The particular thing taught in the early school, as I recall it, was to make a bow. When a boy was about to speak a piece he made his manners and at the conclusion of his address he again caused his head to descend and made a quick nervous stoop. Declamation was made of three parts, two of which were the introductory bow and the concluding one. If the bow was grotesque, the speaker was recalled, not only to bow, but to do it gracefully. It is nothing to the credit of those scholars that in later life they sometimes forgot to perform the gracious act, which this master sacrificed other items to teach. The schedule, day by day, was a mere overture to the main performance which came at the end of the term which was the exhibition. This came "the last day." As the libraries were small the pupils searched high and low to find a "piece." This was a new task to those who had been simple answer-hunters. In arithmetic they were informed in advance what result they must attain and to reach it was to do their sums. But now there is involved also the human equation.

Dolling Up

When they came "to speak in public on the stage," they were noisily dressed. They would have looked better and felt better in customary apparel, but they were ill at ease and this helped to mark a red-letter day.

The whole town was moved. The scholars were full of excitement over the glory of the occasion. The country side was deserted. The farmers with all the members of their families appeared in town. There was no room to stable the horses and so they were covered with many other articles besides blankets, there being no uniformity to their uniform. They were tied for the very long evening in the lee of some stack or shed. The boy who spoke the last piece excited great admiration, particularly, in the minds of his proud father and of his adoring mother.

Interest in these things so then developed that Mr. Caldwell had to compose dialogues of a spicy picturesque character for our public use. He incited his scholars to enter into the spirit of their single pieces and dialogues and his exhibitions surprised and delighted the audiences so admirable became the performance of children and youth. Fine declamation was to him what painting is to an artist, or melody to the musician, it was a passion, and nerved him for effort. Scholars still live all about who can "witness if I lie." The stage afterward must have claimed many of those actors for they showed unquestioned genius for the art of theatrical representation. The conditions were primitive, but for the platform we must have curtains, so when the eventful moment came, sheets and table-cloths instead were pulled aside, these being the only curtains that were available and we had to live with what we had. The "stage properties" were hastily gathered from the homes of participants.

Fitted for a Day Sure to Come

As the parents attended these exhibitions, the contagion caught them and then followed the lyceum. It swept the town, it was the most popular thing ever. I distinctly remember the evening when they discussed Neal Dow's Maine liquor law, my father participating. One of our neighbors carried the honor of out-talking the whole field. Let his thoughts slide into the familiar current and they flowed on easily and indefinitely. For debate they caught at Bulwer's dramatic sentence, The pen is mightier than the sword, and they argued the pros and cons without getting a verdict, leaving thus to Germany and the Allies to bring the time honored discussion to an end with a demonstration that no one will ever be able effectively to question. To these meetings each man brought a candle but no candle-stick. From the lighted end, he would drop a little tallow on the desk, and thus set up the candle, that it would give light to all that were in the house. What a sight greeted us the next morning.

Friction matches, which according to Faraday, were the most useful invention of the age were not then sold, loose in boxes, but were made in cards, each match being detached only a part of its length from the others which stood with it in a thin layer of wood. The word, Lyceum, marks an era in the United States. It means a great school of debate, a college that grants no degrees. It gives me a sadness that is not akin to pain, to hear a young person designate a building as Lyceum Hall, using the word as if it were Grampian Hall or Hamilton Hall, having no glorious, clear conception of what the name of the hall signified to the early community. Tradesmen, farmers, professional men, themselves readers and thinkers, above all restless and eager disputants would meet night after night to discuss the unselfish problems of life. At first they were not allowed to speak upon irritable subjects. They tried to escape both the Scylla and the Charybdis of religious and political contentions, but in early days narrow was the way. Some sanguine souls sought to build a suspension bridge over the foaming waters of controversy and to find a way of union for the bitter strife and dissension that only cases of conscience can supply. This little community-university was co-educational. The women too were welcomed, not only to the meeting where their presence was a stimulus to the debaters, but to participation in the conduct of the lyceum paper, which, read by one of the sterner sex, often contained contributions by the women. In it were witty conundrums, based on local names and conditions, pointed suggestions, humorous hits at the hardships they were at the moment experiencing, which enabled the people to laugh at their own privations. Deep feeling and marked literary ability were often shown in the contributions to this unprinted paper. It was for just such pages as these that the first poems of Lucy Larcom were produced, and she says that if she had learned anything by living it was that education may proceed "not through book learning alone, sometimes entirely without it."

