The Story of Chautauqua

by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

Readings were given by Will M. Carleton, George W. Cable, and General Lew Wallace, from their own writings. An immense crowd packed the Amphitheater to hear General Wallace read from his Ben Hur the story of the Chariot Race. But candor compels us to say that it was not very thrillingly rendered. One who listened said, "He never got his horses off the walk." Other readers were George Riddle of Boston and Professor R. L. Cumnock of Northwestern University. This summer Mrs. Frank Beard collected and conducted an Oriental Exhibition.

Almost every year Frank Beard was at Chautauqua, teaching a class in art, making pictures in the children's class, giving one or two crayon lectures, and occasionally on Sunday evenings an illustrated Bible reading. As already intimated, that was the age when there was a craze for autographs, and everybody carried around an autograph album, seeking signatures from the celebrities. After a popular lecture a crowd hastened to the platform and a hundred hands, each holding an album, would be stretched out toward the speaker, demanding his autograph. Of course every child, and nearly every grown-up, must have Frank Beard's autograph, and with it a picture drawn by his hand. Frank said once in a religious meeting that his idea of heaven was a place where there were no autograph albums.

Every year at Chautauqua is held a National Army Day, when the Civil War veterans from near and far assemble, wear their G. A. R. uniforms and badges, and listen to an address in the Amphitheater. One year, I think it was 1886, but I am not sure, the orator was late in coming, and Mr. Beard, himself a veteran of the war, was called upon to fill the vacancy. He told the story of "The Chaplain's Leg," of which some incredulous people have doubted the authenticity. As I remember it was somewhat as follows. He would come forward, slapping his right leg, and saying:

That is a good leg, but it isn't mine. It belonged once to the chaplain of our regiment; I was in a battle and happened to have a tree between myself and the whole rebel army. There was a change in the front, and I started to make a detour to another tree. Just in the middle of my march I ran against the chaplain, who was also making a detour, and at that moment came along a rebel shell, which took off one of his legs and also one of mine. We lay on the ground only a minute or two, and then an ambulance took us and the two legs on board. They carried us to the field hospital, and put on our legs, which grew just as they should, so that after a few weeks I was dismissed as cured. Well, I had been a long time, for me, without liquid refreshment, and I knew that out in the woods near the camp was an extemporized bar, in the shape of a board laid on two stumps of trees. I found it hard to walk in that direction, and had to pull my right leg along; but I thought that it needed only a little practice to be as good as ever. I got to the bar and ordered a glass of something; it might have been ginger-pop or it might have been something else. Just after it was poured out and before I could take hold of it, that right leg of mine lifted itself up and kicked over the whole contraption—glass, and jug, and bar, and then in spite of all I could do, stumped me back to camp! And on the way I passed the chaplain who was being dragged out to the bar, while I was being pulled away from it. Then I knew what had happened in the hospital; they had put each leg on the wrong man, and I must carry around the chaplain's leg as long as I lived. The leg took me to church; at first it was pretty tough, but I got used to it. That leg brought me to Chautauqua, and here I am to-day, brought by the chaplain's leg. Some time ago I gave by request a lecture with pictures in the Sing Sing prison, and there among the convicts sat my old friend the chaplain, wearing a striped suit. What brought him there I can't imagine, unless—well, I don't know what it was.

The Assembly of 1887 was fifty-eight days in length, from July 2d to August 28th. The schools were still growing in the number of students and enlarging their courses. Some of the new departments were the Arabic and Assyrian languages, mathematics, chemistry, oratory and expression, stenography, mineralogy, and geology. To house these classes and the army of students, buildings were urgently needed, and this year a College Building arose overlooking the lake. It stood until two years ago, when on account of its dilapidation as well as its incongruity with the modern plans of the schools, it was taken down.

During the season of 1887, the Fourth of July Address was given by Hon. Roswell G. Horr, member of Congress from Michigan. Dr. Fairbairn from Oxford was with us again, also the Rev. Mark Guy Pearse of England, Dr. Charles J. Little, Dr. John A. Broadus of Louisville, one of those scholars who know how to present great truths in a simple manner, Chaplain McCabe, Dr. Charles R. Henderson, on social questions of the time, and Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. Rev. Sam P. Jones was also on the platform for the second season. He gave his powerful sermon on "Conscience" with not a sentence to provoke a smile, but a strong call to righteousness. Another address, however, contained an application which called forth a smile all over the audience. It was known that Dr. Vincent was being strongly talked of as a candidate for Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and in the following May, 1888, he was elected to that office. Dr. Vincent was presiding at Mr. Jones' lecture. In the address Jones managed to bring in an allusion to bishops. Then turning halfway round toward the chairman, he said, "Doctor Vincent, I shouldn't wonder if they made you and me bishops before long. You see the thing's coming down."

The class graduating this year in the C. L. S. C. was the largest in the history of the Circle. It included in its membership the Rev. G. R. Alden and his wife, and was named in her honor, the Pansy class. At this time the enrolled members of the C. L. S. C. were more than eighty thousand in number.

The Assembly of 1888 opened on July 3d and closed on August 29th, fifty-eight days in length. The summer school was now announced as the College of Liberal Arts. I notice in the list of subjects taught: Old French, Scandinavian languages and literature, Sanskrit, Zend and Gothic, Hebrew and Semitic languages, and philology. It is not to be supposed that all of these classes were overcrowded with students, but those in physical culture and arts and crafts were very popular. The annual exhibition of the gymnastic classes has been for years one of the most thronged events on the program, and in anticipation the Amphitheater is filled long in advance of the hour for beginning the exercises.

Among the lecturers of this season were Mrs. Alden, "Pansy," who read a new story, The Hall in the Grove; Dr. William R. Harper, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, Dr. Joseph Cook, Dr. Talmage, Dr. Hale, General Russell A. Alger, and George W. Bain. Dr. Phillips Brooks, giant in body and in soul, preached one of his sermons, sweeping in swift utterances like a tidal wave. One hardly dared draw a breath for fear of losing his mighty periods. Bishop William Taylor of Africa, was also present, and thrilled his hearers, yet in a calm, quiet manner, absolutely free from any oratorical display. There was a charm in his address and the most critical hearers felt it, yet could not analyze it. I met, not at Chautauqua but elsewhere, a lawyer who admitted that he rarely attended church because he could not endure the dull sermons; but after listening to Bishop Taylor, said that if he could hear that man he would go to church twice, even three times, on a Sunday. And yet in all his discourse there was not a rhetorical sentence nor a rounded period.

Mr. Leon H. Vincent was again at Chautauqua, with his literary lectures. Either during this season or the one when he came next—for he was generally present every alternate year—it became necessary to move Leon Vincent's lectures from the Hall of Philosophy to the Amphitheater, on account of the number who were eager to hear them. Among those who gave readings were Mr. Charles F. Underhill of New York, Mr. George Riddle, and Professor R. L. Cumnock.