CHAPTER VI
THE NATIONAL CENTENNIAL YEAR
The founders of Chautauqua looked forward to its third session with mingled interest and anxiety. It was the centennial year of American Independence, and an exposition was opening in Philadelphia, far more noteworthy in its buildings and exhibits than any previous effort in the annals of the nation. The World's Fair in the Crystal Palace of New York, in 1855, the first attempt in America to hold an universal exposition, was a pigmy compared with the immense display in the park of Philadelphia on the centennial year. Could the multitudes from every State and from foreign lands be attracted from Philadelphia five hundred miles to Chautauqua Lake? Had the quest of the American people for new interests been satisfied by two years at the Assembly? Would it be the wiser course in view of the competition to hold merely a modest little gathering at Fair Point, or to venture boldly upon greater endeavors than ever before; to enlarge the program, to advertise more widely, and to compel attention to the new movement? Anyone who knew the adventurous, aspiring nature of both Miller and Vincent would unhesitatingly answer these questions.
The Assembly of 1876 was planned upon a larger scale than ever before. The formal opening took place on Tuesday evening, August 1st, in the forest-sheltered Auditorium, but two gatherings were held in advance and a third after its conclusion, so that the entire program embraced twenty-four days instead of seventeen.
The first meeting was the Scientific Conference, July 26th to 28th, aiming both to present science from the Christian point of view, and Christianity from the scientific point of view, showing the essential harmony between them, without either subjecting conclusions of science to church-authority or cutting up the Bible at the behest of the scientists. There had been frequent battles between the theologians and the students of nature and the "conflict of science and religion" had been strongly in evidence, ever since the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Most pulpits had uttered their thunders against "Darwinism," even though some of the pulpiteers had never read Darwin's book, nor could have understood it if they had tried. And many professors who had never listened to a gospel sermon, and rarely opened their Bibles, had launched lightnings at the camp of the theologians. But here was something new; a company of scholars including Dr. R. Ogden Doremus of New York, Professor A. S. Lattimore of Rochester, Dr. Alexander Winchell of Michigan, and others of equal standing, on the same platform with eminent preachers, and no restraint on either side, each free to utter his convictions, and all certain that the outcome would be peace and not war.
The writer of these pages was present at most of those lectures, and remembers one instance showing that the province of science is in the past and the present and not in the future. Dr. Doremus was giving some brilliant experiments in the newer developments of electricity. Be it remembered that it was the year 1876, and in the Centennial Exposition of that year there was neither an automobile, a trolley-car, nor an electric light. He said, "I will now show you that remarkable phenomenon—the electric light. Be careful not to gaze at it too steadily, for it is apt to dazzle the beholder and may injure the eyesight." Then as an arc-light of a crude sort flashed and sputtered, and fell and rose again only to sputter and fall, the lecturer said, "Of course, the electric light is only an interesting experiment, a sort of toy to amuse spectators. Every effort to utilize it has failed, and always will fail. The electric light in all probability will never be of any practical value."
Yet at that very time, Thomas A. Edison in Menlo Park, New Jersey, was perfecting his incandescent light, and only three years later, 1879, Chautauqua was illuminated throughout by electricity. When the scientist turns prophet he becomes as fallible as the preacher who assumes to prescribe limitations to scientific discovery. We live in an age of harmony and mutual helpfulness between science and religion; and Chautauqua has wrought mightily in bringing to pass the new day.
It is worthy of mention that Chautauqua holds a connecting link with "the wizard of Llewellyn Park" and his electric light; for some years later Mr. Edison married Miss Mina Miller, daughter of the Founder Lewis Miller. The Miller family, Founder, sons, daughters, and grandchildren, have maintained a deep interest in Chautauqua; and the Swiss Cottage at the head of Miller Park has every year been occupied. Representatives of the Miller family are always members of the Board of Trustees.
