Quincy, Michigan.—Were mine a thousand voices; yea, the voice of every Chautauquan who regards system and order, who enjoys the pleasure and strength there is in feeling they are each day and week going on with a large band of faithful Chautauquans, I would say please go on in the good old way of dividing the lessons of the month into weekly installments. It is a real help to have the week’s work laid out for us in The Chautauquan. It greatly facilitates the labor of the leader of the local circle. Our local circle, which numbered about ten members last year, has started out “boomingly” this year with about twenty, and the prospect is good for still widening the circle. We have weekly meetings. One, a most enthusiastic member, comes five and a-half miles to attend the meetings. Our president is a minister. He and his worthy wife take an active part in the work. We also have the principal and preceptress of our public schools among our active members. After a general history and geology lesson we have essays on the subject of the evening from the older members, that are inspiring to the younger ones.
The Northfield, Connecticut, local circle is situate in the old “Mountain County,” Litchfield, where rocks are convenient for geological study, and the pure atmosphere favors astronomical observations. It numbers nine members, six of whom are regular members of the C. L. S. C. All are young people, and six are, or have been, school teachers. Inasmuch as it is a new organization, with its method of work tentative and liable to change, or displacement, on further trial, its plan is only given because it may have a suggestion for those who would not adopt it exactly. The circle meets fortnightly, and on Friday evenings, so all the teachers can be present. Topics, from the required reading, are assigned in advance, and by lot. Then each member is responsible for his or her topic, but he is allowed to present it at the next meeting in the form of an essay, lecture, or recitation, or he may come prepared to be questioned upon it by the committee of instruction and the class generally. Thus far the plan works well, stimulating thorough preparation on the part of all, and furnishing all the work the circle can well do in an evening. Any considerable increase of members would of course make some modification of our method necessary, and the reports of other circles in The Chautauquan may reveal something so much better that we may abandon our experimental ways entirely. We send greeting to the whole C. L. S. C.
Gilroy, California.—We organized in 1879 and ’80 a local circle with about twenty-five members. In the study of history, besides the regular lesson, some of the members were appointed to read selections, and others to write short sketches of principal characters whose names are found in our lessons. The selections were mostly poems from Macaulay’s Lays of Ancient Rome and Tennyson’s King Arthur. In the study of biology, geology, etc., questions were distributed to the class on slips of paper by a committee appointed by the chair at the previous meeting. The questions and answers were read at the next meeting. Sometimes topics or subjects were given; the general divisions of the vegetable kingdom, glacial formation, the orders of Greek and Roman architecture, etc. Last year we were favored by having Prof. Norton, of the State Normal School, for one of our leaders. In the study of art we had the benefit of stereoscopic views exhibited by the aid of a magic lantern, of the ancient ruins and public buildings, and scenes of interest in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. In the study of geology and chemistry, the Professor gave us illustrative diagrams on the blackboard, and chemical experiments illustrating volcanic action, and various other phenomena resulting from scientific investigation. This year we have taken “a new departure.” We do not have a regular leader, as heretofore, but the person occupying the chair appoints a successor for the next meeting, who conducts the recitation, makes up the order of work, and then appoints a successor for the next meeting. Our plan of work is still the same as in former years. Prof. Norton is still with us occasionally; also Miss S. M. Severance, who has been a great help to the circle since its organization, not only as an efficient teacher at the regular meetings, but one to whom we could refer questions of importance, her extensive and varied information enabling her to be, as it were, a living encyclopedia for our benefit.
Reading, Pennsylvania.—To our own pleasant city has swept the “happy circle” and like its many members, we too, feel blessed that
——“our Heavenly Father granted
Us the boon of being numbered