Writings by Abbott Lawrence Lowell, 1877-1941 and undated, 1877-1941 and undated

This series includes reprints, book chapters, addresses, manuscripts, and lectures which document Abbott Lawrence Lowell’s contributions to education, scholarship, and public life from 1877 to 1941. Some of Lowell’s earliest writings on political science and government are found in this series as well as his commentaries on the working of the parliamentary system of government in Great Britain, France, and Prussia in the nineteenth century and the limits of popular sovereignty in a democracy. The writings in this series also reveal Lowell’s long-term interest in the improvement of the administration of government in the United States and include his remarks on civil service reform, the initiative petition and referendum process, the council-manager form of government, and New Deal programs adopted in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. Lowell’s leading role in marshaling public opinion on behalf of the League of Nations and a more assertive American foreign policy after World War I is highlighted in this series; his activities as a prominent member of the League to Enforce Peace and his efforts to establish an international organization to preserve world peace in the 1920s and 1930s are also documented. The writings also trace the educational reforms that Lowell initiated at Harvard, and include his observations on the replacement of the free elective system with a curriculum of concentrated and distributed courses; the introduction of the general examination as a measure of intellectual achievement; the establishment of the tutorial system and reading period to enhance self-education; and the benefits of housing undergraduates on campus. Additionally, this series contains a manuscript draft of Lowell’s book entitled What a University President Has Learned (1938), an assembly of recollections and reflections on problems that Lowell addressed as president of Harvard University; and an assortment of materials including book contracts, letters, news clippings, and royalty statements relating to Lowell’s major publications from 1889 to 1937, chiefly The Government of England (1908), Public Opinion and Popular Government (1913), and Public Opinion in War and Peace (1923).