Mr. K. A. Burnell: In connection with this matter of correspondence, last week a lady told me that she was a member of the correspondence committee, and gave me a very interesting account of the letters she had received, and the joy that she had from the letters that came to her.
A gentleman: In the part of Pennsylvania from which I come there are literary societies in almost every school house. Could we not in some way bring these societies into our circle?
Mr. Gillet: Is there any way of getting the members of such societies into the C. L. S. C.?
A gentleman: There is.
Mr. Gillet: It is not necessary to abandon the organization that already exists to have all the members read the text books of the C. L. S. C. The work can be done under the organization existing, the circle reading the books and reporting to the central office.
Mr. Gillet: There is a little bit of tract about an inch and a quarter square, of four pages, that gives the points of the C. L. S. C. At Island Park we sent persons to the back of the audience with a bunch of these tracts, scattered them in the air and everybody was curious to get them and read them. I think a good many became interested who would not but for these little bits of things.
Mr. Bridge: I will have 20,000 of them here to-morrow night for distribution.
Mr. Gillet: Then, of course, you can get the Popular Education Circular by addressing Miss Kimball. It contains the full plans of the C. L. S. C., and you can use them in your correspondence. Any thing else to Suggest?
A lady: There would be no difficulty in organizing circles, but how shall we get people to understand the work and the methods that are adopted? A great many very intelligent persons have given so little attention to this movement as to be utterly in the dark. It will require a good deal of persistence in this work of organizing circles. I have had five years’ experience. I have been through the class of ’82, and have, unfortunately for the circle, I think, been retained as leader of the circle. We have four circles which coöperate. We found some difficulty in interesting the pastors of the churches in this work. I wish every member of the C. L. S. C. here when she goes home, because I rely on the ladies, to go to her pastor and personally solicit him to take hold of this work and assist her to organize a local circle. We did this in our circle. We secured the services of the pastor as president. We interested him. He took hold of it, and has been quite an assistance to us all the time. I content myself with taking a book and sitting as superintendent, so as to keep the work going on.
It will be necessary to go to young men and women, and older persons, and personally solicit them to join; personally explain to them the nature of the course of reading, and how it is done. You will have to do that by going to them personally until you get them, and then it will require a good deal of grace and a good deal of energy and perseverance to keep them in the Circle after they are there. Young men who work all day at the bench, or in the office at their books, complain that they have not time to read, and you have to overcome that objection. You must show them that they have the time, and that they can do it. Why, almost every young man, and I may say almost every young woman, spends more time reading the daily newspapers than it would require to read the whole course of the C. L. S. C. in any year. By bringing these things to the attention of these persons you may thus induce them to make an extra exertion in this line.