CHAPTER X
THE SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
The year 1879 marked an extension in more than one direction of Chautauqua's plans and program. The season was lengthened to forty-three days, more than double the length of the earlier sessions. On July 17th began the classes in The Chautauqua Normal School of Languages, held in a rough board-walled, white-washed building, which had formerly been used as a lodging-house, but was no longer needed since cottages had opened their doors to guests. This may be regarded as the formal opening of the Chautauqua Summer Schools, although already classes had been held, some of them three years, others four years, in Greek, Hebrew, and kindergarten instruction. We will name the faculty of this year. Greek was taught by a native of Greece, Dr. T. T. Timayenis, of New York; Latin by Miss Emma M. Hall, of the Detroit High School, afterward a missionary-teacher in Rome, Italy; Prof. J. H. Worman, of Brooklyn, N. Y., taught German, never speaking one word of English in his classes, although a fluent speaker and author in English. Prof. A. Lalande was the teacher of the French language; Dr. Stephen M. Vail continued his classes in Hebrew, and Dr. James Strong in Greek; Prof. Bernhard Maimon of Chicago, taught Oriental languages; and Prof. A. S. Cook, then of Johns Hopkins, but soon afterward of Yale, conducted a class in the study of Anglo-Saxon language and literature. These studies were pursued from a fortnight before the formal opening of the Assembly until its close, making courses of six weeks, carried on in an intensive manner. Each professor pushed his department as though it were the only one in the school, and his students could scarcely find time to rest themselves by rowing on the lake or walking in the woods with their classmates.
Allied to the School of Languages was the Teachers' Retreat, opening at the same time but closing just before the Assembly proper. This was outside the realm of Sunday School instruction, being intended for secular teachers and presenting the principles and best methods of education. One of its leaders was Prof. J. W. Dickinson, Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, an enthusiast as well as a master. He had at his command a fund of witticisms and stories, always in the direct line of his teaching, which added not a little to the interest of his lectures. I was with him at the table for a fortnight, and his juicy talk made even a tough steak enjoyable. Associated with Dr. Dickinson were Prof. William F. Phelps of Minnesota, Dr. Joseph Alden of the State Normal School, Albany, N. Y., and Dr. John Hancock, President of the National Teachers' Association. In the following year, 1880, the School of Languages and Teachers' Retreat were united, and the Summer School program was again enlarged. Year by year new departments were added, until Chautauqua became a summer university, and such it continues to this day, offering more than two hundred courses, taught by nearly one hundred and fifty instructors. Perhaps the most popular courses have always been those in physical culture, pursued by teachers in public and private schools, enabled by Chautauqua to make their work in their home schools more efficient and extensive. One might spend weeks at Chautauqua, attending the lectures and concerts in the Amphitheater and the Hall, and enjoying the bathing and boating opportunities of the Lake, yet never realizing that on College Hill, and down at the Gymnasium, are nearly five thousand young men and young women diligently seeking the higher education.
A third sideline during this season of 1879 was the Foreign Mission Institute, held by missionary leaders of the Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist organizations, and addressed by missionaries at home from many lands. Chautauqua was a pioneer in bringing together representatives of different churches for conference upon their work of winning the world to Christ. This series of missionary councils has been continued without the omission of a year through all the history of Chautauqua since 1879.
The Sixth Chautauqua Assembly opened on its regular evening, the first Tuesday in August, 1879. The ravine which had been the seat of the Pavilion and birthplace of the C. L. S. C. had been transformed into a great auditorium of permanent materials and fairly comfortable seats for five thousand people. It was a great advance upon any of the earlier meeting places, and made it no longer necessary to carry one's umbrella to the lectures. But a heavy rain on the extensive roof would make even the largest-lunged orator inaudible, and the many wooden pillars supporting the roof had a fashion of getting themselves between the speaker and the hearers. Notwithstanding these minor drawbacks, it proved to be one of the best audience-halls in the land for large assemblies, for its acoustic properties were almost perfect. No speaker ever heard his words flung back to him by an echo, and the orator who knew how to use his voice could be heard almost equally well in every corner of the building. When Dr. Buckley stood for the first time upon its platform, and looked at its radiating and ascending seats, he said to Dr. Vincent, "This is a genuine amphitheater." The name was adopted, and the Amphitheater became the meeting place for all the popular lectures and the great Sunday services. Many were the distinguished speakers, men and women, who stood upon its platform, and as many singers whose voices enraptured throngs. At a popular concert almost as many seemed to be standing, crowded under the eaves, as were seated beneath the roof.
