ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT LEWIS MILLER.
Chautauquans:—In these days of popular education, it may be profitable to examine the different sources of culture and development. First among these are books—the treasures that lie hidden in them may well awaken our inquiry and admiration, may well be worth the many hours of toil spent in preparing the mind, so that it can converse with the masters of the past and present. I do not wonder at hunger after the hidden treasures of books, for in them are power, wealth and pleasure. We need but watch the interested audiences that gather in this Amphitheater, to realize the power there is in the rostrum, how in all ages peoples have been confirmed or changed in their opinions by that mere persuasive power of words. Your mind now runs over the histories you have studied, and you recall the orators who, through the power of speech alone, have revolutionized empires, advanced or checked civilization. What pleasure to the mind and heart, to be able in our leisure hours to sit with Herodotus, Macaulay, Motley, Bancroft, and a host of others, and hear them tell their historic stories! or with David, Homer, Shakspere, Whittier and Bryant, and let them fill our minds with the beautiful and soothing words of poetry! Does not art, in a still more condensed form, give us the history of the nations of the past? Does it not give us a clearer idea of thought? What descriptive words could give us so clear a view of the golden candlestick, around which clusters so much of interest to the Bible student, as can be had by a look at the plaster mould of the arch of Titus, in the Museum? What more rapidly moulds, and more powerfully influences, the present age than do the pictures on the walls, and the books in the libraries of our homes?
May I venture to bring before your mind that other phase of art, known as the mechanic art? That art, on which the educator has placed so small an estimate that when an apparently dull boy is found in the school or family, he is turned over to it, in the notion that stupidity can here find subsistence and compensation.
Now, give this art the power to express itself in words and in the fine arts, and I will bring back to you the days of Raphael and Michael Angelo, in which thought was expressed in words and on canvas and stone, in such purity that the student in the schools of to-day is carried back to these times, to study the perfection and beauty of expression. In the line of a better educated labor lies the settlement of the great labor question. Will it be as Garfield suggests, for Chautauqua to provide not only for the leisure, but secure the leisure by some system of education that will make it possible?
If by any means the mental energies can be combined with the muscles, the product of labor will be greatly increased, and the time producing the same quantity lessened. Struggling labor hardly sees that in the short space of about thirty years the time has been lessened from thirteen and fourteen hours to ten hours per day, and the wages enhanced from fifty and seventy-five cents per day to an average of two dollars per day. In most of the prominent manufacturing establishments throughout the North we are at a near approach to a reduction of time to eight hours—and may God speed the day. Take the advance in quantity of products for ten years only, and by the aid of machinery, and more intelligent labor, we have gained more than two hours. Why should not labor get its due proportion? We are fast turning the drudgery of labor to pleasure. You need but visit the dish-washing and laundry-rooms at the Hotel Athenæum to witness the truth of what I state.
Some years ago I made an estimate of the number of inhabitants it would require to do by hard labor that which was done at that time by twelve thousand inhabitants by the use of steam and water power. It reached the enormous number of three hundred thousand inhabitants. From this we may learn that it will not be a great hardship to give to labor more leisure and more pay, not rashly as by strikes, but by prudent and gradual measures.
Ah, the wealth of nations rests in this art! The power to subdue forests and belt empires with railroads and telegraphs, and ignore distance is in its hands.
This art sends forth its missionary in its manufactured products to all quarters of the globe; every different product is a copy of a volume on some subject, carrying with it some Christian’s impress and prayer. So true is this that it needs no great expert to tell an article made by Christian hands from that made by heathen.
This power of the individuality impresses with interest and wonder. How readily thoughts in words are detected from others, even on the same subject. Every workman of a manufactured article in some such sense makes his individual impress on the work he performs, and it is as readily told. The Christian, liberty-loving intelligence is pressed into every article and sent forth on its mission of preaching the gospel to every creature, even gaining entrance where the missionary is refused. With this truth in mind, with what renewed pleasure must the liberated laborer make still greater impress of his individual mind. This thought can be carried into all that we do. Our walk, our talk, and the expression of our faces all enter into our products of whatever kind. How important that it should be imbued with the spirit of intelligent Christianity.
Class of ’83, you have only opened the doors to wider range, to fields of greater usefulness. All about you lie sleeping elements to be quickened into activity. Have your accumulated mental development well stored, and constantly add more. The purpose of the study was more to create an appetite for knowledge than to give a thorough or finished education.
We are glad as officers of the C. L. S. C. to present you with diplomas having places for many seals. May there be no laxity of effort until the crowning seal will emblazon over the whole its rays.
