[B] Not to be read by the classes of ’85 and ’86.
[C] The Alma Mater is sent free to all members of the C. L. S. C. who are recorded at Plainfield, N. J., and whose annual fee is paid.
[D] To recorded members several other valuable documents are forwarded without additional expense.
LOCAL CIRCLES.
If we change our order this month and begin the gossip from our letters with the “University Circle,” of San José, Cal., it is only because we wish to call particular attention to the thrifty growth of our work on the Pacific coast. Mrs. Fields, the competent secretary of that branch, sends us this pleasant report of the San José work: “Colleges and universities are no longer confined to the east. They spring up like Jonah’s gourd with the westward moving star of empire, and are only checked by the setting of that star in the great western ocean. California boasts of its grand State University at Berkeley, which she thinks rivals Harvard and Ann Arbor, and we of San José point to our university with its commodious buildings, its noble president, Dr. C. C. Stratton (widely known also as president of our Pacific Coast C. L. S. C.), its excellent faculty, and hundreds of earnest students, and feel that it is an institution of which any city or state might well be proud. In the shadow of this university there very naturally has arisen a Chautauqua circle. There are no unfriendly comparisons and inhospitable exclusiveness, no neighborhood jealousies or rivalries between ‘the University of the Pacific’ and that little branch of the great ‘People’s University,’ known as the ‘University Circle.’ Two of the oldest and most honored professors in the former institution, together with all the ladies of the faculty, are members of the circle. They freely give their time and genial presence to the semi-monthly meetings of the C. L. S. C. whenever it is possible for them to do so, and by their wide range of knowledge add greatly to the interest and profit of these occasions. The rest of the members of the University Circle are neighbors and friends who are greatly interested in the reading, and who believe in the value of association and mutual helpfulness. They are mostly middle aged people, though there is a sprinkling of gray hairs on some brows, and here and there is a bright young face. They count twenty when all told, and usually have a good representation present. The meetings are held in the different homes, so that to each falls his allotment of these hospitable pleasures. One evening there was ‘a chiel amang ’em takin’ notes,’ who felt sure that this University Circle ought to let its light shine for the benefit of the whole Chautauqua family, and these notes are herewith presented: ‘Eighteen Chautauquans present in the cheerful double parlors of Mrs. G. A gentle-faced member of the Society of Friends presided, and illumined the circle with her beaming smile and her bright, suggestive leadership. The members recited from slips of paper, each naming a theme numbered in the order of their occurrence in the lesson, and distributed previously among the class. Each person, while studying the whole lesson carefully, had made special preparation on his or her own topic. This brought a great deal of careful research and fresh thought to bear on the lesson, and every one seemed thoroughly prepared, from the tall, scholarly Prof. M., with his slight, professional stoop, arising from a long habit of digging among Greek roots, down to the bright young girl who had brought her fine new classical atlas and was ready to point out all localities and routes of travel named in the lesson. The various themes were taken up in order, eliciting considerable discussion, bits of comment and remark, with ever and anon a seed-thought of spiritual application from the gentle Quakeress. If The Chautauquan were not crowded with good things this report might be made of indefinite length, but it shall be brought to a speedy close. It needs not to be added that the onlooker went away saying: How beautiful, how rational, how Christian a method of spending an evening! Who can estimate the power for good which such a circle exerts upon its members and upon the community which is so fortunate as to possess it!’”
An interesting plan has just been carried out by the Montreal, Canada, circle. They have held an open meeting, where a resumé of the winter’s work was given by the president, and the objects of the society were explained for the benefit of outsiders. An admirable plan, we should think it would prove. A resumé of one winter’s work in the C. L. S. C. must impress a candid person of the genuine merit in the scheme, and necessarily would enlarge the borders of the Circle’s influence. They do things well in Canada. That famous Toronto Central Circle impresses this truth upon us afresh each time we receive a report from them. This month they send an admirable program of their regular monthly meeting, at which, in addition to a lecture by Prof. Hutton, of University College, on “Phases of Roman Life and Literature with some Modern Analogies,” reports from local circles were called for, a Round-Table conference on the work was held, and a half hour was spent in singing Chautauqua songs, every one who could sing being specially invited to come and join.
The C. L. S. C. movement has reached the beautiful village of Strondwater, near Portland, Maine, where they have a small but enthusiastic circle of seven members. Their weekly meetings are pleasant and profitable, and they enjoy to the utmost their studies in Greek and Roman History and Literature. From the neighboring state of New Hampshire is reported the “Parker’s Falls Circle” of Newmarket, another “little pentagon of ladies” holding occasional meetings, conducted on the conversational plan. They write that they are so situated that they can not well have regular meetings, but all enjoy the course, and hold fast to the motto, “Do not be discouraged.”