Old School Tie-Up

Boston's venerable Lowell Institute refused to admit its age. Last week it joined with six local colleges and universities to form the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council. The purpose: to broadcast learned lectures as a typically Boston bluestocking scheme of adult education. All seven Boston radio stations accepted the plan, which would be financed by stations and colleges, share & share alike. To the Lowell Institute it was one more opportunity to advance the cause of learning which had been the Institute's job for more than a century.

It was not the Institute's first meeting with radio. Last month, it started broadcasting over WBZ's FM circuit its famed, formidable Free Public Lectures. But these, and not only because of FM's present limited audience, could never expect to draw many listeners. Reason: lecture subjects include such topics as Lamaism, the Buddhism of Tibet and Mongolia and Applications of Seismological Techniques to Engineering Problems.

Bostonians, though in decreasing numbers, have attended Lowell lectures ever since the Institute was founded in 1839 by John Lowell (of The Lowells).* John was a successful textile merchant of 32 when his wife and two daughters died unexpectedly. Ill and atrabilious, he began a round-the-world trip with all the comforts of home (items: a horse and a portrait painter). In Luxor, Egypt, he drew up his will; in Bombay, India, he died.

The will provided that the Institute should sponsor lectures "on the Historical and Internal Evidence in Favor of Christianity," the "Arts and Sciences," "the Literature and Eloquence of Our Language," and such other subjects as "the wants and taste of the age demand." Lecturers were required to believe "in the divine revelation of the Old and New Testaments," listeners to "be neatly dressed and of orderly behaviour." (Both requirements long since canceled.) A Lowell, if there was a "competent" one, would always be trustee. (The Institute's present trustee: Boston Banker Ralph Lowell.) If inflation ever spiraled too high, cut the Institute's income too hard, the Institute could charge admission to its lectures: the price of two bushels of wheat (currently: about $5 in Boston).

*The original $250,000 endowment has octupled.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.