The Rev. Dr. Vincent said:
A large number of salutations from members of the C. L. S. C. have been received, some of them breathing a simple prayer of benediction on the Circle and its officers, others testifying to the value of the Circle to them intellectually, socially, and spiritually; many are too long to read at this time, but every line has been carefully read by the Superintendent of Instruction, and a few of the sentences are here reported:
From Sacramento, Cal.: “We long to be with you at the Assembly; but since we can not be, be assured that as we read of Commencement Day our hearts beat in sympathy with those of the C. L. S. C.”
From Washington, D. C.: “Hearty thanks for so splendid an opportunity of living more abundantly, as I have enjoyed through the noble conception and sensible management of the C. L. S. C. I hope to add many of its seals to my diploma.”
From St. Paul, Minn.: “The day in which ’83 passes through the Golden Gate you, who are present amidst the jubilee, will most likely forget the distant ones; but I for one will put on my C. L. S. C. badge, take out two faded maple leaves, kept in remembrance of last summer, and in imagination march with the proud class under the Arches, while I will pray the good Lord to bless Chautauqua.”
From Brooklyn, N. Y.: “The salutation, as recorded in Malachi iii:16, ‘Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it; and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name.’”
From San Francisco: A New Yorker writes: “I found The Chautauquan on a planter’s table in the Sandwich Islands, and learned of a circle in Honolulu.”
A member writes: “The royal road to learning is no terra incognita. Our route en roi is called via Chautauqua.”
From Amsterdam, N. Y.: A poem closes:
“I would like very much to Chautauqua to go;
It would certainly give me great joy;
But my duties are such that I linger at home:
I’ve a year-old Chautauqua boy.”
From Elkhorn, Wis.: One who sees through the lenses of the C. L. S. C., the Chautauqua University of the future, writes: “In 1904, A. D., I shall be fifty years old. At that time I hope to graduate at the Chautauqua University. This will give me just twenty-five years from the beginning of my course in 1876 to complete the work, and I intend to work diligently every year.”
From Massachusetts: “Language would be left a beggar if I were to tell you all that the C. L. S. C. has been to me. It has been a song and a poem, when life was beginning to read like prose. It has been sunshine on many a cloudy day. God bless our alma mater, and make her days long in the land.”
From New York: “When the history of the successful men and women of the next generation shall be written, may it be found that the members of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle of 1883 are among the number.”
From Santa Barbara, Cal., comes the greeting of Mrs. M. P. Austin, who prays that “the C. L. S. C. may do as much for others as it has done for me.”
From St. Paul, Minn., a graduate writes: “Although in middle life, I have rejoiced like a child at the prospect of graduating. My studies have been precious to me; and, although I have carried them on alone, the enthusiasm has never grown less. May I boast of the dozen recruits whom I have brought into the work, not for the name of it, but because I want everybody to be benefited as I have been. Saturday will find me in a white dress and blue ribbon, and I shall try to catch the spirit which ascends to our Father, and have something of the blessings which are invoked upon the graduates of that day. May his blessed spirit be with you, and may he be precious not only to them who believe, but to many who never before have called on his name.”
From Massachusetts a member writes: “I have heard this objection to the C. L. S. C., that it leads to neglect of Bible study. My personal experience has been that I never spent more time in Bible study or loved it more than during the past four years.”
From Dakota a mother writes: “Although my boy is but eleven years old, he has done the greater part of my reading this year, and dear little Maggie, nine years of age, is greatly interested in what she calls mamma’s course. She also often reads for me, patiently spelling out the hard words.”
William C. Wilkinson, of Tarrytown, New York, writes:
“I send greeting, congratulation and God-speed to the class of 1883. A persistence on your part of four years in a course of volunteer reading and study has not only created character in you, but also proved that you possessed character to begin with. It was not perfectly easy for you to do what you have done. There have been times, more than once, during these four years, when the temptation was strong to abandon your undertaking. But you did not abandon it, simply because you would not abandon it. Your will was strong enough to overcome the strong temptation. Now your will is stronger for having been strong. Go forward in this added strength to add strength again. The will conquers by conquering, until it becomes at length unconquerable. Conquer is a proud word. Let us change it and say something meeker and truer. Let us say, obey. We conquer only when we obey. You have obeyed your conscience in accomplishing your appointed course. That obedience is your victory. When the will is perfectly obedient to conscience, conscience being at the same time perfectly enlightened by the Word and by the Spirit of God, then we are omnipotent. We reign then with Christ. All things are ours. Go on, alumni of Chautauqua. Carry forward the banner. Let it float in your hands ever farther and higher. I do not say plant it anywhere. I say bear it onward and upward. There is always, amid the Alps of our glorious endeavor and struggle, a peak above and beyond. Climb that, and then—forward still. The goal is never attained, but the race itself is better than would be rest at the goal. Remember the ranks that are behind you, year after year, in the future. Give them a generous lead. Remember the one pioneer rank in advance of you. Tread close on their heels. Follow, so that it will be hard for your leaders to lead. Lead, so that it will be hard for your followers to follow.
