The Story of Chautauqua. Jesse Lyman Hurlbut
time.
Here is an extract from The World To-day:
Old-time politics is dead in the States of the Middle West. The torchlight parade, the gasoline lamps, and the street orator draw but little attention. The "Republican Rally" in the court-house and the "Democratic Barbecue" in the grove have lost their potency. People turn to the Chautauquas to be taught politics along with domestic science, hygiene, and child-welfare.
Mr. John Graham Brooks, lecturer on historical, political, and social subjects, author of works widely circulated and highly esteemed, has given courses of lectures at Chautauqua, and has expressed his estimate in these words:
After close observation of the work at Chautauqua, and at other points in the country where its affiliated work goes on, I can say with confidence that it is among the most enlightening of our educational agencies in the United States.
Dr. A. V. V. Raymond, while President of Union College in New York State, gave this testimony:
Chautauqua has its own place in the educational world, a place as honorable as it is distinctive; and those of us who are laboring in other fields, by other methods, have only admiration and praise for the great work which has made Chautauqua in the best sense a household word throughout the land.
Mr. Edward Howard Griggs, who is in greater demand than almost any other lecturer on literary and historical themes, in his Recognition Day address, in 1904, on "Culture Through Vocation," said as follows:
The Chautauqua movement as conceived by its leaders is a great movement for cultivating an avocation apart from the main business of life, not only giving larger vision, better intellectual training, but giving more earnest desire and greater ability to serve and grow through the vocation.
This from Dr. William T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education:
Think of one hundred thousand persons of mature age following up a well-selected course of reading for four years in science and literature, kindling their torches at a central flame! Think of the millions of friends and neighbors of this hundred thousand made to hear of the new ideas and of the inspirations that result to the workers!
It is a part of the great missionary movement that began with Christianity and moves onward with Christian civilization.
I congratulate all members of Chautauqua Reading Circles on their connection with this great movement which has begun under such favorable auspices and has spread so widely, is already world-historical, and is destined to unfold so many new phases.
Prof. Albert S. Cook, of Yale University, wrote in The Forum:
As nearly as I can formulate it, the Chautauqua Idea is something like this: A fraternal, enthusiastic, methodical, and sustained attempt to elevate, enrich, and inspire the individual life in its entirety, by an appeal to the curiosity, hopefulness, and ambition of those who would otherwise be debarred from the greatest opportunities of culture and spiritual advancement. To this end, all uplifting and stimulating forces, whether secular or religious, are made to conspire in their impact upon the person whose weal is sought. . . . Can we wonder that Chautauqua is a sacred and blessed name to multitudes of Americans?
The late Principal A. M. Fairbairn, of Mansfield College, Oxford, foremost among the thinkers of the last generation, gave many lectures at Chautauqua, and expressed himself thus:
The C. L. S. C. movement seems to me the most admirable and efficient organization for the direction of reading, and in the best sense for popular instruction. To direct the reading for a period of years for so many thousands is to affect not only their present culture, but to increase their intellectual activity for the period of their natural lives, and thus, among other things, greatly to add to the range of their enjoyment. It appears to me that a system which can create such excellent results merits the most cordial praise from all lovers of men.
Colonel Francis W. Parker, Superintendent of Schools, first at Quincy, Mass., and later at Chicago, one of the leading educators of the land, gave this testimony, after his visit to Chautauqua:
The New York Chautauqua—father and mother of all the other Chautauquas in the country—is one of the great institutions founded in the nineteenth century. It is essentially a school for the people.
Prof. Hjalmar H. Boyesen, of Columbia University, wrote:
Nowhere else have I had such a vivid sense of contact with what is really and truly American. The national physiognomy was defined to me as never before; and I saw that it was not only instinct with intelligence, earnestness, and indefatigable aspiration, but that it revealed a strong affinity for all that makes for righteousness and the elevation of the race. The confident optimism regarding the future which this discovery fostered was not the least boon I carried away with me from Chautauqua.
Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, President of Wellesley College, expressed this opinion in a lecture at Chautauqua:
I could say nothing better than to say over and over again the great truths Chautauqua has taught to everyone, that if you have a rounded, completed education you have put yourselves in relation with all the past, with all the great life of the present; you have reached on to the infinite hope of the future.
I venture to say there is no man or woman educating himself or herself through Chautauqua who will not feel more and more the opportunity of the present moment in a present world.
The character of Chautauqua's training has been that she has made us wiser than we were about things that last.
Rev. Charles M. Sheldon, author of In His Steps, a story of which three million copies were sold, said:
During the past two years I have met nearly a million people from the platform, and no audiences have impressed me as have the Chautauqua people for earnestness, deep purpose, and an honest desire to face and work out the great issues of American life.
This is from the Rev. Robert Stuart MacArthur, the eminent Baptist preacher:
I regard the Chautauqua Idea as one of the most important ideas of the hour. This idea, when properly utilized, gives us a "college at home." It is a genuine inspiration toward culture, patriotism, and religion. The general adoption of this course for a generation would give us a new America in all that is noblest in culture and character.
Dr. Edward Everett Hale, of Boston, Chaplain of the United States Senate, in his Tarry At Home Travels, wrote:
If you have not spent a week at Chautauqua, you do not know your own country. There, and in no other place known to me, do you meet Baddeck and Newfoundland and Florida and Tiajuara at the same table; and there you are of one heart and one soul with the forty thousand people who will drift in and out—people all of them who believe in God and their country.
More than a generation ago, the name of Joseph Cook was known throughout the continent as a thinker, a writer, and a lecturer. This is what he wrote of Chautauqua:
I keep Chautauqua in a fireside nook of my inmost affections and prayers. God bless the Literary and Scientific Circle, which is so marvelously successful already in spreading itself as a young vine over the trellis-work of many lands! What rich clusters may ultimately hang on its cosmopolitan branches! It is the glory of America that it believes that all that anybody knows everybody should know.
Phillips Brooks, perhaps the greatest of American preachers, spoke as follows in a lecture on "Literature and Life":
May we not believe—if the students of Chautauqua be indeed what we have every right to expect that they will be, men and women thoroughly and healthily alive through their perpetual contact with the facts of life—that when they take the books which have the knowledge in them, like pure water in silver urns, though they will not drink as deeply, they will drink more healthily than many of those who in the deader and more artificial life of college halls bring no such eager vitality to give value to their draught? If I understand Chautauqua, this is what it means: It finds its value in the vitality of its students. . . . It summons those who are alive with true human hunger to come and learn of that great world