are common.
In the palmy days of the lyceum great magazines were of limited circulation. Now their circulations are incalculable. The Sunday newspapers employ a hundred writers where they had one twenty years ago, and the facilities for the manufacture of printing paper have increased in proportion to the writers. The machinery for printing one thousand newspapers an hour was considered wonderful twenty-five years ago. Now a hundred thousand is expected to be printed in the same space of time, and all this paper contains almost everything to be said on the subjects of progress, genius, education, reform, and entertainment that was formerly the function of the lyceum.
Opera houses have taken the places of magnificent halls. The greatest actor has been knighted, thereby compelling recognition of the acted drama as a peer of all other arts; the minister’s family goes to the theatre while he attends his prayer meeting up-town, and then calls for his family on his way home, and sees the last act of the play. The theatre is attractive, and its prices are no higher than the prices of the best lecture, while the public halls receive so little patronage that it does not pay to make them inviting by keeping them in order.
Right here I quote from United States Senator Albert J. Beveridge’s article on public speaking, recently printed in the _Saturday Evening Post_, Philadelphia:
“What nonsense the repeated statement that public speaking has had its day, that the newspaper has taken its place, and all the rest of that kind of talk. Public speaking will never decline until men cease to have ears to hear. How hard it is to read a speech--how delightful to listen. Speaking is nature’s method of instruction. It begins with the mother to child; it continues with teacher to pupil; it continues still in lecturer or professor to his student (for the universities are all going back to the old oral method of instruction); and it still continues in all the forms of effective human communication.
“The newspapers are a marvellous influence, but they are not everything and they do not supply everything. For example, it is commonly supposed that they absolutely and exclusively mould and control public opinion. But they do not. When all has been said, the most powerful public opinion, after all, is that from mouth-to-mouth public opinion--that living, moving opinion which spreads from neighbor to neighbor, and has fused into it the vitality of the personality of nearly every man--yes, and woman, don’t forget that--in the whole community.”
The veteran theatrical manager, Mr. J. H. McVicker, was in my office about twelve years ago, and said to me: “Pond, have you any idea how many travelling operatic and theatrical combinations are on the road?” I replied that I had not, but possibly there might be fifty. “Well,” he said, “there are over eighty!” It surprised me. To-day there are probably fifteen hundred travelling shows going from town to town doing “one-night stands,” though most of them are making little or nothing.
In cities like New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, Holyoke, Lowell, Fitchburg, Salem, Fall River, and all over the country, theatres book time solid with these “combinations” from August to May. It is only through accident to some standard attraction or some disappointment that a big lecturer or concert company can find an open date. The best theatres will not risk losing a week for any good lecturer or concert company, consequently the lyceum attraction must secure a church, rink, armory, or some unfrequented barracks, or stay away. This overdoing of the “show business” has proved poor judgment on the part of local managers, with disastrous results to many of the combinations, and a loss of faith on the part of the public.
The men and women who have long been able to hold the public attention on questions outside such subjects as literature, historical themes, poetry, drama, exploration, adventure, science, or their own writings and personality, have been those who with eloquence and learning, or exceptional capacity and repute of some kind, have devoted themselves to a cause or question which, while it aroused public interest, did not at the time command access to the ordinary channels of discussion by the press partisan or other conventional procedure and methods. In fact, the lyceum and lecture platform, outside of its instruction and entertainment features, has always been more or less a field of propaganda. It illustrates the broadness of the American character that the people are willing to pay largely for the best presentation to them of causes and issues, even isms, which are held only by the minority. Intellectual curiosity, as well as an active sense of mental fairness, has a good deal to do with this fad. It is one that was more apparent thirty years since than it is to-day, yet it is still strong enough to be an important factor on the business side of the lecture management.
There is still a demand for good lecturers, as may be seen from the fact that I am regularly corresponding with some three thousand different persons associated with the management of lectures and platform entertainments, and at least sixty per cent. of them are women. Lecturers who interest people and do not offend the public taste (which I have always found to be very nearly a correct measurement also, apart from the rule of profit) can find constant occupation.
