The B. R. Baumgardt Lectures

              The B.R.Baumgardt Lectures.

A remarkable Moon photograph showing volcanic craters with ramparts castingshadows


DON CURLEY
1118 Head Building, Post and Grant Avenues
SAN FRANCISCO, GAL.




Figure

A FEW PLACES WHERE MR. BAUMGARDT LECTURES

Explorers' Club, New York.
Salmagundi Club, New York.
McDowell Club, New York.
Cincinnati Astronomical Society.
United States Naval Academy, Annapolis.
University Club, Los Angeles.
University Club, Redlands.
Camera Club, San Francisco.
Tuesday Club, Sacramento.
Buffalo Club, Buffalo.
Brooks' Club, New Bedford, Mass.
Friday Morning Club, Los Angeles.
Detroit Club, Detroit.
Albany Club, Albany.
Lincoln Commercial Club, Lincoln, Neb.

Educational Institutions.


Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn.
American Institute, New York.
Drexel Institute, Philadelphia.
Buffalo Institute of Arts and Sciences.
Lawrenceville School, New Jersey.
Dayton Astronomical Society.
Choate School, Wallingford, Conn.
Miss, Spence's School, New York.
Dwight School, Englewood, N. J.
Thacher School, Nordhoff, Cal.
St. Mathew's School, Burlingame, Cal.
Pomfret School, Pomfret, Conn.
Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn.
The Hill School, Pottstown, Pa.
Standford University, Cal.
University of Southern California.
University of Cincinnati.
The Mackenzie School, Dobbs' Ferry, N. Y.
The Fay School, Southboro, Mass.
St. Mark's School, Southboro, Mass.
Peddie Institute, Hightstown, N. J.
The Taft School, Watertown, Conn.
St. Paul's School, Concord, N. H.
Philips' Academy, Andover, Mass.
The Hackley School, Tarrytown, N. Y.
Culver Military Academy, Culver, Ind.
Howe School, Howe, Ind.
Cheshire School, Cheshire, Conn.
Dana Hall, Wellesley, Mass.
Kemper Hall, Kenosha, Wis.
Parson's College, Fairfield, Ia.
University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Neb.
Teachers' Institutes, Los Angeles, Fresno, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver.




B. R. BAUMGARDT
Educational Lecture Entertainments
Beautifully Illustrated in Artistic Color
A Unique Series of Illustrated Lectures bearing on the History of Human Civilization

THERE is perhaps today no lecturer on the platform who gives such satisfaction as Mr. Baumgardt.  The best evidence of his popularity lies in the fact that he has been invariably reengaged at every place he has lectured.  Although the subjects outlined herein are very diverse, they are but ten of a list of nearly sixty, all bearing on one common theme, the advancement of Human Civilization.  But no matter what Mr. Baumgardt's subjects are, his manner of presenting them, and his faculty of making facts intensely interesting, always win him profound attention and enthusiasm.

The Astronomical lectures stand out as the best evidence of Mr. Baumgardt's skill, and although scientific in subject, he makes them not only popular but readily grasped by, and of interest to, the average listener.  The photographs are marvelous in their revelations of the Heavens, and many of them have never been shown before in public.  Mr. Baumgardt's collection of astronomical slides is the finest in the world, containing the best work of the foremost astronomers.

The travel lectures, as well as Napoleon Bonaparte, are based upon a residence of eighteen years in Europe and familiarity with modern languages.  Mr. Baumgardt returns to Europe annually for the purpose of keeping his lectures in every way up to date.  When this man, who can make the far away wonders of the Heavens interesting and intelligible to general audiences, tells of foreign lands, the result is a true revelation as to what can be made of a travel lecture.  The illustrations are not the work of any one photographer, but are selected from the finest collections of Europe.  All the views are colored.

Mr. Baumgardt is worthy of the highest recommendation and endorsement, for he is a unique personality on the platform.  All inquiries as to his engagements should be addressed to
DON CURLEY
1118 Head Building, Post and Grant Avenues
SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.




The Fjords of Norway
Majestic Land of the Midnight Sun

While the midnight sun, dream weighted, broods upon the earth.


NORWAY is unique.  A broken coast line of fourteen thousand miles and a fringe of 150.000 islands give rise to some of the most sublime scenery on earth; the bluest of blue fjords and shimmering lakes; towering fields and deep hidden valleys; babbling streams, rushing rivers and majestic waterfalls; proud, colossal rocks and smoth-polished glaciers.  Over all these wonderful combinations of land and water hovers the mysterious influence of the midnight sun.  Norway is, indeed, the music of Beethoven.  Who so has once come under its spell can never after shake it off.

