This year was also notable for the first appearance of the Chautauquan Magazine, containing a part of the required readings of the C. L. S. C. It was launched and made successful by the financial, business, and editorial ability of Dr. Flood, who ventured his capital boldly and won deserved success. The ever-welcome "Pansy," Mrs. G. R. Alden, this season read a new story, published soon afterward. With Mrs. Alden in those early years was a serious small boy, ever at his mother's side, rarely entering into the sports of childhood. If we could have looked forward a quarter-century, we might have seen in him the coming Professor Raymond M. Alden of the Leland Stanford faculty, one of the most eminent scholars and critics in the Department of English Literature, and an authority quoted in all lands where the English language is spoken or read.
A visitor came to Chautauqua at the session of 1880, whose presence brought the place and the Assembly into notice throughout the nation. General James A. Garfield was at that time the candidate of his party for President of the United States. He came to Chautauqua on Saturday, August 7th, for a week-end rest in a strenuous campaign, expressing a wish not to be called upon for any public address or reception. He worshiped with the great congregation on Sunday morning, his entrance with a group of his friends being received in respectful silence. In the afternoon he mentioned to Dr. Vincent that he had heard of Palestine Park and would like to visit it. As the lectures in the Park were generally given by me, I was detailed to walk through the model and point out its localities. As we went out of Dr. Vincent's tent a small company was standing around, waiting for a sight of the candidate. They followed us, and as we walked on toward the Park, people came flocking forth from every house and tent. By the time we reached the Land of Palestine, it was well-nigh covered with the crowds, extending from Dan to Beersheba. No former Palestine lecture of mine had ever drawn together such a multitude! It became impossible to find the cities covered by the multitudes. But I was somewhat surprised to perceive that the General knew where at least the important localities belonged even though they were not visible. He pointed out half a dozen of the cities named in the Bible, and gave their names without hesitation or suggestion. We desired to make a sort of pilgrimage through the land, but found an army obstructing our journey.
On the next morning, as General Garfield was about to leave, Dr. Vincent asked him, not to make a political speech, but to give in a few words his impressions of Chautauqua. He consented, and standing upon a stump, in the presence of a hastily assembled gathering, gave a ten-minute address, of which the following is a part.
You are struggling with one of the two great problems of civilization. The first one is a very old struggle: It is, how shall we get any leisure? That is the problem of every hammer stroke, of every blow that labor has struck since the foundation of the world. The fight for bread is the first great primal fight, and it is so absorbing a struggle that until one conquers it somewhat he can have no leisure whatever. So that we may divide the whole struggle of the human race into two chapters; first, the fight to get leisure; and then the second fight of civilization—what shall we do with our leisure when we get it? And I take it that Chautauqua has assailed the second problem. Now, leisure is a dreadfully bad thing unless it is well used. A man with a fortune ready made and with leisure on his hands, is likely to get sick of the world, sick of himself, tired of life, and become a useless, wasted man. What shall you do with your leisure? I understand Chautauqua is trying to answer that question and to open out fields of thought, to open out energies, a largeness of mind, a culture in the better senses, with the varnish scratched off. We are getting over the process of painting our native woods and varnishing them. We are getting down to the real grain, and finding whatever is best in it and truest in it. And if Chautauqua is helping garnish our people with the native stuff that is in them, rather than with the paint and varnish and gew-gaws of culture, they are doing well.
As we looked upon that stately figure, the form of one born to command, and listened to that mellow, ringing voice, no one dreamed that within a year that frame would be laid low, that voice hushed, and that life fraught with such promise ended by an assassin's bullet!
The Assembly of 1880 came to its close on August 19th, after a session of thirty-eight days. Although the C. L. S. C. had come to the foreground and held the center of the stage, the normal work and Bible study had not been neglected. The teacher-training classes were now under the charge of Dr. Richard S. Holmes and Rev. J. L. Hurlbut. The Children's Class was maintained with a daily attendance approaching three hundred, the lessons taught by Rev. B. T. Vincent and pictures drawn by Frank Beard; also Mr. Vincent conducted an Intermediate Class in Bible Study. In all these classes for older and younger students, more than two hundred and fifty passed the examination and were enrolled as graduates.
On the last evening of the Assembly, after the closing exercises, there was seen a weird, ghostly procession, in white raiment, emerging from the Ark and parading solemnly through the grounds, pausing before the Miller Cottage and the Vincent Tent for a mournful, melancholy musical strain. This was the "ghost walk" of the guests in the Ark. Some eminent Doctors of Divinity and Ph.D.'s were in that sheeted procession, led by Professors Sherwin and Case, engineered, as such functions were apt to be, by Frank and Helen Beard. The ghost walk grew into an annual march, until it was succeeded by a more elaborate performance, of which the story will be told later.