Clergymen are quite naturally among the successful lecturers. Of Americans, Dr. Hillis is now in the lead, Talmage next, and Gunsaulis next--the present triumvirate of American lecture kings. The Rev. Dr. John Watson (“Ian Maclaren”) is the best England has yet produced, and his popularity is still very great; and there are clerygmen of the Church of England that would be as successful as any yet imported if they would only accept the invitation to come. There is no other profession or occupation which has given more brilliant and scholarly minds to this division of the people’s university, the lecture platform, than the ministry.
Going back briefly to the decade preceding the Civil War, in which the early lyceum obtained its largest development, memory recalls most readily, as among formative and directing minds, both in civic and educational influence, the names of such preachers and teachers as Theodore Parker, Thomas Starr King, Henry Ward Beecher, his brother Edward, Edward Everett Hale, John Lord, Robert Collyer, Dr. Chapin, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dr. Vincent, Robert Laird Collier, and Bishop Simpson, among others who are also worthy of remembrance. The war period did not lessen the lyceum’s influence, but it vastly intensified the power of those who had become its leading lecturers and orators.
The church bodies and the associated religious societies which have grown from them have, from the earliest lyceum beginnings, been among its chief mainstays. During the culminating period of the slavery debate, the churches were, as a rule, conservative, and as such did not lend themselves heartily to either side of the great agitation. There were, as all know, many clergymen who did, and who, in so doing, were strong enough to carry their congregations with them. But at that date religious denominations were not lecture and platform builders. They are now. Nor were colleges and educational institutions then, in general, favorable to the secular teacher. Now the reverse is the case. The old star courses have mainly passed away. The dependence of the average and smaller lecture and entertainment courses to-day throughout the land, though largely arranged by individuals, may be found in the churches and colleges, or in the active bodies grouped around them. The Young Men’s Christian Associations, the Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, Women’s Clubs, and Societies of Sons and Daughters of the Revolution, with many literary and educational societies which pastors now so carefully foster, are active centres of support to systematic lecturing and entertainments throughout the United States, and the same is largely true also of Great Britain and Canada. The Australian colonies appear to depend more directly upon individual enterprise for such forms of mental catering as I am considering. One result of this condition is seen in the increased attention to personal character on the platform. The ethical need is marked by the social one. The old and enthusiastic agitating spirit has virtually departed. Instruction and amusement of a worthy character are more sought for. There is one result, however, in later days which is to be regretted, and that is in the very marked decrease of the scale of remuneration among the large number of small lyceum organizations that call for such service.
These two factors, the lessened interest in the discussion of disturbing public questions, and the decreased financial remuneration, have worked notable changes. What has taken the place of the aggressive spirit is a desire for an intelligent, broad, ethical insight on disputed issues. Controversial subjects are not popular. The platform teaching to-day must be imbued with the scientific spirit. Audiences want to know the why and wherefore of things set forth or brought before them. Lecturers are thrown back not only upon their eloquence of advocacy and sincerity of conviction, but upon comprehensive experiences and the thoroughness of knowledge. Lecturers do not succeed as pessimists merely. American audiences, if critical, are optimistic also. The merely grotesque, odd, or unusual, unless related to live interests, does not hold them long. All this is not due to indifference. It comes in reality from knowing more--at least more thoroughly--what they do assume to know.
After the Civil War and the era of strife that political reconstruction produced, there was a period of several years when even the soberest of lecture audiences desired far more to be amused than instructed. Yet live characters and strong brains that had learned, seen, and known the wider forces in the world’s activities, soon began again to have ample recognition. The men who tried to wrest the secrets of Polar seas from the grip of cosmic ice and snow; those who toiled under equatorial suns to win the unknown areas to the service of man; soldiers and sailors who dared all in supreme struggle for their several causes; all who had some genuine theme to offer, so that the minds of their hearers might grow, received an abounding welcome. The men of action are especially in demand. Thus there has grown again, slowly but surely, that new life of the platform that is now beginning to be more clearly seen and felt. Audiences are eager to hear those who tell of the great historical past, as well as of the living present. The platform compels illustration by voice and picture alike. But the mere pictorial lecture is losing popularity. Poets and novelists are drawn from personal retirement as never before. The humorists and wits are at the service of delighted thousands who listen just as they read, with enthusiasm guided by an increasing critical acumen. There is a healthy, gracious, normal loosening, too, of Puritan harness. The lyceum brings wholesome laughter and pleasure to vast audiences throughout the land. It is clean and human; it clears the brain while it cheers the heart. You cannot fit scandal to this platform, but you can make its audiences grow jolly and laugh with wholesome glee. There is no room for innuendo, and there is little of false modesty either.
