California.—Our thanks are due to the “Vincent” local circle of Sacramento, for a copy of their excellent rules of government. From the appearance and character of these regulations we conclude that our “Vincent” friends have come to stay.
In the scattered farming community of San Lorenzo, across the bay from San Francisco, there has been for five years a lively circle of C. L. S. C. workers. It began with but two members, and has increased until there are eleven workers in the club. “During the nine months’ study of each year scarcely a week has passed,” writes the secretary, “without our meeting together for review and talk over the lesson. We have never allowed ourselves to fall behind in the course as marked out in The Chautauquan.”
In a letter received too late for the July issue of The Chautauquan, the secretary of the Yuba City local circle writes: “I believe our local circle has had a report in your columns every year, and we desire to be represented this, our third year, which finds us even more zealous (were it possible) than any preceding one, and realizing more and more each day the great benefit of this systematic course of reading. Our method is to carefully go through the lesson as it is marked out in The Chautauquan, and to have a general exchanging of ideas and views on all its principal topics. This consumes so much of our time that we have had as yet but little outside work, such as essays, and the like. We observe all Memorial days.”
Los Angeles has a very interesting and prosperous circle. It was formed in 1881 with twelve members. In 1882-3 they kept up the readings, but becoming discouraged they abandoned the regular meetings until October of 1883, when a circle of thirty-nine members was reorganized. The plan which their president has found most successful has been to bring carefully prepared questions into the class and encourage free conversation on the book study of the week. The topics in The Chautauquan she assigns to some gentleman or lady particularly interested in the special themes, who comes prepared with illustration, demonstration, and experiment, to instruct and please. The work grows, and its influence is being felt in the strangely mixed populace of that growing coast city.
Another Pacific Coast Branch is that of Bakersfield. Its members, twenty-five in all, include ministers, lawyers, judges, doctors, farmers, bankers, and their wives, together with a large number of lads and lassies, most of whom are enthusiastically interested in their studies. There is one German lady now in her sixty-second year, who is endeavoring to compete with other members of the class, and will come out victorious if she continues to be as thorough in the next three years as she has been in the past few months. The evening gatherings are enlivened occasionally by essays, readings, music, etc. This circle predicts for the coming year a membership of forty. We hope that the prediction may be verified.
Mrs. Mary H. Field, the competent and enthusiastic secretary of the Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C., has sent us the following full report of last year’s work in her district: “The Pacific Coast Branch of the C. L. S. C. has grown and prospered during the past year. Its affairs were all so well ordered and arranged by her predecessor that but little remained for the secretary to do save to carry out their good designs. It has been like sailing on a smooth sea in a well manned ship, with all the machinery in perfect order, and with a fresh breeze filling every sail. The work has consisted chiefly in an immense correspondence, the issuing of three thousand circulars, the writing of series of newspaper articles, and the keeping of records and accounts.
“I have the pleasure of reporting six hundred and twenty-four new members, and the renewal of more than two hundred old members. About forty circles are reported as being in prosperous condition. Probably in no other part of the United States is there so scattering a population as on this coast, and it is in the isolated hamlets, the solitary homes, and in the one man or one woman “circles” that the C. L. S. C. does its most salutary work.
“Southern California is a growing center of C. L. S. C. influence. The secretary deeply regrets that Monterey is so far from Los Angeles and San Diego, and that those excellent circles are not represented there.
“It has been my sad duty during the past year to write the little star, which means deceased, against several names in our record. Against one, that of Mrs. M. H. McKee, of San José, I mingled deep personal regret with my official task. Alas for us that one so bright, so useful, so variously endowed, should have passed from earth in the midst of her years and usefulness.”