The first course of lectures was on geology, given by that able scientist, Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale College. "So great was his popularity," says Harriette Knight Smith in the _New England Magazine_ for February, 1895, "that on the giving out of tickets for his second course, on chemistry, the following season, the eager crowds filled the adjacent streets, and crushed in the windows of the 'Old Corner Bookstore,' the place of distribution, so that provision for the same had to be made elsewhere. To such a degree did the enthusiasm of the public reach at that time, in its desire to attend these lectures, that it was found necessary to open books in advance to receive the names of subscribers, the number of tickets being distributed by lot. Sometimes the number of applicants for a single course was eight or ten thousand." The same number of the magazine contains a valuable list of all the speakers at the Institute since its beginning. The usual method now is to advertise the lectures in the Boston papers a week or more in advance; and then all persons desiring to attend meet at a designated place, and receive tickets in the order of their coming. At the appointed hour, the doors of the building where the lectures are given are closed, and no one is admitted after the speaker begins. Not long since I met a gentleman who had travelled seven miles to attend a lecture, and failed to obtain entrance. Harriette Knight Smith says, "This rule was at first resisted to such a degree that a reputable gentleman was taken to the lockup and compelled to pay a fine for kicking his way through an entrance door. Finally the rule was submitted to, and in time praised and copied." For seven years the Lowell Institute lectures were given in the Odeon, and for thirteen years in Marlboro Chapel, between Washington and Tremont, Winter and Bromfield Streets. Since 1879 they have been heard in Huntington Hall, Boylston Street, in the Rogers Building of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.