Nearly a quarter of a century of work in supplying the demands of such bodies as gather about the lyceum and the platform has enabled me to judge clearly of a decided growth of keen intelligence and solid morality. The American lyceum entertainers are more than a popular match for the London music-hall artists or the Parisian chansonists. Excellent music is required, only good singers are the vogue, while those who read or give recitals must be of the best type. More than all do I find a steady growth on the ethical side of things. A man or a woman who, like Mrs. Booth, has a cause to present which appeals to human sympathy is sure of a hearing. But the public demands of even such a lecturer accurate information and wealth of illustration. Only a clear demonstration of the fitness of the appeal, with positive evidence of the due relation of the cause to common needs and daily requirements, will command continued attention. More than all these, there must be a looking forward to growth and upward to the sunlight. Such a speaker must believe as well as know, and must link his cause to the historical past as well as to the evolutionary future. The spirit of our lecture audiences demands inquiry with hope, knowledge with faith. An examination of themes and topics, as well as of names and capacity during my managerial experience, covering, as it does, so long a time, convinces me of the correctness of the cheering vein thus taken.
* * * * *
Concerning the business side of my life, I would like to say that the object of my work has never been simply to make money. If it had been money alone that I sought in my dealings with the talented people whose tours and business I have managed, I would very soon have found myself falling short of my ambition. A manager must be kind and liberal, and as far as he himself is concerned, the money consideration must be kept in the background. I have never desired to make great money. My object has been the approbation of those I served. I can say honestly that that has been the height of my ambition, and is at present as much as ever. That is why I am in love with my business, I suppose. I am thoroughly satisfied with the results, and would not exchange the friends that I have made for the wealth of many of our merchant princes.
INDEX
Abbott, “Honest Little Emma,” 166; her success, 168
Abbott, Rev. Lyman, when I first met him--his love for Mr. Beecher--Mr. Beecher’s appreciation of his friend--his wonderful resources as a preacher, writer, lecturer, editor, and business manager, 77-83; surprised religious world, 83, 84, 411, 412
Adams, Major, 49
Aide, Hamilton, 275
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 183
Allen, James Lane, 482, 508, 522
Allon, Rev. Dr. Henry, 65, 67, 116
Anderson, Finley, meets Stanley on _Teutonic_, 275
Anderson, Major Thomas, 47
Anthony, Susan B., 144-146, 539, 540
Arnold, Brother of Sir Edwin, 127
Arnold, Lady, 378
Arnold, Matthew, 116, 323-325, 487, 497
Arnold, Mrs., 378
Arnold, Sir Edwin, 375-404; where educated, 375; editor London _Telegraph_, 375; Lotos Club speech, 385; last appearance in America, 398; visited him in London, 401; last letters from him, 402-409, 497; visits Walt Whitman, 498
Austen, Colonel, Brooklyn 13th, 58
Austin, George Lowell, on Phillips, 8
Bailey, Banks, and Biddell, 57
Balch, Reporter, 277
Barnaby, Frederick, War Correspondent, 291
Barnum, P. T., xxiv, 92, 94, 96; as a lecturer, 350-354
Barr, Robert, 477, 481
Barry, Flora, 547