Rustic Bridge over Ravine
After the Scientific Conference came a Temperance Congress, on July 29th and 30th. A new star had arisen in the firmament. Out of a little meeting at Chautauqua in 1874, had grown the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, already in 1876 organized in every State and in pretty nearly every town. Its founders had chosen for President of the Union a young woman who combined in one personality the consummate orator and the wise executive, Miss Frances Elizabeth Willard of Evanston, Illinois, who resigned her post as Dean of the Woman's Department of the Northwestern University to enter upon an arduous, a lifelong and world-wide warfare to prohibit intoxicants, and as a means to that end, to obtain the suffrage for women. Frances Willard died in 1898, but if she could have lived until 1920 she would have seen both her aims accomplished in the eighteenth and nineteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United States; one forbidding the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic liquors, the other opening the door of the voting-booth to every woman in the land. In Statuary Hall, Washington, the only woman standing in marble is Frances E. Willard (there will be others later), and her figure is there among the statesmen and warriors of the nation's history, by vote of the Legislature of the State of Illinois.
At every step in the progress of Chautauqua the two Founders held frequent consultations. Both of them belonged to the progressive school of thought, but on some details they differed, and woman's sphere was one of their points of disagreement. Miller favored women on the Fair Point platform, but Vincent was in doubt on the subject. Of course some gifted women came as teachers of teachers in the primary department of the Sunday School, but on the program their appearance was styled a "Reception to Primary Teachers by Mrs. or Miss So-and-So." Dr. Vincent knew Frances E. Willard, admired her, believed honestly that she was one of the very small number of women called to speak in public, and he consented to her coming to Chautauqua in the Temperance Congress of 1876. From the hour of her first appearance there was never after any doubt as to her enthusiastic welcome at Chautauqua. No orator drew larger audiences or bound them under a stronger spell by eloquent words than did Frances Elizabeth Willard. Frances Willard was the first but by no means the last woman to lecture on the Chautauqua platform. Mrs. Mary A. Livermore soon followed her, and before many summers had passed, Dr. Vincent was introducing to the Chautauqua constituency women as freely as men, to speak on the questions of the time.
Another innovation began on this centennial season—The Chautauqua Assembly Herald. For two years the Assembly had been dependent upon reports by newspaper correspondents, who came to the ground as strangers, with no share in the Chautauqua spirit, knowing very little of Chautauqua's aims, and eager for striking paragraphs rather than accurate records. A lecturer who is wise never reads the report of his speech in the current newspapers; for he is apt to tear his hair in anguish at the tale of his utterances. Chautauqua needed an organ, and Dr. Theodore L. Flood, from the first a staunch friend of the movement, undertook to establish a daily paper for the season. The first number of the Herald appeared on June 29, 1876, with Dr. Flood as editor, and Mr. Milton Bailey of Jamestown as publisher. The opening number was published in advance of the Assembly and sent to Chautauquans everywhere; but the regular issue began on July 29th with the Scientific Conference, and was continued daily (except Sunday) until the close of the Assembly. Every morning sleepers (who ought to have arisen earlier in time for morning prayers at 6:40) were awakened by the shrill voices of boys calling out "Daily Assembly Herald!" The Daily was a success from the start, for it contained accurate and complete reports of the most important lectures, outlines of the Normal lessons, and the items of information needed by everybody. All over the land people who could not come to Chautauqua kept in touch with its life through the Herald. More than one distinguished journalist began his editorial career in the humble quarters of The Chautauqua Daily Assembly Herald. For two seasons the Daily was printed in Mayville, though edited on the ground. In 1878 a printing plant was established at the Assembly and later became the Chautauqua Press. Almost a generation after its establishment, its name was changed to The Chautauquan Daily, which throughout the year is continued as The Chautauquan Weekly, with news of the Chautauqua movement at home and abroad.