Flights of Oratory

The outstanding feature of the lyceum was the report of the critic. He must be a bright glad witty man without a shade of vulgarity, a perfect master of all those nice little arts which give zest to conversation and a quaint coloring and a good deal of it, to his thoughts. I have a pleasant record of him. His chief theme was always, The Ladies. No one of them could do anything poorly enough to get anything but a warm encomium. If the debaters did well it was because the ladies by their presence gave just such cheer as bands of music contributed to Napoleon's army, when getting their heavy cannon over St. Bernard Pass. This critic never had the affrontery to lecture the participants. "Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?" Mathew Arnold came over here to lecture us, from the know-it-all point of view, and began his work without any specific preparation for any evening, discussing no sympathetic theme, and the people declined to hear. The great benefit of the lyceum, to say the least of it, was that the whole conduct of it rested solidly on the men who blended in it and habitually attended it. It came right up out of the intellectual force, the convictions, the good neighborhood feeling and intelligence of the community. These debates developed leaders in the various departments of mental effort. It sent debaters straight into the State legislature. It was like running a magnet over a dust heap, in that it revealed metal, and drew it out, and this was what people were looking for. Any one who looks over the surface of our towns finds many minds, endowed by nature with brilliant faculties and framed by their Creator for great usefulness and honor, waiting to have their energies awakened and invigorated.

Choosing the Front Subject

The thing that made the lyceum was in the air. What is discussed now in the papers was then a theme for argument, evenings, in the stores and taverns. Our word caucus, is derived from the Caulkers, ship-builders, hardy, upright efficient men who gave tone and character to the meeting that they with others held, to discuss politics and the other live issues of the day. To increase the number of parts taken, certain grave, slow men, not likely to share in the discussions, noted chiefly for their moderation and caution, were named in advance as judges, and their decision was to be based first, on the weight of argument, and then on the merits of the question. To keep up the excitement, the decision was sometimes appealed to the house. If I close my eyes and open the chambers of memory I distinctly see the young men, with many signs of diffidence rising timidly to participate in the proceedings. At the earlier meeting, two persons had been appointed to maintain the affirmative and two other members were requested to maintain the negative. The free-for-all fray was let loose with the old time question, Does any one desire to debate that question? Sometimes we had "rough house" which was always followed at the next meeting of the lyceum by a capacity audience. As Samson found the honey, so these lyceums discovered talent where it would be looked for least. Men came to look for good in each other under these conditions, and that helped some. And there is a partial explanation of the fact that so many men, who became prominent in early politics, were from small towns. Great opportunity was given for discovering and developing latent literary and oratorical talent and for invigorating and confirming every germ of reform and political aspiration. Leaders were discovered in the various departments of investigation and of influence. It must be kept in mind that the communities were to an exceptional degree homogeneous and over-whelmingly American.