Barton, Clara, 141
Baxter, Rev. Dr., of London, 106, 107, 108
Beecher, Col. H. B., 313; and family, 73
Beecher, Dr. Lyman, 39
Beecher, Henry Ward, Plymouth pulpit, 1; on Depew, 17, 19; Major Pond’s tribute to, 37-75; when he came to Plymouth Church, 38; doctrine of forgiveness, 38; earliest recollection of the man, 39; first lecture for me, 39; in Nashville and Memphis, 40-42; speech in Plymouth prayer meeting on the first visit South, 42-44; last photograph taken of him, 41; in Richmond, his first lecture South of Mason and Dixon’s line, 41; his triumph in Richmond, 44-47; in Davenport, Iowa--meeting former Brooklyn friends on the cars--collecting of hairs on his overcoat collar, 47-49; in Topeka, Kans., meets former old servants, 48-50; baptizes baby in Butte, Mont., 52; in Bloomington, Ill., 54; red-hot poker, 55; marries C. P. Huntington, 65, 66; Chaplain Brooklyn 13th Regiment, 58-60; his Peekskill home and farm dairy, 61-62; in England, 1863, 63-65; last visit England, 1886, 64; Friday evening meeting night before sailing, 64; in Liverpool--hear Gladstone, 65; first lecture in England, 65; first sermon in London, 67; addresses theological students in London, 68; closes English tour in Dublin, 70-72; arrives home from England, 72; last days and death--entries in my diary, 72-74; Dr. Abbott’s relations with him, 77-82, 84, 85, 86; comparison with Parker, 87-112, 115; first sermon in London, July 4, 116; charged with preaching the Gospel for money, 116, 117, 153, 168, 210; advised me to get Stanley, 257; 306, 357, 358, 366, 406, 427, 490, 492-494, 539, 544, 551; dead, 74
Beecher, Mrs. Henry Ward, 55, 211, 313
Beecher, Rev. Dr. Edward, 551
Beecher, William C., 314
Bell, Alexander Graham, invents telephone, 466
Bellows, Henry W., 155
Benefit experience, 527
Berry, Rev. Charles, 79
Billings, Josh, his lecture, 185-187, 226
Black, Alexander, guilty of a new invention, 512
Blaine, Speaker James G., xxii, 21
Bonner, Robert Edwin, 384
Booth, Edwin, 309
Booth, Maud Ballington, 177
Boutwell, L. J., 164
Boutwell, Secretary of Treasury, 190
Bowers, Arthur F., 384
Bradley, Dean of Westminster, 67
Briggs, R. R., 202
Bright, John, on Beecher as an orator, 38
Brignoli, the great tenor, 544
Brooks, Arthur, 123, 126
Brooks, Phillips, 137
Brown, Col. Gratz, 190
Brown, George McL., 223
Brown, John, xx, 39, 535, 537, 538
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, 269
Buffington, Colonel, 425
Bull, Mrs. Ole, 555, 556
Bull, Ole, the violinist, 455, 456
Bunner, H. C., 382
Burt, Lieutenant-Colonel, 215
Byers, Major, 334
Cable, George W., 337, 340, 427, 486; first appearance in Brooklyn, 491; how I met him, 490, 527, 528; visits Beecher’s church and hears him preach for the first time, 493; letters on Beecher’s death, 494; suggestions as to platform, 496
Caine, Hall, remarkable personality, 452; his reading tour, 454; lunch with Zangwill, 471
Cameron, J. A., 291
Cameron, John, 415
Campbell, Isaac, 415
Carleton, Henry Guy, 387
Carlyle, Thomas, 368
Carnegie, Andrew, 396-398, 428
Carpenter & Sheldon’s star course, 315
Carpenter, Bishop Boyd, of Ripon, 14, 130
Cary, Anna Louise, 143, 551
Cary, William, 485
Casati, with Emin in Africa, 279
Chapin, Rev. Dr., 539, 551
Charles, W. G., 218
Chase, W. G., 224
Childs, George W., 384, 389
Christie, Gerald, 170, 174
Churchill, Professor, of Andover, 539
Chute, G. Y.,
Clark, James Edward, _Christian World_, 116
Clarke, James Freeman, 147, 148
Clay, Henry, 13
Clemens, Miss Clara, 200, 207, 208, 214