Mr. Baumgardt's lecture on Norway is founded on intimate aquaintance with the land and its interesting people.  He speaks the language of the people and visits the country annually.  The lecture is intended to give a thorough understanding of Norway and the Norwegians; the dramas of Ibsen and the poetry of Bjørnson; the music of Grieg, Kjerulf and Sinding; the influence of environment upon a people who have lived in isolation for fifteen hundred years; the life of the fishing folk of the Lofoten Islands, the harnessing of sublime waterfalls without marring their beauty; the Gothenburg system for controlling the liquor traffic; the Lapps and their strange customs; the status of Norwegian women and the results of emigration upon a sparsely populated and extremely poor land.

The lecture is illustrated in color with 125 carefully selected views of such unrivaled beauty, that everywhere it is admitted to be the most artistic and remarkable lecture on the American platform.


The Western Fjords of Norway; Earth's most sublime scenery.




California Camera Club, San Francisco.

Mr. Baumgardt's Norway drew an audience of fifteen hundred, the largest we ever had.


Professor Baumgardt in his lecture on Norway takes a grip on his audience on the instant.  You cannot possible rid yourself of the man and his fasci nation, try as hard as you would—
“The Graphic”




SWITZERLAND
The Progressive and Model Republic

The Matterhorn rising tusk-like from the surrounding glaciers.


MARK TWAIN once said that Switzerland, as seen from the Rigi, reminded him of a crumpled lettuce leaf strewn with turquoises.  The Playground of Europe is one of striking contrasts; of ice and verdure; mountain peaks and valleys; awe-inspiring glaciers and mistlike waterfalls; of thundering avalanches and delicate, fairylike Alpine glow effects.

Switzerland has many a lesson to impart.  Her remarkable mountain railways and the splendid tunnels which pierce the Alps have made her famous among engineers.  Her interesting political institutions, the Initiative and Referendom, and, above all, her outdoor parliament, the Landesgemeinde, have placed her in the vanguard of democracy.  Through Rousseau and Pestalozzi she gave to the world the true principles of education.  Nor shoud we forget that she is the only country in Europe which offers an assylum to all who are politically oppressed.  In no small measure Switzerland has contributed her quota to the intellectual progress of the human race.

The 137 slides, in color, reveal faithfully Switzerland's matchless scenery and the peculiar results of environment as reflected in the history of a remarkable people.  The far-famed Swiss flora is not overlooked.


Panorama from the Rigi Railway, overlooking Vitznau and Lake Lucerne, with Mouat Pilatus in the background; one of the most renowned views in Europe





“Los Angeles Times”
Prof. Baumgardt takes rank with the foremost lecturers in the land.  His equipment, mental, physical, artistic, literary and scientific, is widely recognized.  He ranges with a free hand through all the varied scenes of the traveled connoisseur, the great capitals of Europe and its many fascinating by-ways, from the unsetting sun of the North Cape, to the smiling fields of Andalusia and the classic temples of Greece and Rome.


Cincinnati, Ohio. The Scottish Rite.
Your splendid lecture made such deep impression, that I write to say, that we shall certainly want you to repeat it next season.




An Evening with the Stars
An Introduction to the Study of the Heavens

The Planet Mars.  At last our nearest planetary neighbour has yielded to the camera.  The above illustration is reproduced from a photograph obtained by Dr. Hale at Mount Wilson, with the aid of the greatest telescope in existence, ninety thousand times more powerful than the unaided eye.  Notice the beautiful polar cap, which appears in the Martian autumn and recedes in the spring.  But what of the interesting but much disputed canals?  If they really exist, should they not be visible, or in some way reveal their existence through this remarkable photograph?


Why did not some one, when I was a child, teach me the constellations and make me at home in the starry heavens, which I do not half know today. Carlyle.

IT IS REMARKABLE that in our public and private schools today little or nothing is taught of astronomy.  Three thousand years ago the shepherds of Chaldea, while watching their flocks under their cloudless skies, had obtained a far better knowledge of the starry heavens, than has the average modern college-bred man.  By the stars they were able to regulate their husbandry and find their way.  Why this condition should prevail today is hard to explain.  Surely no knowledge is of more importance than that which teaches us our relationship to the universe in which we have been awakened to consciousness and the rôle we have to act in the mysterious drama of the Cosmos.

