Show I 1 lecture r tela lie humbugs humburgs practiced practised tied up edacity eda lity of the american lecture system is the great he ae most hollow for every even even excepting the mock 1 op gives more va value lue for received the extent to people are bled by it and berant lecturers literary nd ad committees make mo from one of aties ic w we have received the t invitation which throws t on the system to which lake leave to adda add a little T 0 Y NJ sept 19 1 lei ov B begnett BeH nett t esq ahe i m R new york Y lleras id the literary association a e having determined to have lectures tures from distinguished ithe he present winter com commena nc I 1 we a ante to know cheth be so fortunate as to secure ts for one night we paid from 50 to per night iii aas this should you q come wa would pay aou ou early answer will be thanked with great res reset pt 1 in I e association J if ROBINSON dress J II 11 robinson prince c e to the foregoing we N e have we will not ld and cannot invitation it appears is is the highest sum paid for I 1 y of a lecture the time j r th the e operation pe ration would woul d be 00 to us this sort of not in in our line we de ciares ci ures in the herald seven iek bek arld and several of them hort and to the print to 1 sand subscribers and half band f rea dears at the small vo cents giving more inn each copy ti than gaii is cona thousand of the lectures a every man iwho who hears bears ji fifty cents or at least LT f a dollar but we have at the literary assoria i riceton Ni uc eton ceton can be easily ac 1 q the tribune publish lecturer names annual ry year the catalo catalogue gue is n nger 11 er and the ibur inundation dation Is ses es higher and spreads 9 over the country fro from in an n this list J 11 II robin select enough of 1 distin 1 tin in for halal half a dozen cours res es he will find their I 1 aing ifie I 1 from down to fr r or a pair of old breech 1 more than nine tenths of adorth Iv orth in fact they are i price rc e pr r L library illa ayi is s the principal y in which i ch their composite elaborated lb or a e d they are t stolen almost bodily from books whose theories or been leen exploded sometimes land and sound works which tat it lecturer not understand ards ads with his own lucebra Spery erts the whole into a y absurdity in which sound ar yer se sense me there is no no information brought ite tel f for or these men are not na f any anything iny thing except in the art bof their o own om m swin swindling dlinn their lectures le coures abound in in pans ions and in the roses t bl blun a it amplifying the adage that a jing filing is a dangerous thing cj these lectures lef ler tures are ma made de ys ps and odis odds and ends from old reviews review s ma magazines and anc clo cedias a 1 patch woric put clumsily and together consistency sis tency s symmetry metry or unity of design thus the literary out original ideas idea without brains and without a liberal education go to work at the astor library or some other and producer produce a worthless lecture the copyright of which would not sell fur sio S io no goodnew good nen spa i per would deem it it worth sa 5 ye this is is delivered the first time foi 50 perhaps for and the dost is is rl repeated to other oilier audiences on the same terms till it has gone the rounds of the literary societies i an ali original book with solid information ma tion or pleasant reading worth a hundred lectures might be purchased for the price of admission and would w bo be worth ft orah nearly what was w as paid for it it in in twenty years after whereas the lecturer leaves nothing behind chimu orth ing so tent are many of these literate urs who thus male make a living in ing by chea cheating tinn with their wares lik like e peter funk who passes off upon a green countryman a pinchbeck or 01 or galvanized watch for pure gold that ha they could not write a decent article for a first cliss class journal if it were to rosaie save their necks from the gallows what gives agn es them security is is the fact that their compositions are not worth reporting in in the pers for if once published they could not be repeated repealed and the lecturer would have to commence de novo to get up another essay essa and this process would not pay their publication mor moreover cover might provoke some scathing criticisms and this would w be ruinous ruinous in in a double sense chelec rhe lecturers are therefore conti continually i at the mercy mere of the newspapers and they beg hard bard of the reporters not to publish them in in full tout but only to give gi e just a little notice nonce of them a very ver un unnecessary necess ary request on their part and which they would never make if they only knew in in what contempt their performances are held both by y reporters reporters and editors the chief merit of some of these affairs is is in in the delivery del or in ili the elaborations of high sounding verbiage cr Liage which tickles the car for the moment mor nent but leaves not a trace of an ai idea or a shadow of information on the mind there is is no connection no arguments no facts f acts nothing noth ng that can be remembered the literary societies and committees make a good thing of these lectures on the i whole hole though sometimes sometimes they are done brown by failures they use their local influence and put forth all their exertions in in sell ing the tickets thic i they often get off their hands under the most fraudulent representations without such appliances none done of the lecturers who nho 10 go about the country could make their expenses there was as a time when some sonic rather clever aclei er men had a monopoly of the business and made a handsome income income butof out of it it but those days are gone by and now the thing is overdone done and driven into no the ground and scarcely any able man will n ill accept an invitation to lecture if he doe ahe he follows f olio sin in the beater bea tea track and will not bestow the pains required for a good original compo comp 0 ile he depends 0 on his reputation and his name and with these cheat the au diance out of their q quarters u a r some of the fools think the they are amply repaid by seeing rip his fa face many clergymen clergy men thus ad add to their incomes by lectures which cot them less toil and have less merit than ore of thir their ordinary sermons ermons the truth is is that the talent learning 1 and labor necessary cesary ne to prod produce ice a goo good d 1 lecture ece could not b be purchased has e d by any literary society for if the lecture had decided merit it could n not 0 t b be 0 repeated and would pay worse than the poorest composition the news papers would report it it on its first delivery and gue give it to the reader with a variety of other interesting matter for two cents thus destroying its ml marketable Arke table value alue to tile the writer it would pay him better therefore to send it to a review review or to publish it in in the form of a book while we express these opinions of the lecture system generally we are aware that there are some exception like illige angels visits jusits few and far between in in which both profit and pleasure may be derived deni ed by the audience among these may be classed such lectures lecture s as those delivered by dr giving an account of his own experience in new arid and coun conn ries nes in Africa at d i of dr kane whose interesting and instructive e descriptions from personal ol 01 observation of wonderful regions where civilized man ad never set foot before furnished for the intellect and the c cf f his delighted audiences the lee tures lures of such in men en as lardner herschel and our own professor mitchell giving an account irl in glow ing language 0 of their own discoveries or those recently made by other scientific men may also la be ranked a among men the exceptions to the general rule and nd with a very few others other s may be regarded regard cd as oases antho in the barren desert of the lecture system i which has become the last refuge of literary loafers on both sides of the atlantic |