Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
The management of the whole fund, with the selection of lecturers, is
left to one trustee, who shall choose his successor; that trustee to be,
"in preference to all others, some male descendant of my grandfather,
John Lowell, provided there be one who is competent to hold the office
of trustee, and of the name of Lowell." The trustees of the Boston
Athenæum are empowered to look over the accounts each year, but have no
voice in the selection of the lecturers. "The trustee," says Mr. Lowell
in his will, "may also from time to time establish lectures on any
subject that, in his opinion, the wants and taste of the age may
demand."
None of the money given by will is ever to be used in buildings; Mr.
Lowell probably having seen that money is too often put into brick and
stone to perpetuate the name of the donor, while there is no income for
the real work in hand. Ten per cent of the income of the Lowell fund is
to be added annually to the principal. It is believed that through wise
investing the fund is already doubled, and perhaps trebled.
"The idea of a foundation of this kind," says Edward Everett, "on which,
unconnected with any place of education, provision is made, in the
midst of a large commercial population, for annual courses of
instruction by public lectures, to be delivered gratuitously to all who
choose to attend them, as far as it is practicable within our largest
halls, is, I believe, original with Mr. Lowell. I am not aware that,
among all the munificent establishments of Europe, there is anything of
this description upon a large scale."
After Mr. Lowell reached Europe in the fall of 1832, he spent the winter
in Paris, and the summer in England, Scotland, and Ireland. He was all
the time preparing for his Eastern journey,--in the study of languages,
and the knowledge of instruments by which to make notes of the course of
winds, the temperature, atmospheric phenomena, the height of mountains,
and other matters of interest in the far-off lands which he hoped to
enter. Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, gave him
special facilities for his proposed tour into the interior of India.
The winter of 1833 was spent in the southwestern part of France, in
visiting the principal cities of Lombardy, in Nice and Genoa, reaching
Florence early in February, 1834. In Rome he engaged a Swiss artist, an
excellent draftsman and painter, to accompany him, and make sketches of
scenery, ruins, and costumes throughout his whole journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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