The purpose of this lecture is to serve as an introduction to an intelligent study of the starry heavens.  It is not technical.  Even a child can follow and understand.  Yet every statement made is scientifically correct and is the last word of science upon the subject.

A more profitable hour could hardly be spent than with this lecture.

No pains nor expense has been spared to make this lecture an artistic treat.  The illustrations are all from celestial negatives taken with latest giant telescopes.

Two things fill me with awe: the starry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibility in man. Kant.



The Explorers Club, New York City.


A most valuable and instructive lecture on Celestial Photography.
The Herald

The American Institute.  New York City.

It was a remarkable presentrtion of the latest achievements in celestial photography.  Your forcefull and astonishing power to convey deep thoughts and to marshal facts, made a deep impression upon all.  Dr. J. W. Bartlett, Secretary.

Buffalo Club, Buffalo, N. Y.

Never have I seen more enthusiasm over a lecture than that displayed by our members.  I immediately reëngaged Mr. Baumgardt.  Chairman Prog. Committee




Latest from the Heavens
Triumphs in Celestial Photography

Spiral Nebula in the Constellation of the Hunting Dogs, a triumph in recent Celestial Photography.  Here, at last, man is permitted to bohold the creation of suns worlds.  A study of this interesting and significant object, situated on the verge of of the creation, has given us a new conception of the universe and its evolution.


WITHIN the past few years all our notions of the constitution of matter have been revolutionized.  Discovery after discovery is being made, bringing us closer and closer to the secrets of the universe.  Thanks to the spectroscope we now know, that, throughout the illimitable sweep of the universe, matter is essentially the same.  The camera tells us that, in the nebulous clouds it has detected on the confines of space, there is a peculiar arrangement in the details, which suggests evolution taking place under the operation of Newton's law of gravitation.  In the midst of the stupendous transformations of matter, there stands eternally forth, dominating all, the supremacy of law in the universe.

It is the intention in this lecture to bring into relief the latest results in the photography of the heavens, and, in a popular way, to indicate their bearing upon some of the greatest problems that have yet engaged the attention of thinking men, For this purpose the observatories of the world have been laid under contribution for illustrative material, with results absolutely unique The wonders of the heavens are revealed, while we stand breathless with astonishment.

There are many outstanding, unsolved problems which urge men on to renewed intellectual efforts.  What about star-drift?  How explain that majestic procession of some twenty, seemingly unconnected, stars toward a common goal, which, there are reasons for believing, will be reached in roughly sixty-five millions of years?

What mighty, cosmic secret lies hidden in the fact that one out of every four or five stars proves to be a double-star, a twin sun system?

How about gravitation?  It has long been suspected, and men of science are now becoming more and more convinced, that gravitation alone will not account for all of the phenomena of the solar system, much less of the universe.

How shall we unravel the galaxy?  Is our universe infinite, or has our lot been cast upon an island universe?  Perhaps the last word of science has not yet been pronounced upon this profound subject.

Vanity of vanities!  Noisy ambitions of a day!  Who do we pass our time disputing about empty titles and many-colored decorations?  Ask Science what she must think of all these ephemeral vain-glories, when compared with the majestic course of Nature, which bears us all to a common destiny.

Illustrated from the latest celestial negatives.




Redlands, California, “Review.”
The lecturer showed that he has few, if any, peers on the platform.


“The Christian Advocate,” New York City.
The lecture and the marvelous views made a powerful impression, such as is rarely received from any lecture in New York City.





Total Eclipse of the Sun, from a photograph by Barnard and Ritchie
One of the Remarkable Illustrations introduced in Mr. B. R. Baumgardt's lecture, AN EVENING WITH THE STARS.


When for a few brief moments, during a total eclipse, the disk of the sun and its glare are cut off by the intervening moon, the sun's Corona or metalic atmosphere becomes visible.  It is a soul stirring sight, the most sublime phenomenon ever beheld by mortal man; one which in the past has exerted a mysterious influence upon the imaginations of men.  To behold this phenomenon, astronomers travel to the remotest parts of the earth.




Napoleon Bonaparte
Conqueror and Captive of the Earth

Meeting of Blücher and Wellington on the Battlefield of Waterloo.


