Dr. Vincent: We should be very glad of them. There is no reason why, with our large organization through the world, we should not have at Chautauqua one of the best geological museums in the country.
A correspondent, a lady, writes from Colorado: “I think a knowledge of hygiene and medicine very essential to house-keepers, but it is one very little understood in the majority of households. I wish to offer the suggestion that a course should be founded in connection with the C. L. S. C. I can not go away from my home and spend time and money to take the course, but would be glad to take it up in the C. L. S. C., if offered.”
Dr. Vincent: Why may we not have a department, in which mothers and house-keepers might be interested; a department which would collect the various suggestions and devices for promoting house-keeping, that we may have the “house beautiful” in every home. Wealth is not necessary to such a result. Some of the most doleful places that I visit are the richest homes, where they have bare walls, or poor pictures on them, and carpets selected in the worst taste, and furniture that cost enough, to be sure, but was not selected wisely. When I go into a house, though it have very low ceilings, very small windows, and is very old-fashioned—built years ago, and though the people who built it did not have very much to build with—when I look at a house like that, and see on the walls pictures, selected for their real artistic value, even though inexpensive; when I see flowers and vines growing about; when I see the Atlantic, or Harper’s, or the Century on the table—and a few well-chosen books on the shelves—when I get into a house of that kind, my heart always warms toward the people who live there. We might have delightful homes all over the land. Brick and boards, lath and plaster do not make homes. It is not the large, costly house, I commend, but the house, little or large, cheap or costly, with evidences of taste here and there. Do you know that the first movement of true taste in many a house would not be the putting in of new pictures so much as the taking out of the old. (Laughter.)
Mr. Martin: Are the “Hall in the Grove” and the “Outline Study of Man” absolutely required for ’83?
Dr. Vincent: We put them on the list, but when asked if it were absolutely necessary to read them I said “No.”
Mr. Martin: I think that the memoranda will show that at least ninety per cent. of the class of ’82 have read it.
Dr. Vincent: I am glad to hear it; but you remember when an objection was made two years ago to the “requiring” of a local, modern book like the “Hall in the Grove,” I said in a general way we did not require it, but we preferred it. I will tell you why the “Hall in the Grove” was written. It is my old story of the esprit du corps. The college provides for this by its surroundings—the old buildings, the old elms, the old campus, the class songs, the memorial days, the pleasant memories, the struggles and rivalries in recitation, the sports, the diploma, the honor, the prestige in the world outside, the relative standing of “our” college and the other colleges. All these things create in the student the esprit du corps which makes him glad to say, “I belong to this or that college.” See the working of this spirit in a college boat-race. Take these old dignified and pious editors of religious papers, who have not been in a boat, unless to cross to Europe, for twenty-five years. Let old Wesleyan row with Cornell, and Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, you will find the old Baptist editor, or the old Methodist editor, who opposes all that sort of thing, close up an editorial on the modern follies in college, “Nevertheless, we were somewhat glad when we read that Wesleyan stood so well in that race.” [Laughter.] That is the spirit which characterizes the college life. There is educating power in it. It is a good thing for a boy to have it, and for a man to keep it. Now, we of the C. L. S. C can have nothing of this kind unless we construct it or grow it in our own way. So we have “Our Hall”—the Hall of Philosophy. Look at it by moon-light, or in the morning, or with its eager crowds at the vesper hour. The other evening a lady said, “There is something very fascinating about this Hall.” Then here are our St. Paul’s Grove; our path-way from the gate to the steps. Do you remember on Commencement Day the flowers strewn by those little darlings, who only knew that they were doing a beautiful thing, and did not see how far down it went into your hearts? Then there are our Athenian Watch-fires and our songs that excel for poetry and inspiration all the songs that were ever written for any educational society on earth (I am proud of our Chautauqua songs and our Chautauqua poetess, Miss Lathbury),—all these things help to create the spirit of Chautauqua. Pansy has given in her “Four Girls at Chautauqua,” and especially in the story of “The Hall in the Grove,” a true interpretation of Chautauqua and in a delightful way has shown the effects of the movement on society. All these things tend to give an esprit du corps to the C. L. S. C., and when you carry your diploma and remember your march from gate to goal the other day, you say, “I was present at the graduation of the class of ’82, and I shall go there as often as I can.” What the vision and the experience do for us who come here “The Hall in the Grove” will to some extent do for those who can not come. This enthusiasm will do for our members what the similar element in four years of college discipline and experience do for college students. And that is why I said let us have “The Hall in the Grove” written, so that people who never come to Chautauqua shall feel that they are one of us, that they really seem to have been there.
Questions concerning pronunciation of words were then taken up. The words “wiseacre,” “housewife,” “area-r” (a New England mispronunciation), “septuagint,” “Charlotte Yonge,” “khedive,” “Chautauqua,” “Celtic,” “truths,” were considered. The differences of opinion expressed justify our readers in consulting Webster or Worcester.
Dr. Vincent: I hope the Class of ’83 will be here to-night, according to the program, at nine o’clock for the Class Vigil. I am very anxious to see every member of that class. The Class of ’84 will please meet here when this service closes.
Written question: Where is volume four of the “History in Literature?”