“God bless and crown the Class of 1883!
“W. C. Wilkinson.”
Bishop Henry W. Warren writes:
“Top of the Rocky Mountains, August 1, 1883.
“Dear Chautauquans:—Pausing to take a farewell look at the Atlantic slope before going down that of the Pacific, my mind passes over many a place of interest and rests on Chautauqua. There is no more interesting place on the continent. How many faces rise for recognition! But I can not indulge in personal greetings, for the friends are so many and so dear that time would fail me to speak of the institution that is the outcome of the inspiration and labor of all these friends. William Cullen Bryant said Chautauqua exemplified the spirit of mutual encouragement. President Garfield said that it taught what to do with the result of civilization’s first fight, leisure; and Bishop Wiley said it was a Christian center, able to save the gospel if there was nothing else left.
“Unquestionably, Chautauqua is the grandest inspiration and quickening of mind in this century or any other. It is the consummate flavoring of our Christian republican principles. It offers all opportunities for growth to all men. It seems to present as good a chance to every man as comes to any man. This development of mind is our chief wealth. We turn auriferous quartz into coin, iron ore into a body for the soul of electricity, but mind had to be developed and refined first. Rome sought wealth by the robbery of other nations, but she never gained as much wealth in a decade as we develop from nature in a year. What we need as a nation is a perpetual push and effort of the masses of men to rise. They drag down none of the few that are already eminent, but, by surpassing them, incite to greater attainments. Let there be no fear that there will be too many great men, or men too great. These vast glittering snow-peaks about me find room enough, as well as the mole hills. ‘There is always room at the top,’ for the top is larger than the bottom, as these bending heavens are larger than the earth, and eternity longer than time.
“Would that I could set one of these mountains near Chautauqua and let its grassy base, its wooded slopes, its masses of ore, its glittering crown of glorious light say to every beholder: Here is an object lesson worthy of God’s giving to his child, here is a symbol of the eternal power of the God-head of your Father, here are hints of what his child may be. All things are for all men; whosoever will, let him come and take.
“Dear members of the C. L. S. C. of 1883, I commend you to the baccalaureate sermon of Dr. Vincent to-morrow for higher and grander utterances than these heights can give; to Dr. Abbott also for grander foundations than those of these mountains; even those of the Christian faith, for the mountains shall melt with fervent heat, but the word of God standeth forever.
“Yours in Christian knowledge and faith,
“Henry W. Warren.”
Dr. Vincent then read the following:
Let Framingham Chautauqua hail,
The child the mother greet!
O’er intervening hill and dale,
Oh, courier, be fleet!
Say, “Brothers, fellow-students, friends,
Ne’er turn to look behind;
For they whose pathway upward tends,
The sun-crowned summits find.
“The outlook broadens, even now,
A vision rare and grand;
Hope in each heart, light on each brow,
Join welcome hand to hand!
“And while the kindly grasp gives strength,
Repeat along the line:
‘We’ll turn from earthly lore, at length
Beloved, to things divine.
“‘Bright with perennial health and youth,
When that glad time shall be,
Our guide the way, the life, the truth,
Immortal pupils we!’”
After the reading of the congratulations and greetings, Dr. Vincent and President Miller presented the members of class ’83, present at Chautauqua, their well-earned diplomas. Out of this wonderful class of graduates, numbering nearly 1,400, over 300 were present. The class has representatives in all of the following States and Territories:
California, Maine, Virginia, Florida, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Maryland, Iowa, Illinois, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Kansas, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Connecticut, Missouri, District of Columbia, New Hampshire, Colorado, Dakota, Kentucky.
Canada is also represented, and in far-away China there is one graduate. Thirteen different denominations are represented, as follows: Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, Episcopal, Baptist, Christian, United Presbyterian, Reformed, Unitarian, Universalist, Friends, Roman Catholics, Seventh-day Baptists.
The following occupations were represented: Teachers, housekeepers, ministers, lawyers, clerks, students, mechanics, farmers, merchants, dressmakers, milliners, music-teachers, and stenographers.