NEVER has a genius appeared upon this earli so well equipped for work as was Napoleon.  His career reads like a fairy story.  Leaving a humble Corsican home at the age of nine, with all his belongings in a knapsack, we see him later in Paris, living in an attic, a half-starved, five-foot-three scare-crow of a man, watching the Revolution and abiding his own opportunities.  Within twenty years, by his own unaided genius, he has compelled the French people, who but recently had forsworn all allegiance to royalty, to acknowledge him their Emperor.  Henceforth he forces the haughty rulers of Europe to quake their wavering knees to the principals of democracy as expressed by the French Revolution.

He was a man of many virtues and of many and serious faults as well.  But in Frence there has never been a time when his name could be reviled with impunity.  In that land he found society utterly decomposed; out of its ruins he composed an Imperial Democracy.  He caused Europe to enter upon a career of progress in spite of itself.  Wherever he appeared as victor he was hailed by the common people as a liberator.  Nor are witnesses needed to prove him the greatest military leader of all times.  Wellington acknowledge Napoleon's presence on the battlefield equal to thirty thousend men.  Montenotte, Lodi, Arcole, Pyramids, Aboukir, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Eulau, Friedland, Wagram, Borodino, Dresden—what a galaxy of immortal victories!  What imperishable famel Imperishable?  The time shall come when all these victories shall be but so many echoes from the past; but never the time when the stupendous results of Napoleon's statesmanship shall not be felt.  He gave France a new code of laws, which for the first time gave the poor man an equal chance with the rich.  The impetus he gave to the progress of mankind was for all time.


The Old Gray Coat.


In this lecture Napoleon is not held up as an ideal.  Nor are the crimes he committed to satisfy an overwrought ambition overlooked.  The fact, however, remains that Napoleon was great: so great that when we try to estimate his colossal genius, we seem like pigmies endeavoring to span a mountain with a tape.

Illustrated in color with 137 remarkable views.

Five years were required in the preparation of this lecture, which required repeated visits to all the Napoleonic battlefields from Madrid to Moscow.  The art galleries in Europe, the Louvre, Versailles, Luxembourg, Chantilly, Fontainebleau, the Ermitage at St. Petersburg, Trejakow at Moscow, have contributed the remarkable slides.




The Romance of Man
An Illustrated Epitome of the History of Civilization

They are thine, O Queen, since Allah has so decreed it.  Boabdil, last Moorish King of Granada, delivering the keys to the Alhambra to Queen Isabella


There is an aristocracy among men, which no system of religion, morals or politics can ignore without bringing disastrous consequences upon itself.  It is the aristocracy of the intellect

WHOEVER has carefully and critically surveyed the intellectual progress of man, his transformation from a savage running naked in the woods into a rational, reasoning human being, must have observed that, from the dawn of the civilization in Ancient Egypt down to the wonderful achievements of modern times, the advance has not been made in a secular manner, but rather in accordance with the rhythmic law of periodicity.  There have been brilliant epochs, times when the human mind has crystallized, followed by periods of inactivity and even retrogression.  The theme offers boundless material for an interesting lecture.

For in that phantasmagoria we call history, where events give birth to events, and the phantoms of the actors stalk in one after the other, we have a field in which to select salient features and chara cteristic men, with which to illustrate the intellectual progress of humanity.

The subject is treated under the following heads: The Dawn of Civilization which came with the discovery of writing.  Our Indebtedness to the Greeks.  The Museum of Alexandria and its Influence upon Man.  Moorish Civilization during the Dark Ages.  The Renaissance and the Discovery of America.  The Age of Galileo and Newton.  The Contributions of Modern Times.

The lecture is beautifully illustrated with 130 carefully selected views, the assembling of which involved repeated visits to European collections; particularly the British Museum.  The lecture is an intellectual treat.


England's contribution to the advancement of civilization in the Nineteenth Century is well illustrated in this remarkable canvas from the National Portrait Gallery in London.  The painting was executed in 1809.  In it we find among others the portraits of Cartwright, inventor of the power-loom; Cavendish, Dalton, Davy and Young, the physicists; Dolland and Herschel the astronomers: Jenner, who gave vaccination to the world, and Watt, inventor of the steam engine.




San Francisco Teachers' Institute.

Mr. Baumgardt's three lectures before this Institute were accorded a most enthusiastic reception by the large audiences.  I cannot emphasize my appreciation of his librilliant attainments as a lecturer any more strongly than by stating that I consider him the foremost lecturer of our day.  A. Roncouvieri, Superintendent.




