After more than two hours spent at a most sumptuous repast (eleven courses were on the bill of fare), the rarest delicacies of Southern climes being lavishly provided, as well as the more common edibles of our colder northern soil and streams, Ex-Governor Fenton, rising in his place, gave the guests of the hour words of warmest greeting. [We give a condensed report of remarks offered.] He said: “We welcome you, gentlemen, not so much because of what you are at your homes, although that is, no doubt, a matter of congratulation from neighbors and friends, not so much as representatives of a great religious denomination whose membership is numbered by the millions—I speak of the various branches of Methodism, whose institutions are confessedly based upon religious intelligence and conviction, and therefore a subject of congratulation. We welcome you, gentlemen, mainly because you have come to the shores of our beautiful lake and founded an institution elevating in its influence, purifying in its character; which has found its way through the sunny South, along the shores of the lakes, around and over the plains, and over the mountains, even to the Pacific Coast. Stopping not there, you have found your way to the islands of the seas, and to the peoples in the countries beyond the seas. If I should say less than this, Mr. Flood, who speaks through more than thirty-five thousand monthly Chautauquans, would spring to his feet. I might say more, but, gentlemen, this enterprise is carried forward not alone by Methodists, for, in a catholic spirit, you have opened the doors to all denominations and all people and invited them to join you, and those who aspire to or desire to witness genuine moral and intellectual progress. And, gentlemen, we welcome you to our town. We should be glad, had it not been for the inclemency of the weather, to have shown you the social and public progress of our people. I might speak of our nine churches always well-filled on the Sabbath day and at other seasons when opened, and of one denomination about to build another church with a capacity three times as large as the old one.
“We should be glad to have you look at our manufacturing interests, to see how extensive they are, to visit our grand Union School building. We should be glad to introduce you to our merchants, and have you see all that we are doing—these things, the result of the enterprise and industry of our people. We have no princely fortunes here, but we are prospering, and though we have had but little time to go abroad, yet we promise you, gentlemen of Chautauqua, that a portion of our leisure days, increasing as the years go by, shall be devoted to visiting you in the summer season at Chautauqua. [Applause.] And now I ask you all to drink (water) to the health of Dr. Vincent, who, by his great devotion, great abilities and organizing power, with the calm judgment and wise counsels of President Miller, have done so much to make Chautauqua a success.” [Long continued applause.]
Dr. Vincent said substantially:
“Gentlemen of Jamestown:—You have listened, as have we, the representatives of the Chautauqua movement, to the kind words of your fellow-townsman, and it is a source of very great regret to me that I was not apprised in advance, of the fact that I was expected to deliver a speech on this occasion; otherwise I should have talked less to my fascinating friend, Mr. Marvin, beside me, and eaten less, so that I might be in better shape to speak.
“Governor Fenton has said something about the Chautauqua Idea. It is an ‘enterprise’ which has a future, a destiny which I think will transcend all the attainments and achievements of the past. And those of us who are engaged in this movement, and have watched it from its very beginning, and who know something of the dreams of those who look out into the future, are more likely to promise large things than those who simply watch it from the outside. We may be disappointed. Chautauqua may stand still one of these days and become a plain little village on the lake. It will never be what Jamestown is, but it depends upon Jamestown, as a representative city, for much of the support, and of the sympathy which all such enterprises demand. We have been tempted to think that from Jamestown we have had comparatively little sympathy. I say tempted, for the temptation has never had the slightest effect upon my mind; but once in awhile it has been said: ‘Jamestown, at the other end of the lake, fancies that you may build up an organization at the northern end of the lake that will interfere with interests at the south end.’ Frivolous indeed as these suggestions were, they were strong enough to secure utterance and cause trifling annoyance. As I recall the history of Chautauqua, I remember that we have had pretty much the whole of Jamestown present again and again at our great Assembly gatherings. So far as the citizens of Jamestown are concerned, we have never had for a moment any serious doubt of their confidence in the enterprise, and their willingness to aid us as far as they can, and there is not the slightest reason for misunderstanding or rivalry, but every reason for mutual faith and coöperation. [Applause.] And I should not be surprised, gentlemen, if, in years to come, the boys of Jamestown would go up to Chautauqua to the best boys’ school on the continent [applause], and meet there the best teachers from the best institutions, both of America and Europe, teachers qualified not only to communicate knowledge to the boys there assembled, but qualified to develop manhood and high ideals of character and true intellectual strength and physical culture. A gentleman said to me in the East the other day, ‘What we need in America to-day is a first-class school for boys, a school of the very highest order, in which intellect, manners, body, heart, social faculties, and all, shall be symmetrically developed,’ and I have confidence that, within a very few years, just such a school will be planted at Chautauqua; and when I think of the larger institution, for which we now have a charter from the state legislature, an institution which will bring its students from all parts of the United States, I see a number of colleges constituting a university crowning those heights, and commanding large sections of land on both sides of this lake, and awakening a new and increased enthusiasm, not only about the lake of Chautauqua, but all over the land, in the great cause of popular education. [Applause.]