Visitors to Chautauqua in the centennial year beheld for the first time a structure which won fame from its inhabitants if not from its architecture. This was the Guest House, standing originally on the lake shore near the site of the present Men's Club building; though nobody remembers it by its official name, for it soon became known as "The Ark." No, gentle reader, the report is without foundation that this was the original vessel in which Noah traveled with his menagerie, and that after reposing on Mount Ararat it went adrift on Lake Chautauqua. "The Ark" was built to provide a comfortable home for the speakers and workers at the Assembly who for two years had been lodged in tents, like the Israelites in the Wilderness. It was a frame building of two stories, shingle-roofed, with external walls and internal partitions of tent-cloth. Each room opened upon a balcony, the stairs to the upper floor being on the outside and the entire front of each cell a curtain, which under a strong wind was wont to break loose, regardless of the condition of the people inside. After a few years a partition between two rooms at one end was taken down, a chimney and fireplace built, and the result was a living room where the arkites assembled around a fire and told stories. Ah, those noctes ambrosianæ when Edward Everett Hale and Charles Barnard and Sherwin and the Beards narrated yarns and cracked jokes! Through the thin partitions of the bedrooms, every sneeze could be heard. The building was soon dubbed Noah's Ark, then "Knowers' Ark," from the varied learning of its indwellers; and sometimes from the reverberations sounding at night, "Snorers' Ark." Frank Beard was a little deaf, and was wont to sit at these conversazioni in the parlor of the Ark with his hand held like an ear-trumpet. Mrs. Beard used to say that whenever she wished to hold a private conversation with him, they hired a boat and rowed out at least a mile from the shore. When the Assembly enlarged its boundaries by a purchase of land, the Ark was moved up to higher ground in the forest near where the Normal Hall now stands, and there served almost a generation of Chautauqua workers, until its frail materials were in danger of collapse, and it was taken down. Less famous buildings have been kept in memory by tablets and monuments; but it would require no small slab of marble to contain the names of the famous men and women who dwelt in that old Guest House; and what a book might have been made if some Boswell had kept the record of its stories and sayings! After spending two nights in the Ark, the Rev. Alfred Taylor's poetic muse was aroused to sing of the place and its occupants after this fashion:
This structure of timber and muslin contained
Of preachers and teachers some two or three score;
Of editors, parsons a dozen or more.
There were Methodists, Baptists, and 'Piscopals, too
And grave Presbyterians, a handful or two.
There were lawyers, and doctors and various folks,
All full of their wisdom, and full of their jokes.
There were writers of lessons, and makers of songs,
And shrewd commentators with wonderful tongues;
And all of these busy, industrious men
Found it hard to stop talking at just half-past ten.
They talked, and they joked, and they kept such a clatter
That neighboring folks wondered what was the matter
But weary at last, they extinguished the light,
And went to their beds for the rest of the night.
The formal opening of the Assembly in 1876 took place after the Scientific and Temperance gatherings, on Tuesday evening, August 1st, in the leaf-roofed Auditorium, but the benches were now provided with backs for the comfort of the thousands. The platform had been enlarged to make room for a choir, under the leadership in turn of W. F. Sherwin and Philip P. Bliss, whose gospel songs are still sung around the world. Only a few months later, that voice was hushed forever on earth, when the train bearing the singer and his wife crashed through a broken bridge at Ashtabula, Ohio. The record of that evening shows that fifteen speakers gave greetings, supposedly five minutes in length, although occasionally the flow of language overpassed the limit. Among the speakers we read the names of Dr. Henry M. Sanders of New York, Mr. John D. Wattles of the Sunday School Times, Dr. Henry W. Warren of Philadelphia, soon to become a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, Dr. C. F. Burr, the author of Ecce CĹ“lum, a book of astronomy ministering to religion, famous in that day, though almost forgotten in our time; Dr. Lyman Abbott, who came before the audience holding up his pocket-Bible, with the words, "I am here to-night, because here this book is held in honor," Dr. Warren Randolph, the head of Sunday School work among the Baptist churches, and Mr. A. O. Van Lennep, in Syrian costume and fez-cap. He made two speeches, one in Arabic, the other in English.
Normal work for Sunday School teachers was kept well in the foreground. The subjects of the course were divided into departments, each under a director, who chose his assistants. Four simultaneous lessons were given in the section tents, reviewed later in the day by the directors at a meeting of all the classes in the pavilion. In addition, Dr. Vincent held four public platform reviews, covering the entire course. The record states that about five hundred students were present daily in the Normal department. About one hundred undertook the final examinations for membership in the Normal Alumni Association. The writer of these pages well remembers those hours in the pavilion, for he was one of those examined, and Frank Beard was another. The first question on the paper was, "What is your name and address?" Mr. Beard remarked audibly, that he was glad he could answer at least one of the questions. To dispel the doubts of our readers, we remark that both of us passed, and were duly enrolled among the Normal Alumni.
| Amphitheater Audience | |
| On the Lake | By the Lake |
| Tennis Courts | |
| In the Lake | |
Transcriber's Note: Clicking on this image will provide a larger image for more detail.