The old Amphitheater stood until 1897. In that year the building of the Massey Memorial Organ made some changes necessary. The old building was taken down, and a new Amphitheater arose in its place, having above it a trussed roof and supported from the sides, and no pillars obstructing the view. It has been said that the Chautauqua Amphitheater will seat ten thousand people, but a careful computation shows that fifty-five hundred, or at the utmost fifty-six hundred are its limit upon the benches, without chairs in the aisles. But another thousand, or even fifteen hundred may sometimes be seen standing back of its seats at a popular lecture or concert.
In the season of 1879, one of the leading speakers was an Englishman, the Rev. W. O. Simpson of the Wesleyan Church, who had been for some years a missionary in India. His graphic pictures of village life in that land were a revelation, for Kipling and his followers had not yet thrown the light of their genius upon the great peninsula and its people. Mr. Simpson was over six feet in height and large in every way, in voice as well as in girth. We all hoped to meet him yet many years at Chautauqua, for he seemed to be abounding in health. But a few months later we learned of his sudden death. In those years it was the Chautauqua custom to hold a memorial service for men prominent in the class-room or on the platform, and it fell to my lot to speak in 1880 upon the Rev. W. O. Simpson. I sent to England for printed matter relating to his life, and among the appreciative articles found one story which is worthy of remembrance.
When Mr. Simpson was a student of theology at the Wesleyan Theological School, he chanced one day to read the announcement of a lecture upon the Bible, and went to hear it. To his amazement he found himself at an infidel meeting, listening to a virulent attack upon the Holy Scriptures. In the middle of his lecture, the speaker said:
There are undoubtedly good things in the Bible, but anyone who is familiar with the ancient writers of Greece, and especially those of India, knows well, if he would tell the truth, that all the good things in the Bible were stolen from earlier scholars and sages, and were originally better spoken or written than by the so-called authors of the Bible, who took them at second-hand. If anybody here is prepared to deny that statement, let him stand up and say so!
Instantly this young student of theology stood up, six feet high, and at that time in his life very slim in his figure. That he might be seen readily he stood on the seat, and a fellow-student said that he loomed up apparently ten feet high. He held a little red-covered book, and stretching his long arm toward the speaker, said something like this:
I hold in my hand a copy of the New Testament, and I wish to say that in this little book, only a quarter of the Bible, you will find a clearer light on man's nature, and character, and destiny than may be read in all the ancient books of the world taken together.
He paused, seized the little volume with both hands, tore it in two parts, flung one part down to the floor, and still holding the rest of it, went on:
I have thrown aside one-half of this book, but this half contains the four gospels of our Lord, which will tell more what man may be here and will be hereafter than can be found in all the books of ancient Rome, or Greece, or Chaldea, or India, or China.
Then he tore out three leaves from the fragment, flung all the rest on the floor, and fluttering the torn pages, said:
These six pages contain Christ's Sermon on the Mount, setting forth a higher standard of righteousness, a clearer view of God, and a better knowledge of man's nature than all the other ancient books on earth. That is my answer to the speaker!
And leaving the torn book on the floor, he walked out of the room.
Other speakers in the new Amphitheater in the summer of 1879 were Dr. Henry W. Warren, in the next year a Bishop; Frank Beard, with his caricatures and stories; Dr. C. H. Fowler, Dr. Joseph Cook, Bishop Foster, Dr. Alexander A. Hodge, the Princeton theologian, Dr. John Lord, the historian, Hon. J. W. Wendling of Kentucky, who brought brilliant oratory to the service of Christianity in an eloquent lecture on "The Man of Galilee"; Prof. J. W. Churchill, one of the finest readers of his time; Dr. George Dana Boardman of Philadelphia; and Dr. Vincent himself, always greeted by the largest audiences. Let us say, once for all, that Dr. Buckley was a perennial visitor, with new lectures every year, and his ever-popular answers to the question-drawer. If there was a problem which he could not solve, he could always turn the tables on the questioner with a story or a retort.
