CHAPTER XIV
SOME STORIES OF THE C. L. S. C.
(1883, 1884)
We must hasten our steps through the passing years at Chautauqua. Our readers may take for granted that the regular departments were continued; that the Summer Schools were adding new courses and calling new professors; that the Normal Class for the training of Sunday School workers was still held, no longer in the section-tents nor in the Children's Temple, but under a large tent on an elevation where two years later was to stand the Normal Hall, built for the class, but after some years transferred first to the Musical Department, later to the Summer Schools and partitioned into class-rooms. The Children's Class was still held by Dr. B. T. Vincent and Professor Frank Beard, for our friend with the crayon was now in the faculty of the School of Art in Syracuse University.
In 1883 the session was forty-five days long, from July 14th to August 27th. A new feature of the program was an "Ideal Foreign Tour through Europe," with illustrated lectures on various cities by C. E. Bolton, and "Tourists' Conferences" conducted by his wife, the cultured Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton. Mrs. Emma P. Ewing of Chicago taught classes in the important art of cookery. Professor Charles J. Little gave a course of lectures. Hon. Albion W. Tourgee, residing at Mayville, who had achieved fame soon after the Civil War by his story, A Fool's Errand, gave lectures in the Amphitheater. Professor William C. Richards showed brilliant illustrations in physical science. Dr. P. S. Henson entertained while he instructed; President Julius H. Seelye, Dr. W. F. Mallalien, later a Bishop, President Joseph Cummings of Northwestern University, Hon. Will Cumback of Indiana, and many others, gave lectures.
A new instructor entered the School of Languages in 1883, in the person of William Rainey Harper, then Professor in the Baptist School of Theology at Morgan Park, Illinois, afterward to be the first President of the University of Chicago. No man ever lived who could inspire a class with the enthusiasm that he could awaken over the study of Hebrew, could lead his students so far in that language in a six weeks' course, or could impart such broad and sane views of the Biblical literature. From this year Dr. Harper was one of the leaders at Chautauqua, and soon was advanced to the principalship of the Summer Schools. In the after years, while Dr. Harper was President of the University of Chicago, and holding classes all the year, in summer as well as winter, he was wont to take the train every Friday afternoon, in order to spend Saturday and Sunday at Chautauqua. Chautauquans of those days will also remember the recitals by Professor Robert L. Cumnock of Northwestern University, a reader who was a scholar in the best literature.
The class of 1883, though not as large as its predecessor, the Pioneers, was graduated with the same ceremonies, the address on Recognition Day given by Dr. Lyman Abbott of New York, one of the Counsellors of the Circle. Five years had now passed since the inauguration of this movement, and from every quarter testimonials of its power and incidents showing its influence were received. Let me mention a few of these which came under my own notice.
I met a lady who mentioned that she and her husband were reading the course together and they found the only available hour between six and seven in the morning, before breakfast. For the study of the course they both had risen at half past five for a year or more. One result of this early morning reading was, she said, that at the breakfast table they told the children stories of history and science, which she thought turned their minds toward knowledge. Among the books was one on Human Physiology—a book, which, by the way, I did not rate very highly and objected to as being so elementary as to become almost juvenile; yet that book awakened such an interest that the lady began to read more widely and deeply on the subject, after a few months entered the Woman's Medical College in New York, during her course took several prizes, and graduated with high honors. It may have been that she foresaw what came, the failure of her husband's health, so that of necessity she became the bread-winner for her family. She was a successful physician, honored in the community, the Chautauqua Circle having opened to her wider opportunities of knowledge and usefulness.
Two college professors of high standing have told me that they were first awakened to a desire and determination for higher education through their early readings in the C. L. S. C.
One rather amusing yet suggestive incident came to my notice. Visiting a city in the Middle West, I met a lady who told me that she belonged to a club of young people who met weekly in a card party. One member told the rest about the C. L. S. C. which she had joined and showed them the books, whereupon they all sent in their names as members, and the card club was transformed into a Chautauqua Reading Circle.
I was seated with Dr. Edward E. Hale at a C. L. S. C. banquet in New England, when he pointed out a middle-aged gentleman at the head of one of the tables and told me this story about him.
While a boy he came to his father and said, "I don't want to go to school any longer, I want to go to work and earn my own living, and there's a place in Boston that is open to me." "Well," said his father, "perhaps you would better take the place, I've noticed that you are not paying much attention to your studies of late. I'm very sorry for I have set my heart on giving you a good education. You don't know now, but you'll find out later that the difference between the man who gives orders and the man who takes them is that generally one of the two men knows more than the other, and knowledge brings a man up in the world." The boy went to Boston and took a job in a big store, and he found that he was taking a good many orders from those above him and giving none to others. He realized that for success in life he needed an education. Ashamed to give up and go home, he began to attend an evening school which some of us had established. There I met him and was able to give him some encouragement and some help. He became a well-read and, in the end, a successful business man. As soon as he heard of the Chautauqua Circle, he began to read its books and was made President of a local circle. That table is filled with the members of his circle and he sits at the head of it.
