This “Circle” is a company of pledged readers in wide ranges of literature. The “Assembly” contains people who listen. The “Circle” is made up of people who read. The “Assembly” covers a few weeks. The “Circle” casts its canopy over the year and the years. The “Assembly” is at Chautauqua. The “Circle” carries Chautauqua to the world’s end—to the east and to the west, to Canada, to Florida, to Scotland, to the Sandwich Islands, to India, and Japan, to Cape Colony—everywhere.
The members of the “Circle” stand on a higher plane than the Assembly, because they put will into the work. They read what they ought, for months and years, everywhere, getting larger views of the world, and worthier views of life, and nobler views of the race, and of God the Father of all.
The “Circle” takes a wide sweep in the world of letters. Its themes are those of the college world. It puts the preparatory and college curriculums into good, readable English, and helps people out of college to know what is going on there; what the young people study in history, language, and literature; what authors they read, and what estimate is to be placed on them and their work. It gives glimpses of science, physical and metaphysical—pointing down to the rocks and up to the stars, and about to the fields and seas and the forms of life in plant and animal. Whatever college boys study, the “Circle” provides in some form and degree for parents to read, that home and college may be one in outlook and sympathy, in aim and delight. But there is something beyond.
III. The Inner Circle.—Beyond the readers are the students—those who have completed the four years’ reading in the “Circle,” and the members of the “Society of the Hall in the Grove;” have filled out the various memoranda; have certain seals on their C. L. S. C. diplomas, testifying to this fact, and to the reading of the additional books. These walk on the higher levels. Their names are enrolled in the “Order of the White Seal.” Their faces are turned toward the Upper Chautauqua.
It is possible that the members of the C. L. S. C. who walk in the inner circle may meet those who rank with them, although they have come hither by other routes—through the “Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat,” the “Chautauqua Spare Minute Courses,” and the “Chautauqua Assembly Normal Courses.” As students, they all rejoice in the larger places of Chautauqua. But there are heights beyond these heights.
“Hearers,” “readers,” “student-readers,” successively mark the three ascending grades of the Chautauqua movement, as outlined in the “Assembly,” the “Circle,” and the “Inner Circle.” Beyond these three stages, we come to
IV. The University Circle.—Here are members of “The League of the Round Table,” whose seven seals on the C. L. S. C. diploma entitle them to this higher honor. Here, too, are advanced students in the “Chautauqua School of Languages;” these walk in the outer courts and among the sacred corridors adjoining the University itself. Chautauqua now means more than ever to them. The towers of the University rise above them. They ask why its doors may not open to them, and why they may not rejoice in work, real work, with after-tests in genuine examinations, and after-honors in diploma and degrees.
Some remain in this goodly place, hearing the songs that float down from the higher halls, enjoying converse with their fellows of the grander degree, and encouraging other and younger and more vigorous companions to go up and possess the land. Others knock at the door by the upper step, and as it opens, they enter the fifth and highest form of the Chautauqua movement—
V. The University, with its schools, colleges, and academiae; its teachers and professors, its text-books and tasks, its rigid examinations, and its promotions. Concerning the University, I shall write later on.