The Centennial of American Independence was duly commemorated on Saturday, August 5th. Bishop Simpson had been engaged to deliver the oration, but was kept at home by illness and the hour was filled with addresses by different speakers, one of whom, Mr. W. Aver Duncan of London, presented the congratulations of Old England to her daughter across the sea. A children's centennial was held in the afternoon, at which the writer of this story spoke, and Frank Beard drew funny pictures. We will not tell, though we know, which of the two orators pleased the children most. At the sunset hour an impressive Bible service was held on the shore of the lake by Professor Sherwin, followed in the Auditorium by a concert of slave-songs from "The North Carolinians," a troupe of negro college students. Late in the evening came a gorgeous display on the lake, the Illuminated Fleet. Every steam vessel plying Chautauqua waters marched in line, led by the old three-decker Jamestown all hung with Chinese lanterns, and making the sky brilliant with fireworks. A week later there was a commemorative tree-planting on the little park in the angle between the present Post Office building and the Colonnade. President Lewis Miller, Dr. C. H. Payne, President of Ohio Wesleyan University, Drs. Vail and Strong, teachers of Hebrew and Greek at the Assembly, Drs. O. H. Tiffany, T. K. Beecher, Richard Newton, J. A. Worden, Beard and Sherwin, Dr. Wythe, builder of Palestine Park and Director of Recreations at the Assembly, and Prof. P. P. Bliss were some, but not all of those who planted trees. Afterward each tree was marked by a sign bearing the name of its planter. These signs were lost in the process of the years, and not all the trees are now living. I think that I can identify the tree planted by Frank Beard, but am not sure of any other in the little group remaining at the present time.
A noteworthy event at the Assembly of 1876 was the establishment of the Children's Meeting as a daily feature. Meetings for the younger people had been held from time to time in '74 and '75 but this year Frank Beard suggested a regular "Children's Hour," and the meetings were at first conducted by him, mingling religion and humor. Underneath his fun, Mr. Beard had a serious soul. He read strong books, talked with his friends on serious subjects, always sought to give at least one illustrated Bible reading during the Assembly, and resented the popular expectation that he should be merely the funny man on the program. He was assisted in his children's meeting by the Rev. Bethuel T. Vincent, a brother of the Founder, who was one of the most remarkable teachers of children and young people whom I have ever known. He could arrange the facts of Bible knowledge in outline, could present them in a striking manner, and drill them into the minds of the boys and girls in an enduring way that few instructors could equal and none surpass. Before many sessions, Mr. Vincent's lesson became the major feature and Beard's pictures the entertainment of the meeting. The grown-ups came to the meetings in such numbers as threatened to crowd out the children, until the rule was made that adults must take the rear seats,—no exception being made even for the row of ear-trumpets—leaving the front to the little people. Following the custom of the Normal Class, an examination in writing that would tax the brains of many ministers was held at the close, limited to all below a certain age, and prizes were awarded to the best papers presented. As after forty years I read the list of graduates in those early classes, I find the names of men and women who have distinguished themselves as ministers and missionaries in the churches.
Early in the Assembly season, on August 7, 1876, a momentous step was taken in the appointment by the instructors and students of the Normal Class, of a committee to prepare a course of study for the preparation of Sunday School teachers. Eleven men, present at Chautauqua, representing ten different denominations, were chosen as the committee, and their report constituted the first attempt at a union normal course. Hitherto each church had worked out its own independent course of study, and the lines laid down were exceedingly divergent. This new course prescribed forty lessons, a year's work divided between the study of the Bible, the Sunday School, the pupil, and the principles of teaching. Comparing it with the official course now adopted by the International Sunday School Association, we find it for a year's study remarkably complete and adapted to the teacher's needs. For years it stood as the basis of the teacher-training work at Chautauqua, was followed in the preparation of text-books and pursued by many classes in the United States and Canada.
The Centennial Year marked a note of progress in the music at the Assembly. Up to this time scarcely any music had been attempted outside of the church and Sunday School hymnals. This year the choir was larger than before, perhaps as many as forty voices—think of that in contrast with the three hundred now assembled in the choir-gallery of the Amphitheater! Some anthems had been attempted, but no oratorios, and no songs of the secular character. It was Professor C. C. Case who ventured with the doubtful permission of Dr. Vincent to introduce at a concert some selections from standard music outside the realm of religion. Nobody objected, perhaps because nobody recognized the significance of the step taken; and it was not long before the whole world of music was open to Chautauquans.
This writer remembers, however, that when at an evening lecture, Dr. Vincent announced as a prelude "Invitation to the Dance," sung by a quartette of ladies, he received next day a letter of protest against so immoral a song at a religious gathering. If it had been sung without announcement of its title, no one would have objected. On the following evening, Dr. Vincent actually offered a mild apology for the title. Since that time, the same title has been printed on the Chautauqua program, and the song encored by five thousand people. Surely, "the world do move!"
Another step in the advancement of Chautauqua was the incorporation of the Assembly. Up to this year, 1876, the old charter of the Erie Conference Camp Meeting Association had constituted the legal organization. On April 28, 1876, new articles of incorporation were signed at Mayville, the county seat, providing for twenty-four trustees of the Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly. In the charter the object was stated "to hold stated public meetings from year to year upon the grounds at Fair Point in the County of Chautauqua for the furtherance of Sunday School interests and any other moral and religious purpose not inconsistent therewith." We note that the old name Fair Point was still used to designate the place of the Assembly. But it was for the last time; with the next year's program a new name will appear.
One of the first acts of the new Board was to purchase a large addition to the camp-meeting ground on its eastern border, and to lay out streets upon it. This section included the campus and site of the buildings that now adorn the College Hill. Some readers may inquire how the streets of the Assembly received their names. During the Camp Meeting period, the streets were named after Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church—Simpson Avenue, Janes Avenue, Merrill Avenue, and so on. Under the Assembly régime a few more bishops were thus remembered; the road winding around from Palestine Park to the land-gate on the public highway was called Palestine Avenue; Vincent Avenue ran straight up the hill past the old Dining Hall, Miller Avenue parallel with it on the west; and other streets later were named after prominent Chautauqua leaders. Wythe the first Secretary, Root, the first Vice-President, Massey, a family from Canada making liberal contributions, Miss Kimball, the efficient Executive Secretary of the Reading Circle, and a few other names in Chautauqua's annals. The visitor to the present-day Chautauqua smiles as he reads one of the earliest enactments of the new Board, a resolution to instruct the Superintendent of Grounds "to warn the person selling tobacco on the grounds that he is engaged in an unlawful occupation." We hasten to add that this anti-tobacco regulation is no longer in operation.
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