Clemens, Mrs., 206, 213, 218, 219, 224
Clemens, S. L. (Mark Twain), 197; a genius, 197; how a lecture manager swindled him, 197; General Grant and Mark great friends, 197; a printer, 198; Mark Twain becomes a lecturer, 198; starts on tour around the world to pay his debts, 200; diary of the tour across the continent, 200-220; great crowd in Cleveland, 200; on steamer, 199; in Mackinac, 203; Petosky, 204; in Duluth, 205; Minneapolis, 206; St. Paul to Winnipeg, 206, 207; Crookston, 207; Great Falls, 209; Butte, 210; Anaconda, 210; Helena, where old friend comes to settle old score, 212; arrested at Fort Missoula, 213; Spokane receivers everywhere, 215, 216; Seattle, the “Flyer” to Tacoma, 217; Portland and Olympia, 215, 216; Tacoma Press Club, 219; arrival in Vancouver--Mark ill, 221-223; sails from Victoria, 224, 225; as a letter writer, 226, 228, 229, 333, 427, 523, 547; introduces Nye and Riley in Boston, 247, 248; entertains Stanley and introduces him, 257
Cleveland, President Grover, 33, 431
Clifford, Rev. Dr., Westborn Park Chapel, 116
Cluff, David, of Provo, Utah, xxiii
Cockerell, Col. John, 527, 528
Cockran, W. Bourke, 506, 542
Colby, George W., 544
Cole, Dr. C. K., 213
Collis, Gen. H. C., 384
Collyer, Rev. Dr. Robert, 551
Conly, George, 544
Cook, Dr. Frederick A., Antarctic explorer, 293, 294
Cooper, J. Fenimore, 125
Corwin, Thomas, 166
Craigie, Mrs. (“John Oliver Hobbes”), 127
Crawford, F. Marion, xxiv, 148; a man I love very much, 455; how he travels and works, 455, 456; his lecture tour, 457-459; Dr. Abbott on his lecture, 457; reception and lectures in Utah, 458; in an earthquake, 460, 461; letters to me from Italy, 485-489
Crickson, Rev. Dr., 434
Curtis, George William, 341, 381, 384, 390, 539
Cushman, Charlotte, 141, 309; her career, 315-318, 539
Daly, Augustin, 309
Dana, Charles A., 279, 345
Dana, Paul, 384
Daniels, George H., of New York Central Railroad, 355, 356
Davis, J. Clark, 389
Davis, Jefferson, 538
Dawson, Rev. George, 118
De Freece, A. B., 389
Depew, Hon. Chauncey M., 17, 390, 394, 412, 542; as an orator, 19, 21; lecture before Twentieth Century Club in reply to John Fiske, 22; introduced Matthew Arnold, 323
Dewey, Admiral, Stanley refers to, 287
Dickens, Charles, 123, 124
Dickens, Charles, Jr., 207
Dickinson, Anna E., xxii, 152, 540, 544
Dix, Rev. Morgan, rector Trinity Church, 123-126
Dodd, Frank H., 411
Donald, Rev. Dr., 137
Douglass, Frederick, 8; tribute, 29, 30; 143, 539
Doyle, Dr. A. Conan, came to America, 503; described, 503-505; dined and speech at Lotos Club, 504; in Boston, 507; letter to _The Critic_, 508; letter to Major Pond, 509
Drummond, Dr. William Henry, author of “De Habitant,” 519, 520
Eccentricities of Genius, 1
Eggleston, Edward, 508, 528, 529
Elderkin, John, 411
Eliot, President of Harvard College, 391
Ellingwood, T. J., stenographer, 491
Ellsworth, W. W., sketch of, 474; as a lecturer, 474, 475
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 330, 539; last lecture, 331, 386
Everett, Edward (mention), 329, 539
Explorers, travellers, and war correspondents, 262
Fall, George L., 33, 542
Farrar, Canon, 116, 120
Field, Mrs. James T., 434
Finley, John, President Knox College, 425
Finney, Charles G., Jr., xx
Finney, F. N., 420
Finney, President Charles G., of Oberlin College, 39, 420
Fisher, Professor, 410
Fiske, John, 19, 20
Florence, W. J., 309, 383, 394
Foss, Sam Walter, poem on Walt Whitman, 500
Foster, George F., 485
Foster, M., 160
Fox, John, Jr., 482, 522; tribute, 523, 524