I wish that I could write down a story as it was told me by Dr. Duryea, at Chautauqua. It was of a man who sat at his table in the Hotel and was always in a hurry, never finishing his meals in his haste to get to lectures and classes. The Doctor got him to talking and he forgot to drink his coffee while telling his story. He said that he kept a country store in a village in Arkansas, where the young men used to come in the evenings and tell stories together. He felt that he was leading a rather narrow life and needed intelligence, but did not know where to obtain it. There were books enough in the world, but how could he choose the right ones? A newspaper fell under his notice containing some mention of the C. L. S. C.; he sent his fee to the office, obtained the books for the year, and began to read in the intervals of time between customers in his store. For retirement he fixed up a desk and shelf of books in the rear of the shop. Some of his evening callers said, "What have you got back there?" and he showed his books, telling them of the C. L. S. C. A number of them at once decided to join, and soon he found himself the conductor of a Chautauqua Circle with twenty members. They fixed up a meeting place in a store-room in a garret under the eaves, talked over the topics, and read papers. When the text-book on electricity was before them, they made experiments with home-made batteries and ran wires all around the room. The man said, "Those fellows look to me to answer all sorts of questions, and I find that I am getting beyond my depth. I have come to Chautauqua to fill up and I'm doing it. But the difficulty is that too many things come at the same time; here's a lecture on American authors and one on biology, and one on history, all at once, and I never know which to attend. But Chautauqua is a great place, isn't it?"
A servant in a family, while waiting at the table, heard the lady and her daughters talking of the Circle which was being formed. The girl asked her mistress if she would be permitted to join. With some hesitation, the lady said, "Why, yes, if you really wish to read the books, you can be a member." This serving-maid soon showed herself as the brightest scholar in the group, far superior in her thirst for knowledge to her young mistresses. She was encouraged and aided to seek a higher education, entered a Normal School, and became a successful teacher.
One letter received at the office contained, in brief, the following: "I am a working-man with six children and I work hard to keep them in school. Since I found out about your Circle, I have begun to read, getting up early in the morning to do it. I am trying hard to keep up, so that my boys will see what father does—just as an example to them."
A letter from a night watchman said, "I read as I come on my rounds to the lights, and think it over between times."
A steamboat captain on one of the western rivers wrote that he enjoyed reading the books and found the recollection of their contents a great benefit, "for when I stand on the deck at night I have something good to think about; and you know that when one has not taken care of his thoughts they will run away with him and he will think about things he ought not."
I was well acquainted with a gentleman and his wife, both of unspotted character, but unfortunately living apart from some incompatibility. He was accustomed to call upon her every fortnight, in a formal manner, professedly to meet their children, and on one of his visits he mentioned that he was beginning the C. L. S. C. readings. She was desirous of knowing what those letters meant; he explained and gave her a circular of information. She, too, joined the Circle, and next time at his call they spent an evening pleasantly discussing the subjects of reading that both were pursuing. From a fortnightly they dropped into a weekly interview, and after a time spent nearly all their evenings together. One day I met them together, and being aware of their former relations, I perhaps showed surprise. The husband took me aside and said that they were now living together very happily, thanks to the C. L. S. C. They had forgotten their differences in a common object of interest.
In the early years of the C. L. S. C. one book of the course was on the subject of practical Christianity. At one time, the religious book was The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation, by Dr. Walker, a work widely read two generations ago and regarded as a standard. We received at the office a letter from a high-school teacher who said that he was an agnostic and did not wish to read such a book—could he not read some scientific work by Tyndall or Huxley in place of it? Miss Kimball referred his letter to me, and I took it to Dr. Vincent. He considered the question, and then wrote in substance this answer:
If you were a Unitarian, you could read a volume by James Martineau; if you were a Roman Catholic, you could read one of many good Catholic religious books; if you were a Jew you might take some book upon your own religion. But you call yourself an agnostic, that is, one who does not know God and has no religion, and therefore, to meet the requirements of your course it will be necessary for you to read some candid, sane work on the Christian religion; and such is Walker's "Plan of Salvation."
The letter closed with a friendly request that he would read the book without a strong prejudice against it, and some hearty sympathetic sentences which Dr. Vincent knew how to write. For a year we heard nothing of the man; we concluded that he had been offended at the requirement and had left the Circle. We were surprised when at last another letter came from him stating that he had read the book, at first unwillingly, but later with deep interest; also that association with believers in the Circle had shown them, not as he had supposed, narrow and bigoted, but broad in their views. He had seen in them a mystic something which he desired; he had sought and found it. "To-day," he wrote, "I have united with the Presbyterian Church, and this evening I led the Christian Endeavor meeting."
