DEMOCRACY AND ARISTOCRACY AT CHAUTAUQUA
(1881)
The eighth session opened on Thursday, July 7th, and continued forty-seven days to August 22d. A glance over the program shows that among the lecturers of that year was Signor Alessandro Gavazzi, the founder of the Free Italian Church, whose lectures, spiced with his quaint accent, and emphasized by expressive shoulders, head, glance of eye, held the interest of his auditors from the opening sentence to the end. No verbal report, however accurate, can portray the charm of this wonderful Italian. Professor W. D. McClintock of the University of Chicago, gave a course on literature, analytic, critical, and suggestive. Dr. William Hayes Ward, Dr. Daniel A. Goodsell, afterward a Methodist Bishop, Professor Charles F. Richardson, Dr. Edward Everett Hale, Dr. A. E. Dunning, Editor of The Congregationalist; General O. O. Howard, who told war stories in a simple, charming manner; Dr. Philip Schaff, one of the most learned yet most simple-hearted scholars of the age; Dr. A. A. Willetts, with his many times repeated, yet always welcome lecture on "Sunshine," were among the men whose voices filled the Amphitheater during the season. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were with us again and Signor Giuseppe Vitale made the birds sing through his wonderful violin.
The success of the C. L. S. C., which was widening its area every month, inspired Dr. Vincent to look for new fields to conquer. He established this year the C. Y. F. R. U., initials standing for The Chautauqua Young Folks Reading Union, which proposed to do for the boys and girls what the Reading Circle was accomplishing for men and women. But it was found after a few years of trial that the school-age seeks its own reading and is not responsive to direction in literature on a vast scale, for the C. Y. F. R. U. was not successful in winning the young readers.
Another scheme launched this year met with the same fate;—The Chautauqua School of Theology. It was thought that many ministers who had not received a theological education would avail themselves of an opportunity to obtain it while in the pastorate. This was to be not a course of reading, but of close study, under qualified instruction in each department, with examinations, a diploma, and a degree. But it required more thorough study and much larger fees than a mere course of reading, and those who needed it most were often the poorest paid in their profession. It did not receive the support needful for its success, it had no endowment, and after an experiment extending through a number of years, it was reluctantly abandoned. Some of us have believed that if the Chautauqua Correspondence School of Theology could have found friends to give it even a moderate endowment, it might have supplied an education needed by a multitude of ministers.
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