Educating Themselves

I never look upon the panorama of the past where vivid life forms have lost little of their original distinctness without thinking of the village oracles who exercised their eloquence in these local, free schools of debate. They gave a permanent bias and coloring to the genius and taste and style, in all their subsequent years, to men distinguished for their talents, whom the lyceums discovered and trained, who shone splendidly in after life. To find the place of the lyceum in the evolution of the debaters, we will eliminate genius. To draw a rude likeness was once genius. In mechanics genius ceased to be recognized as soon as labor could equal the result, once attributed to nature's gift, acting unaided. Whittier tells us that when he began life verse-making was a monopoly. Good citizenship is not a gift or an inheritance any more than is good soldiering. Courage alone does not make the soldier nor honesty alone the citizen. Training is essential to both. In the recent constitutional convention held in Massachusetts those who worked like Trojans, looked forward with apprehension, to the oratorical assaults, that would be made upon their results. They recognized the disproportionate advantage, but a real advantage never-the-less, of oratory, and this was not over-looked but acknowledged. For a fact, some excellent ideas went begging for the support of those who had talents and training for speaking exceptionally well. One who surpasses the ordinary standards, but a little, takes a position quite in advance of his fellows. Superiority on the race course is a matter of seconds and half-seconds. The honor bestowed by us on excellence in public address is greater than that attributed to men in literature or the professions, in business, or invention. The difference becomes so plain and is so conspicuous that it gains attention. The ablest speaker arouses the sympathies and gains the result. Where a cause is to be presented I have heard this formula. A poor cause, a good speaker. A good cause, any speaker. All of us have been present when a fine speaker having what may be called the wit of speech where a laugh was loaded with a principle where the address was clear, sparkling, above all things witty, wit being the rarest of qualities and surest of appreciation, the audience worked up by the rough and ready eloquence of a popular orator, reaching indeed an extraordinary pitch of excitement, has swept everything with the weaker side of the case. No accomplishment gains consideration for its possessor and his cause so speedily as public speaking. When billions were being raised in Liberty Loans, during the German war, the telling factor was the four-minute speakers that came out of the Phillips debating societies in the various communities, and these speakers having come to the front show some disposition to remain there.

A New Impetus

Here is brought to light the reason, that those northern states in which these elementary schools of patriotism and freedom have existed, cling so tenaciously, for local government, to the old town meeting. In this country where the motive power is public opinion, the ability to help in forming it is greatly to be coveted. The power of the lyceum would be instantly admitted, if we could use it for a moment as a negative quantity, and show how completely unfitted for public work many of our strongest factors would have been, had these little schools of oratory never opened their doors. I share in the well expressed opinion that there are four kinds of human activity for which a man must have a natural preparation, music, the sculptor's art, the painter's art, these three, and the highest forms of oratory. For these, most successful men must have aptitude. But to a person with the gift of utterance, occasion must say, Oratory, come forth! Money does not talk. Culture not wealth is the mark of distinction. Take a man whose father was poor and also the descendant of poor men with all their ideas of life associated with conditions of extreme poverty. The atmosphere and practices were such that Henry Wilson besought the legislature to change his name from Jeremiah Jones Colbaith to that one that he made famous as United States senator and as vice-president being elected on the ticket with Grant. He had known what it was to ask his mother for bread when she had none to give. Before he was twenty-one he had never had but two dollars and had never spent more than one dollar. At the end of an eleven years' apprenticeship to a farmer, he received a yoke of oxen and six sheep which he sold for eighty-four dollars. During these eleven years he never had more than twelve months schooling. The turning point in his life was the lyceum which he attended, following the lines of argument, but lacking courage to share in the debate. But one evening when the discussion was thrown open to the audience he engaged in it to the delight of his friends. His pastor called upon him and expressed his gratification and the lyceum increased in popularity as a place to hear him. His pastor urged him to seek an education. The lyceum had awakened his dormant powers. His special forte, his biographer says, was extemporaneous speaking and debate. In meetings held once or twice a week he acquired the drill he needed for coming conflicts.

The Onward Upward Course

Henry Clay rose to fame, by a sudden impulse at the meeting of a lyceum in Lexington. He overcame timidity and embarrassment, that had oppressed him, and in this favorite forum for the display of youthful talent, first exhibited the evidence of his extraordinary powers of oratory. His hour had struck. In this school for the highest powers of debate he discovered himself. He used a very common expedient and made it great and was proud to descend from the summit of political preferment to honor that arena, such as any community can provide, in which any ambitious young man can educate himself. Both Mr. Beveridge's brilliant oratory and Dolliver's success, as the greatest campaigner America has produced, are proof, that a training field is an indispensable condition of getting results, in the study of eloquence and in the art of oratory.