Although large-scale philanthropic gestures were a relative novelty in early nineteenth century America, the idea of an elite institution providing popular lectures by eminent scientists and scholars was not. Having spent much of his youth in England, Lowell was undoubtedly familiar with the Royal Institution – an entity that sponsored basic scientific research and popular lectures and demonstrations. Lowell, a supporter of the Lyceum movement, first showed interest in providing education for the public as a founding member of the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in 1830. After becoming ill while traveling through Egypt in 1835, John Lowell Jr. revised his will to create a trust to fund free public lectures in Boston on the subjects of philosophy, natural history, and the arts and sciences.