A Visit to Athens
The Glory of the Golden Age of Pericles

Modern Athens; in the distance Mount Hvmettus and the Pentelikon marble quarries, which Phidias almost exhausted in building the temples on the Acropolis.


WHEN we stand on the Acropolis at Athens, surrounded by the gigantic relics of a bygone civilization, our thoughts are irresistably directed to the Golden Age of Pericles, that high epoch in the fruition of the human intellect, when, in almost every branch of art and knowledge, it well-nigh reached perfection.  We may well ask what it was that caused all this intellectual abundance among the Greeks, a nation of relatively insignificant numbers.  Why, in the short span of a few generations, should they have been able to conceive ideals in art and thought, after which other peoples have been struggling in vain?  For, put their hands and minds at what they would, the Greeks almost inevitably produced perfection.  Will there ever be another building as architecturally perfect as was the Parthenon?  a temple which shows such a subtle depth of artistic knowledge, that we are justified in pronouncing it the most perfect of earthly buildings.  So, too, in poetry, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey still remain the unapproachable ideals.  The plastic art of Praxiteles, Phidias, Lysippus, Myron and Scopas has not been surpassed by any succeeding age.  It never even enters the mind of a modern artist to try to exceed the excellence of a Greek statue; if he dare but approach its perfection, that will be glory enough.  Herodotus and Thucydides still represent the highest art of the historian.  Plutarch is to this day the model of models for biographers. Most critics agree that the highest expression in the external form of drama was reached in the tragedies of Sophocles, Æschylus and Euripides.  Modern comedy writers borrow continually from the genius of Aristophanes.  Nor is it likely that the time will ever come when Euclid shall be surpassed in perspicuity and as a model of exact demonstration.  Among astronomers the great discovery of Hipparchus, the precession of the equinoxes, accomplished as it was by the aid of a simple mural circle, ranks as one of the greatest in their department of science.  The form of strict scientific thought is the same today as that taught by Aristotle, when walking up and down the Lyceum or in the groves ofthe Academy, more than twenty-two centuries ago.

Over one hundred lantern views in color are introduced in this lecture to illustrate Mr. Baumgardt's recent pilgrimage through Greece, including Athens, Eleusis, Salamis, Marathon, Corinth, Delphi, Olympia, Mycenae and Sparta.  The lecture is a liberal education.


Eleusis, the Bay of Salamis and the Isles of Greece.




U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.  (From the Chaplain)

With his fine diction, ready speech, keen grasp of essentials, a temperament artistic and scientific, unbounded enthusiasm and an almost unlimited range of subjects, Mr. Baumgardt cannot possibly fail to please and instruct any audience.




Pompeii, City of the Dead
Roman Life in the First Century, A. D.

My soul today is far away, sailing the blue Vesuvian bay; with outstretched hands, the gray smoke stands, o'erlooking the volcanic lands.


RECENT important discoveries at Pompeii are again attracting the attention of the thinking world to the buried Roman city.  Thanks to the systematic excavations, under the able direction of Professor Spinazzola, an important part of the Street of Abundance—the Fifth Avenue of the pleasure-loving Pompeians, has been uncovered.  It proves to be a thoroughfare fully as splendid, luxurious and ostentatious as New York's famous Avenue, but infinitely cruel, brutal and depraved.  There is no way in which we can study to better advantage the life of the common people and the intern al causes which eventually undermined the Roman empire, than by wandering through the ruins of this fashionable Roman seaside town, which was teeming with life at the time when Christ walked the earth, but was buried under the ashes of the relentless Vesuvius more than eighteen hundred years ago.  Here, for instance, is the house of a tanner with a pantry containing a small quantity of soap.  Opposite is t
he more pretentious office of a banker, with two strongboxes containing promissory notes bearing interest at the rate of twenty-four percent.  In a bakery an oven was found full of bread differing little from the loaves of today.  With surprise we learn that the baker's workmen belonged to Union No. 19.  The Stabian Baths, with lead pipe plumbing, hot and cold water, swimming pools and Turkish baths, divans and gymnasium, were about as convenient and luxurious as any modern baths.

A visit to Pompeii under the direction of Mr. Baumgardt is a fascinating and educational experience.  It is absolutely worth while.

The lecture is illustrated with over one hundred views and is based upon repeated visits to Pompeii and studies under the auspices of the best known archeologists.