One event of 1879 not to be passed over was the dedication of the Hall of Philosophy in St. Paul's Grove. Dr. Vincent suggested the plan of the building, to be set apart for the uses of the C. L. S. C. and the interests of general culture. As everybody who has been to Chautauqua knows, it was in the form of a Greek temple, an open building surrounded by plain columns, which may have resembled marble, but were made of wood. The dedication was held on August 5th, and addresses were given by Dr. Vincent, Rev. W. O. Simpson, and Dr. Ellinwood. There are thousands of Chautauquans, some of them dwelling in distant lands, who are ready to declare that in all the week, the most precious hour was that of the five o'clock Vesper Service on Sunday afternoon, when the long rays of the setting sun fell upon the assemblage, as they sang "Day is dying in the West," and they united in that prayer of Thomas à Kempis, beginning, "In all things, O my soul, thou shalt rest in the Lord always, for He is the everlasting rest of the saints."
In the fall and winter of 1891 this writer was the traveling companion of Bishop Vincent in Europe. Every Sunday afternoon at five o'clock, whether on the Atlantic, or in London, Lucerne, Florence, or Naples, we brought out our copies of the vesper service and read it together, feeling that in spirit we were within the columns of that Hall in the Grove.
This year, 1879, the second year of the C. L. S. C., brought to its Founder a problem which threatened the ruin of the circle, but in its happy solution proved to be a powerful element in its success. This was to be the Roman Year of the course, and in the original conception the Pioneer Class of 1882 would take up Roman history, while the new class of 1883 would begin as its predecessor had begun, with English history. If this plan had been carried out, as announced in the early circulars for that year's study, then in every church and community two classes must be organized and conducted with different readings. Another year would require three circles, and still another four circles. Could members and leaders be found for four separate clubs in one locality? Would not the circle break up into fragments from the weight of the machinery needed to keep the wheel in motion? Just then came the suggestion—made by President Lewis Miller, as Dr. Vincent told me at the time—that both the classes should read the books together, making the same course the second year for the Pioneers, and the first year's reading of "the Vincents," as the members of '83 named themselves. In a college there is a progression of studies, for one science must follow another; but in the Chautauqua Circle, it makes no difference whether the reader begins with the history of Greece or of Rome, or of England, or of America. New members can enter any year and read with those already reading. The Circle is a railroad train on a track with four stations. You can board the train in England, America, or Greece or Rome, and when you have gone the round and reached the station where you began, you have completed the course and receive your certificate ornamented with all the seals that you have won by additional reading and study. The present four-year cycle of the C. L. S. C. consists of the English, American, Classical, and Modern European years.
Baptist Headquarters and Mission House
Presbyterian Headquarters and Mission House
One more event of 1879 must not be forgotten. The Park of Palestine had fallen into decrepitude. Some of its mountains had sunk down, and the course of the River Jordan had become clogged up, so there was danger of a lake at a spot where none was on the map, and of a dry bed below, long after the Israelites had finished their crossing. Moreover, some mischievous boys had mixed up its geography by moving a few of the cities. Bethel was found where Kirjath-jearim should be; Joppa had been swept by the ice in the breaking up of winter into the Mediterranean Sea, and Megiddo was missing. The task of reconstructing the Park was given to Dr. W. H. Perrine of Michigan, a scholar and an artist, who had traveled in the Holy Land, had painted a panorama of it, and had constructed a model in plaster. He rebuilt the Park from more permanent materials, and succeeded in making it more accurate in some details, as well as more presentable in appearance. But man-made mountains are by no means "the ever-lasting hills," and the Park of Palestine needs to be made over at least once in ten years if it is to be kept worthy of Chautauqua.