Dr. Hale told of a man who had been formerly a pupil and youth in his church, who was suffering from nervous prostration, and lay down in a shack in an out-of-the-way place in Florida, almost ready to die. His eyes were drawn to the orange-colored cover of a magazine which he had never seen before, The Chautauquan. He opened it at random and began to read. "Are you a child of God? Are you a partaker of the divine nature? If you are, work with God! Don't give up working with God!" It seemed to him like a voice from heaven. On that moment he said to himself, "I will not die, but live!" He began to read the magazine and followed it by reading the books to which the magazine made reference. They opened before him a new field of thought and made of him a new man. He told this story to Dr. Hale in his own church and said: "I am here because of that orange-covered Chautauquan which I found lying under the bench in that old cabin."
It is possible, nay, it is certain, that the Chautauqua Circle, by being not a church society, but a secular organization permeated by the Christian spirit, has exercised an influence all the stronger to promote an intelligent, broad-minded Christianity.
Everyone active in Chautauqua work through a series of years could narrate many stories like the above, and doubtless some more remarkable; but I have given only a few out of many that could be recalled out of an experience with the C. L. S. C. through more than forty years. As I have looked upon the representatives of the graduating class in the Hall of Philosophy, I have often wished that I might know some of the life-stories of those who, often through difficulties unknown, have carried the course through to completion.
An eminent minister wrote to me recently as follows:
At a place where I became pastor I found two sisters who were living in dark seclusion, brooding in melancholia as the effect of a great sorrow. They attended church, but took no part in our work, and none at all in society. I did my best to comfort those young women and bring them out of their monasticism. But it was all in vain. Their broken spirits revolted from a religion of happiness. A few years after my pastorate was ended there, and I was preaching elsewhere, I visited the town and was surprised to find both those women among the most active women in the church, happy, gifted, and universally esteemed. What had wrought the change? They chanced to hear of the Chautauqua Reading Course and sent for the books and magazines. They pursued the course, graduated, and visited Chautauqua. It awakened their entire being and brought them into a new world. They were literally born anew. I have witnessed wonderful changes in people, but never any that was more thorough, real, and permanent than in those young women.
Let us name also some of the leading events of the Assembly of 1884. As the organ of the C. Y. F. R. U. Dr. Flood established The Youth's C. L. S. C. Paper for boys and girls. It was an illustrated magazine, but only twelve numbers were published, as the field for periodical literature for young people was already well covered. "The Chautauqua Foreign Tour," a series of illustrated lectures on the British Isles, was conducted this year by Rev. Jesse Bowman Young, Professor H. H. Ragan, and Mr. George Makepeace Towle. Music was abundant and varied this season, the choir being led by Professors Sherwin and Case in turn; concerts by a remarkable quartet, the Meigs Sisters; the delightful singers of southern plantation and revival songs, the Tennesseans; the Yale College Glee Club; Miss Belle McClintock, Mrs. J. C. Hull, Mr. E. O. Excell, and Miss Tuthill, soloists. Dr. Charles J. Little gave a course of lectures on English literature; Dr. Henson, Miss Susan Hayes Ward, Dr. J. W. Butler of Mexico, and Dr. S. S. Smith of Minnesota were among the lecturers. We heard Ram Chandra Bose and Dennis Osborne of India, and Sau Aubrah of Burmah, a most interesting speaker on the customs of his country and his impressions of ours. Principal Fairbairn of Oxford made the history of philosophy interesting, and the Rev. A. J. Palmer of New York won instant fame by his great war lecture, "Company D, the Die-no-more's," given on Grand Army Day to a great concourse of old soldiers.
On Saturday, August 23d, a reception was given to the Governor of Pennsylvania, Hon. Robert E. Pattison. Friday, August 15th, was observed as the decennial anniversary of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. I find on the program of that year a series of colloquies named "The Socratic Academy," conducted by Dr. H. H. Moore. I know not what subjects they discussed, nor how they discussed them, but I remember Dr. Moore as one able to shed light on any subject that he chose to present. As I read the program of any one of those years at Chautauqua, I realize how utterly inadequate must be any sketch like the above to bring it before a reader.
By this time three classes of the C. L. S. C. had been graduated, '82, '83, and '84. Four more classes were pursuing the course, so that C. L. S. C. members present at Chautauqua might now be counted by the thousand. There was a strong class-spirit. Each class had its name, its motto, its badge, and its banner, and ribbon badges were fluttering everywhere. Every day came announcements from the platform of class-meetings, and it was sometimes difficult to provide for them all. During the season of 1884 two classes united their interests, raised money, and purchased a small octagonal building near the Hall of Philosophy. These were the classes of '83 and '85. The movement for class headquarters was growing; all the other classes began the raising of building funds, and those who looked into the future saw all around St. Paul's Grove the prospect of small buildings rising. How would the grounds appear when forty classes should have little headquarters—a C. L. S. C. village? The plan began to be mooted of a Union Class Building, to be realized later.