ated "The Lecture System" has been confidently
predicted by those who, granting them the wisdom which they assume,
should have been so well acquainted with its nature and its adaptation
to a permanent popular want as to see that it must live and thrive until
something more practicable can be contrived to take its place. If
anything more interesting, cheaper, simpler, or more portable can be
found than a vigorous man, with a pleasant manner, good voice, and
something to say, then the popular lecture will certainly be superseded;
but the man who will invent this substitute is at present engaged on a
new order of architecture and the problem of perpetual motion, with such
prospect of full employment for the present as will give "the lecture
system" sufficient time to die gracefully. An institution which can
maintain its foothold in the popular regard throughout such a war as has
challenged the interest and taxed the energies of this nation during the
last three years is one which will not easily die; and the history of
the popular lecture proves, that, wherever it has been once established,
it retains its place through all changes of social material and all
phases of political and religious influence. Circumstances there may be
which will bring intermissions in its yearly operations; but no instance
can be found of its permanent relinquishment by a community which has
once enjoyed its privileges, and acquired a taste for the food and
inspiration which it furnishes.

An exposition of the character of the popular lecture, the machinery by
which it is supported, and the results which it aims at and
accomplishes, cannot be without interest to thoughtful readers.

What is the popular lecture in America? It will not help us in this
inquest to refer to a dictionary; for it is not necessary that the
performance which Americans call a lecture should be an instructive
discourse at all. A lecture before the Young Men's Associations and
lecture organizations of the country is any characteristic utterance of
any man who speaks in their employment. The word "lecture" covers
generally generically all the orations, declamations, dissertations,
exhortations, recitations, humorous extravaganzas, narratives of travel,
harangues, sermons, semi-sermons, demi-semi-sermons, and lectures
proper, which can be crowded into what is called "a course," but which
might be more properly called a bundle, the bundle depending for its
size upon the depth