The list of the lecturers and their subjects show that Bible study and Bible teaching still stood at the fore. The program contained with many others the following names: Dr. W. E. Knox on "The Old Testament Severities," Dr. Lyman Abbott, "Bible Interpretation," Dr. R. K. Hargrove of Tennessee, later a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, "Childhood and the Sunday School Work," Dr. George P. Hays, then President of Washington and Jefferson College, "How to Reason," Frank Beard, a caricature lecture with crayon on "Our School," showing types of teachers and scholars, Dr. George W. Woodruff, a most entertaining lecture on "Bright Days in Foreign Lands," Dr. A. J. Baird of Tennessee, "Going Fishing with Peter," Rev. J. A. Worden, "What a Presbyterian Thinks of John Wesley,"—a response to Rev. J. L. Hurlbut's lecture in 1875 on "What a Methodist Thinks of John Knox,"—Prof. L. T. Townsend, "Paul's Cloak Left at Troas"; also Dr. Richard Newton, M. C. Hazard, editor of the National Sunday School Teacher, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher of Elmira, and Bishop Jesse T. Peck. These are a few samples of the repast spread on the lecture platform of the Assembly.
The Centennial of American Independence was duly commemorated on Saturday, August 5th. Bishop Simpson had been engaged to deliver the oration, but was kept at home by illness and the hour was filled with addresses by different speakers, one of whom, Mr. W. Aver Duncan of London, presented the congratulations of Old England to her daughter across the sea. A children's centennial was held in the afternoon, at which the writer of this story spoke, and Frank Beard drew funny pictures. We will not tell, though we know, which of the two orators pleased the children most. At the sunset hour an impressive Bible service was held on the shore of the lake by Professor Sherwin, followed in the Auditorium by a concert of slave-songs from "The North Carolinians," a troupe of negro college students. Late in the evening came a gorgeous display on the lake, the Illuminated Fleet. Every steam vessel plying Chautauqua waters marched in line, led by the old three-decker Jamestown all hung with Chinese lanterns, and making the sky brilliant with fireworks. A week later there was a commemorative tree-planting on the little park in the angle between the present Post Office building and the Colonnade. President Lewis Miller, Dr. C. H. Payne, President of Ohio Wesleyan University, Drs. Vail and Strong, teachers of Hebrew and Greek at the Assembly, Drs. O. H. Tiffany, T. K. Beecher, Richard Newton, J. A. Worden, Beard and Sherwin, Dr. Wythe, builder of Palestine Park and Director of Recreations at the Assembly, and Prof. P. P. Bliss were some, but not all of those who planted trees. Afterward each tree was marked by a sign bearing the name of its planter. These signs were lost in the process of the years, and not all the trees are now living. I think that I can identify the tree planted by Frank Beard, but am not sure of any other in the little group remaining at the present time.
A noteworthy event at the Assembly of 1876 was the establishment of the Children's Meeting as a daily feature. Meetings for the younger people had been held from time to time in '74 and '75 but this year Frank Beard suggested a regular "Children's Hour," and the meetings were at first conducted by him, mingling religion and humor. Underneath his fun, Mr. Beard had a serious soul. He read strong books, talked with his friends on serious subjects, always sought to give at least one illustrated Bible reading during the Assembly, and resented the popular expectation that he should be merely the funny man on the program. He was assisted in his children's meeting by the Rev. Bethuel T. Vincent, a brother of the Founder, who was one of the most remarkable teachers of children and young people whom I have ever known. He could arrange the facts of Bible knowledge in outline, could present them in a striking manner, and drill them into the minds of the boys and girls in an enduring way that few instructors could equal and none surpass. Before many sessions, Mr. Vincent's lesson became the major feature and Beard's pictures the entertainment of the meeting. The grown-ups came to the meetings in such numbers as threatened to crowd out the children, until the rule was made that adults must take the rear seats,—no exception being made even for the row of ear-trumpets—leaving the front to the little people. Following the custom of the Normal Class, an examination in writing that would tax the brains of many ministers was held at the close, limited to all below a certain age, and prizes were awarded to the best papers presented. As after forty years I read the list of graduates in those early classes, I find the names of men and women who have distinguished themselves as ministers and missionaries in the churches.