Scenes in old Pompeii, showing the narrow streets, sidewalks, stepping stones for rainy weather, drinking fountain and flower store.  The interior is the atrium and impluvium of the House of Diomede.




Dayton Astronomical Society, Dayton, Ohio.

You made good with your audience and my Committee.  Such intellectual and artistic treat as you offer, create in all a stronger zest for the higher pleasures of life.  Dr. W. S. Beckman.

Salmagundi Club, New York City.

Both your lectures for the Salmagundi Club were fascinating and obsorbing.




Florence, the Pearl of Italy
The Life, Art and Times of the Medicis

It was this view of Florence from San Miniato that inspired Hallam in one of his most gorgeous passages, and George Eliot in the opening chapter of Romola.  In the center is the Cathedral, crowned with Brunelleschi's far-famed dome, and Giotto's Campanile, as stately as a lily; to the left is seen the Palazzo Vecchio, where Savonarola spent his last days on earth; to the right Santa Croce's holy precincts, resting place of Galileo, Michelangelo and many famous Florentines.


WITH what mingled feelings of awe and indescribable emotions the student of history treads the streets of Florence, where every spot is an illustrious memory and every tocsin chronicles some event of the past; where every bridge uniting the two sides of the Arno, links at the same time the interesting present with the enchanting past.  Florence is one great treasure house of sacred souvenirs.  Look around!  How tremendously impressive of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the Whites and the Blacks, still stand the old palaces—the Riccardi, Strozzi, Vecchio,—vividly reviving the days when a man's home was his castle.  All around are art galleries, where for miles one may promenade, surrounded by the world's most priceless treasures, recalling the imperishable fame of the art-loving Medicis.  Every curving street, almost every gable and building, is in some way associated with the lives of illustrious Florentines.  Here worked, lived and labored Cimabue, Giotto, Brunelleschi, Ang
elica, Botticelli, Lippi, Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, del Sarto, Ghiberti, Donantello, della Robbia, Cellini, Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli, Vespucci, Savonarola, Galileo, Torricelli.  The first Botanical Garden and the first Philosophical Society were organized at Florence.  Here the telescope was first applied in celestial research.  On the hills of Fiesoli Cosimo, the founder of the Medici dynasty, organized the Platonic Academy.  His grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, established the great Laurentina Library, Not another city in the world can point to such a galaxy of illustrious names in art, literature and science.  The history of civilization can never be written with Florence left out.

125 suberb slides are introduced in this lecture.  The reproductions from the famous Florentine art galleries, the Uffizi, Pitti and Academy, are all in water-colors corresponding faithfully to the originals.


Dante meeting Beatrice on his return from the University of Bologna.




Charles Battell Loomis, New York City.

I heard Baumgardt last night at the Salmagundi Club.  It was the most wonderful lecture I have ever heard.

(Extract from a letter written to the Manager of the J. B. Pond Lyceum Bureau)




Venice, the City of Dreams
Rise and Fall of the Venetian Republic

Figure


HARDLY could a more effective illustration be found of the paramount influence of geographical position than that afforded by Venice.  Little did it occur to those refugees from the conquering hordes of Attila in 452, when they drove their first piles on the mud-banks of the Adriatic, that they were laying foundations for a republic, destined to endure more than twelve hundred years.  Her insular position, through the skill of her engineers, made Venice practically unassailable.  From insignificance she rose to hold the proud dominion of the seas and had at one time 3,200 vessels, netting their owners forty percent, Her agents were stationed in every important city in Europe.  Expressed in modern value her exports amounted to $400,000,000 a year.  Yet, after all, she was but a city, with never more than 200,000 inhabitants; a city, nevertheless, the most beautiful in the world; for centuries the center of European civilization, whose ambassadors abroad rivaled those of kingdoms and 
empires; a city which marked the limits of Barbarrossa's ambitions, played a most important rôle in the Crusades and almost rivaled Florence in the impetus she gave to the Renaissance.

The discovery of America and the circumnavigation of Africa sounded the death-knell to all this greatness and imperishable fame.  The commercial equilibrium of the world had been shaken, The Mediterranean ceased to be the most important commercial highway and became in stead a relatively unimportant inland sea.  Venice was dethroned and forgotten.  Finally came Napoleon Bonaparte, that stearn reality with whom former greatness and empty survivals of mediævalism counted for naught, He saw the last flickering light of the Venetian republic and blew it out.  So perishes earthly glory.

