HOW TO HELP THE C. L. S. C.
BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.
The C. L. S. C. is an institution. It has an aim, a plan, an organization, officers and members. It began, has grown, and will continue to grow. The ends it proposes are useful and much needed. They lay hold of personal character. They reach society in the family, in the community, in the church. They are ends intellectual, moral, domestic, social, and religious. Every reason that can be urged in favor of general education, of refined manners, of cultivated tastes, of religious principles, of personal influence in favor of the true, the beautiful and the good, may be presented in behalf of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Its enthusiastic alumni, its undergraduates and outside persons of sound judgment who have studied its philosophy and watched its progress have said many strong and beautiful things in commendation of it. And there is no danger of saying too much, for however crude the beginnings of the movement, one may easily see in it the most splendid possibilities. The universal praise which the scheme has elicited is all deserved. The C. L. S. C. is a great institution.
But it must be remembered that institutions, however lofty in purpose and practical in organization, can not grow or work by virtue of mere aim and plan. Ideals and artistic apparatus are essential, but without personal genius and labor are impotent in the world of art. Something more is necessary to a transatlantic passage than a dock at Liverpool and a seaworthy steamer in New York. Between the two lie the conditions of success in human enterprise and effort. The C. L. S. C. needs appreciation as a scheme, but it needs also work—wise, unremitting, indefatigable work, on the part of those who believe in it.
The problem before us now is: How may we help the C. L. S. C.? Every member who receives benefit from it, and who believes in its value to others, may become an advocate and representative and thus may induce numbers to test its worth. This service, voluntary and uncompensated, is due to the Circle. I propose to show how it may be most effectively rendered.
1. There are multitudes of people who would welcome the C. L. S. C. as an angel of strength and comfort, if its existence were but made known to them. They have no definite idea about it. The mystic letters which represent it they have often seen, but having “no interest in secret societies” have not even asked what the C. L. S. C. is. They have seen the word “Chautauqua,” and know that Chautauqua County is famous “for butter and for Republican majorities.” Or they have heard about a “camp meeting at Chautauqua,” which being a camp meeting must of course be Methodist—and in “Methodist camp meetings they have never taken much interest”—indeed, they have a “prejudice against such things.” As for a “Sunday-school Assembly” at Chautauqua, if they do not think of it as “a big picnic with lots of children and barrels of peanuts,” they class it among “the pious conventions which only very good people care to attend.” Thus the widespread name of Chautauqua means half a dozen different things, according to the measure of the hearer’s ignorance. Now, members of the C. L. S. C. can do a world of good to people who would welcome and enter the Circle if they knew about it, by telling of its aims to persons whom they casually meet, by distributing the “Popular Educational Circular,” and by handing out judiciously copies of “The Green Book.” Thus they could soon disabuse minds which hold the superficial views of the movement above indicated and convince them that Chautauqua is not merely a “creamery,” that it is not a camp meeting, that it is not Methodist, that it is not a children’s or Sunday-school picnic at all, that Sunday-school work has a place, but a comparatively small place in the great Chautauqua Idea and movement, and that Chautauqua is CHAUTAUQUA—peculiar, instructive, broad, far-reaching—a place and an idea, a school and a society, a life and a power, representing all that is high in human aims, all that is delightful in human fellowship, all that is ennobling in broadest culture, all that is sanctifying in intelligent and reverent worship. A few words would do all this, for hosts of people who need and long for the very ministry our noble cause fulfills. Speak the words, then, dear fellow students, and distribute widely the circulars which spread this information.
2. Having sown the seed watch the growth. Urge the friend to whom you broach the subject to join the Circle. Take his or her name and address; a postal card later on may be a reminder. Insist upon prompt action in sending for blank form of application. Elicit questions. Remove difficulties. Answer objections. Be earnest and urgent, and from the seed by the wayside may come up quite a harvest of good. You can not be too urgent or emphatic. The cause and the institution justify your zeal, and those whom you win to the experiment will soon give it unequivocal indorsement, and will add a vote of thanks, for your suggestion and importunacy. Personal interest in people always pays. In a good work this interest yields the best results. And this is a good work. The young man you follow up with circulars and solicitations and offers of help will finally yield through your very earnestness in his behalf. And the more you help, the more zeal in the cause of the C. L. S. C. you will develop in him. The discouraged woman to whom the world of letters seems as inaccessible as the royal palace at Windsor, will believe your testimony because of the faith and fervor you show, and having had the door opened to her will enter in, and at every step will give thanks for what she finds, and for the thoughtful, sympathetic soul that pointed her to Temple of Knowledge.