“Now, I do not betray any great plans which have already been devised, but I give utterance to dreams and hopes which I know exist in the minds of a great many Chautauqua workers, when I say that the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, reaching as it does fifty thousand families in all parts of this land, is silently gaining a constituency which will be increased in less than five years to one hundred thousand, and which, in the course of ten years, will number two hundred thousand men and women, the most of them parents, who will be looking about for a place in which to educate their children; and if this city, increasing in wealth, increasing in culture, increasing in enthusiasm in the great educational work, will only lay hold of the largest conceptions concerning the Chautauqua of the future, the sums of money which in the future you may be induced to contribute to the founding of this enterprise will receive response from one hundred thousand homes all over the land, and the grandest endowments possessed by any institution on the continent in the near future for the Chautauqua University. [Applause.] For here is a little fact, of which you need but to be reminded for a moment, that to-day in the houses of the C. L. S. C. are growing up boys and girls, coming from the farms and from the villages, who are to handle the millions in the next twenty-five years. And when Tom comes from the field and goes into business and makes his money, and remembers the new interest awakened in him by his father and mother, he is inspired by a public spirit, he looks at the half million, more or less, which he is disposed to contribute, and the institution which he will help will be his father’s and mother’s Alma Mater, and his own Alma Mater, and we may expect in this way the largest and grandest endowments of any institution on the continent. I have been drinking strongly of this cold water, and it always makes me feel like talking, and I thank you for the privilege given me of expressing the dreams which come to my mind of the institution which you have so greatly honored, and whose annual meeting brings us together so pleasantly to-night.” [Long continued applause.]
Governor Fenton:—“I want to introduce to you one of our citizens representing the great manufacturing industries of our city, a gentleman who can talk well about them. I call upon Mr. William Hall.”
Mr. Hall said: “Mr. Chairman, I am afraid that you have raised the expectations of our friends in this announcement. I never made any pretensions to an ability to talk, never made any pretensions to eloquence, and, really, if I ever had, the speech to which you have just listened would have completely blotted out anything that I might have been tempted to say; but this much I can say, I can make a plain statement, that I have always felt the greatest sympathy myself for the enterprise which has been founded upon our lake. Yet it is true, that, busied by the cares of the new enterprises, I may at times have forgotten to express those feelings and show that sympathy—but it has always been present in my heart. I dare not step out into the world, to speak concerning Chautauqua, but I can speak of its effect upon the people in my factories, with whom I daily associate, and in whose interests I feel the liveliest interest. Many have come from foreign shores to make their homes here. They have vague ideas of the efforts and blessings which they are to strike in this American soil, and everything influences and turns their thoughts, views, feelings and aspirations. Some of them have never owned a bit of land in the world. They are now inspired with self-respect in finding themselves in possession of a better home, and I am looking to see what this influence coming from Chautauqua will be upon them. They can not attend Chautauqua as much as I would like to have them. The Chautauqua meetings come in a busy season. But they do go up there as often as they can, and they are influenced. They do judge of the American character. They get large aspirations by listening to those speakers. They come home, and it is amusing and instructive to hear them talk over what takes place up there. They speak very largely of Dr. Vincent. There is no man in my factory who attends there but thinks Dr. Vincent is the greatest man. They say: Dr. Vincent was as great a man as any he introduced. I am glad he is becoming popular on account of the influence he can exert upon them and their children who are to be the future inhabitants of this town. They are to hold in their hands the destinies of wide reaches of this country, and it is important that they should come under good influences. I do not know of better influences than those coming down to us from Chautauqua, and though we cannot be at Chautauqua, our hearts are there, and our sympathies are there with you, and, Doctor, when you throw the pebble in the pool, I may not follow the pebble in its fall, but I hear the waves ripple by my door.” [Applause.]
Governor Fenton: “The people of Jamestown all recognize and admire the devotion of President Miller of Chautauqua. Only one thing we cannot fully understand why he should live in Akron instead of Jamestown.” [Laughter and applause.]