The lecture is illustrated with 122 remarkable lantern views, executed in water-color, which give not only a faithful portrayal of the Venice of today, the dream city, but also of Venice at the height of her glory, in the days of Enrico Dandola, Foscari and Falieri.


Figure




As an educational force we know of nothing on the public platform equal to your scholarly presentations of art, science, travel and the history of civilization.

San Francisco Board of Education.
(Signed by all the members.)




COMMENT
on Mr. Baumgardt's Illustrated Lectures

THE CHOATE SCHOOL, WALLINGFORD, CONN.
I want to say without reservation that your lecture on Napoleon seemed to me, and I believe to all of us, the best lecture we have ever had at this school.  You seem to give to your lectures, both in their preparation and in their actual presentation, more personal devotion, enthusiasm, scholarship and dramatic sense, than any other lecturer I know.  I want you to come to The Choate School every year as long as you are lecturing.—George C. St. John, Headmaster.



LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL, LAWRENCEVILLE, N. J.
This is to express my appreciation of your instructive lecture, 'An Evening with the Stars.'  I have heard nothing but words of commendation concerning it.  You have surely satisfied our Lawrenceville audience, both by your lecture last year on 'Norway' and this year on 'The Stars.'  I shall hope that next year we may hear you again, probably on 'Switzerland.'—Charles Henry Raymond.



THE MACKENZIE SCHOOL, DOBBS FERRY, N. Y.
Your third lecture at this school, on 'Comets,' advanced the high reputation you earned in your two splendid lectures.  We have rarely had a lecture that so completely held the attention, seemed so full of informing and inspiring knowledge, and was so enthusiastically received by boys and Masters.  We are looking forward to having you with us again next season.—James C. Mackenzie.



POMFRET SCHOOL, POMFRET, CONNECTICUT.
I want to thank you for your lectures on 'Switzerland' and 'The Rhine.'  It is not too much to say that they are among the best ever given here.—Wm. Beach Olmstead, Headmaster.



REDLANDS DAILY “FACTS.”
To hear Mr. Baumgardt last night at the University Club was a rare treat.  A man who is a scientist, a historian, a linguist, and a public speaker with a marvelous command of the English language, combined, is rarely found.  Yet just such a man is Mr. Baumgardt.  His lecture charmed his audience.


THE GRAPHIC.
Mr. Baumgardt impresses with strong personal magnetism.  He holds and interests his audience with a vitality and intensity of style, which never flags for a moment.  He takes a grip on his audience on the instant.  You cannot rid yourself of the man and his fascination, try as you would.


BRATTLEBORO PHOENIX, BRATTLEBORO, VERMONT.
Such lectures as Mr. Baumgardt gives are only possible to those who with open heart and eyes have become perfectly familiar with men and things they describe, added to an ability to tell what they have seen.  In this respect nothing more could be desired.  His views are the finest in the world, but no matter how fine, they only illustrate a finer lecture.


SUPT. OF SCHOOLS, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.
Your artistic and scholarly lectures are education in the highest degree, powerful lessons in history, science and art, and are delivered in an eloquent, forceful and attractive manner.  They are sparkling with wit and human pathos and leave a permanent impression for good.—A Roncouvieri, Superintendent Schools.



THE TUESDAY CLUB, SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.
The Tuesday Club wishes you to lecture again this year.  All the members of the Program Committee feel as I do, that we have never had as good a lecturer and none who has been recalled to lecture annually.  We must have you this year for four lectures.—Mrs. George McCoy.



THE LINCOLN DAILY STAR.
For two hours last night the audience sat enthralled, almost motionless, held by the age-old spell of the stars and the mystery of the infinite, their attention transfixed by what is said to be the most wonderful collection of celestial negatives in the world—that used by Mr. B. R. Baumgardt in his illustrated lectures on 'The Stars.'
As the views flashed one by one upon the screen, their meaning and the wonderful processes by which they were obtained were lucidly and grippingly explained by a man whom the audience came to see, was not only a lecturer, but a scientist deep in love with his subject.  Again and again the bare pictures themselves drew bursts of applause.
Through the triumphs of modern celestial photography, the heavens were examined, only as it would be the privilege of some rapt scientist, hidden away in some mountain capping observatory, to see them.  Intimate touch with the very processes of creation and glimpses out between a solid wall of stars into space and infinity itself gave the lecture touches of weird unreality.