Early in the Assembly season, on August 7, 1876, a momentous step was taken in the appointment by the instructors and students of the Normal Class, of a committee to prepare a course of study for the preparation of Sunday School teachers. Eleven men, present at Chautauqua, representing ten different denominations, were chosen as the committee, and their report constituted the first attempt at a union normal course. Hitherto each church had worked out its own independent course of study, and the lines laid down were exceedingly divergent. This new course prescribed forty lessons, a year's work divided between the study of the Bible, the Sunday School, the pupil, and the principles of teaching. Comparing it with the official course now adopted by the International Sunday School Association, we find it for a year's study remarkably complete and adapted to the teacher's needs. For years it stood as the basis of the teacher-training work at Chautauqua, was followed in the preparation of text-books and pursued by many classes in the United States and Canada.
The Centennial Year marked a note of progress in the music at the Assembly. Up to this time scarcely any music had been attempted outside of the church and Sunday School hymnals. This year the choir was larger than before, perhaps as many as forty voices—think of that in contrast with the three hundred now assembled in the choir-gallery of the Amphitheater! Some anthems had been attempted, but no oratorios, and no songs of the secular character. It was Professor C. C. Case who ventured with the doubtful permission of Dr. Vincent to introduce at a concert some selections from standard music outside the realm of religion. Nobody objected, perhaps because nobody recognized the significance of the step taken; and it was not long before the whole world of music was open to Chautauquans.
This writer remembers, however, that when at an evening lecture, Dr. Vincent announced as a prelude "Invitation to the Dance," sung by a quartette of ladies, he received next day a letter of protest against so immoral a song at a religious gathering. If it had been sung without announcement of its title, no one would have objected. On the following evening, Dr. Vincent actually offered a mild apology for the title. Since that time, the same title has been printed on the Chautauqua program, and the song encored by five thousand people. Surely, "the world do move!"
Another step in the advancement of Chautauqua was the incorporation of the Assembly. Up to this year, 1876, the old charter of the Erie Conference Camp Meeting Association had constituted the legal organization. On April 28, 1876, new articles of incorporation were signed at Mayville, the county seat, providing for twenty-four trustees of the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly. In the charter the object was stated "to hold stated public meetings from year to year upon the grounds at Fair Point in the County of Chautauqua for the furtherance of Sunday School interests and any other moral and religious purpose not inconsistent therewith." We note that the old name Fair Point was still used to designate the place of the Assembly. But it was for the last time; with the next year's program a new name will appear.
One of the first acts of the new Board was to purchase a large addition to the camp-meeting ground on its eastern border, and to lay out streets upon it. This section included the campus and site of the buildings that now adorn the College Hill. Some readers may inquire how the streets of the Assembly received their names. During the Camp Meeting period, the streets were named after Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church—Simpson Avenue, Janes Avenue, Merrill Avenue, and so on. Under the Assembly régime a few more bishops were thus remembered; the road winding around from Palestine Park to the land-gate on the public highway was called Palestine Avenue; Vincent Avenue ran straight up the hill past the old Dining Hall, Miller Avenue parallel with it on the west; and other streets later were named after prominent Chautauqua leaders. Wythe the first Secretary, Root, the first Vice-President, Massey, a family from Canada making liberal contributions, Miss Kimball, the efficient Executive Secretary of the Reading Circle, and a few other names in Chautauqua's annals. The visitor to the present-day Chautauqua smiles as he reads one of the earliest enactments of the new Board, a resolution to instruct the Superintendent of Grounds "to warn the person selling tobacco on the grounds that he is engaged in an unlawful occupation." We hasten to add that this anti-tobacco regulation is no longer in operation.
| Old Palace Hotel The Ark N. E. Kitchen | Oriental Group Tent-Life Group of Workers | Lake-Shore Old Dining Hall Woodland Path |
Transcriber's Note: Clicking on this image will provide a larger image for more detail.
The reader of this chapter perceives that the centennial year marked notable advancements at Chautauqua: a lengthened and broadened program, the establishing of a newspaper, the beginning of the daily Children's Meeting with a course of Bible study for the young, the organizing of a definite course for the training of Sunday School teachers, the incorporation of the Assembly with a full Board of Trustees, with the transfer of the property from the former camp-meeting proprietorship, and a purchase of ground doubling the extent of its territory. Chautauqua, only three years old is already, in Scripture phrase, lengthening its cords and strengthening its stakes.