The Story of Chautauqua

by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

On February 17, 1899, Lewis Miller died in a hospital in New York where he had been taken to undergo an operation from which he failed to rally. He was seventy years of age and had given his whole heart and the best of his life to Chautauqua. But for Lewis Miller there would have been no Chautauqua, though there might have been an Assembly under some other name. He had chosen the place, had urged the location, and in its inception had aided in its plans, had supervised its business interests, and had contributed generously to its needs. At the opening of the "Old First Night" service in August, 1899, the white lilies bloomed in his honor, but instead of being waved, were held in solemn stillness for a full minute, and then slowly lowered, and this memorial has been observed on every "Old First Night" since. The names of Lewis Miller and John H. Vincent stand together in equal honor as the two Founders of Chautauqua. Next to these Founders we remember on "Old First Night" two of the Vice-Presidents of the Board of Trustees, the late Francis H. Root of Buffalo, and Clem. Studebaker of South Bend, Indiana, both wise counsellors and generous givers to Chautauqua.

During the session of 1899, Theodore Roosevelt was for the third time the guest of Chautauqua. The war with Spain had come and gone; he had been Colonel of the Rough Riders, and was now Governor of New York. One of those Rough Riders was young Theodore Miller, the son of the Founder of Chautauqua, and the only Yale student to lay down his life in that campaign. His memory is preserved by the Miller Gate on the University campus. Another Governor was with us that summer, Robert L. Taylor of Tennessee. The two brothers Taylor were the heads respectively of the two political parties in their State, were candidates opposed to each other, stumped the State together, slept together every night, played the violin together at their meetings, and then after the concert, made their speeches against one another. The writer of these pages may claim a humble part in their careers, for both of them as boys, and also an older brother, were students under his teaching in 1864 and '65 in Pennington Seminary, New Jersey. We could tell some stories about those three Taylor boys, but we refrain. I think that the Republican Taylor, Alfred, is even now (1920) the Governor of Tennessee, as his brother was its Democratic Governor in 1899.

Another visitor of about this date, though we are not certain of the precise year, was Mr. Horace Fletcher, whose name is in the dictionary in the word "Fletcherize," which means to count the chewing of each mouthful thirty times before swallowing it. We have tried some steaks in the early Chautauquan days when fifty chews would hardly make an impression. He spoke on the platform, and the few who could hear him said that his talk was not about dietetics, but foreign politics, though the two words are somewhat alike and they may have misunderstood him. His fiftieth birthday came while he was at Chautauqua, and he celebrated it by doing some amazing stunts, double somersaults, etc., into the lake at the diving place. I sat at the table next to his at the Athenæum and noticed that he ate very slowly, but I could not count the chews on each mouthful. A lady at the same table told me that Mr. Fletcher eschewed coffee but put seven lumps of sugar in his tea, calmly observing that his "system needed sugar." I know some young people who have the same opinion concerning their own systems, if one may judge by the fate of a box of chocolates in their hands.

In this year the School of Religious Teaching was reorganized, the Department of Sacred Literature being conducted by Chancellor Wallace of Toronto, and that of Religious Pedagogy, by Dr. J. R. Street. We may as well insert here the fact that for many years before, and during the seasons since that year, Sunday School lessons were taught in the morning and a lecture given at the Park of Palestine in the afternoon by the author of this volume. The plan with the lessons has been to give every morning a preview of a coming Sunday School topic, so that by the close of the season all the lessons for six months to come have been taught, and at Palestine Park to treat the geography of the land historically in a series of lectures. Also, it should be remembered that every Sunday of the Chautauqua season, from the first year, a Sunday School has been held in the morning, for all ages from youngest to oldest, the grades being taught in different places on the grounds by specialists in their several departments. For some years, if one strayed on Sunday morning over Palestine Park, he might find a class of boys seated on the hills around Nazareth listening to a lesson on the boyhood of Jesus, and a group of girls looking down on the Sea of Galilee, while a teacher was telling stories of the tempest stilled and the five thousand fed.

Prominent upon the lecture platform in 1899 were Prof. C. T. Winchester, Dr. Charles E. Jefferson, Prof. John Fiske, Prof. A. B. Hart, Bishop C. B. Galloway of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, President Faunce, Dr. George Adam Smith, Dr. E. E. Hale, and Governor G. W. Atkinson of West Virginia. Mr. John Kendrick Bangs was also on the platform with readings.

The year 1900 rounded out a century, and one of its outstanding events at Chautauqua was a course of lectures by Principal Fairbairn of Oxford on "The Nineteenth Century." He asserted that in the ages to come, this hundred years will be looked upon as perhaps the greatest of all the centuries in the world's progress made during that period. He spoke in turn upon the historical, the political, the inventive, the literary, the religious, and the philosophic progress, giving without a written reminder names, dates, facts, processes of thought in the widest range. Many regarded it as one of the ablest and most enlightening series of addresses that they had ever heard.

South Gymnasium

Among the new faces on the platform we saw Dr. Lincoln Hulley, the new President of the John B. Stetson University of Florida, an exceedingly interesting speaker and a charming personality. We heard also Mr. Edward Howard Griggs in a series of lectures in the Amphitheater, and an appreciative class also met him in the school. From 1900 until the present, Mr. Griggs has given us biennial courses, and on "Old First Night" his tall form rises and sits down as the record is made up for every alternate year. No lecturer on thoughtful subjects has more engagements or brings together larger audiences than Mr. Griggs. Dean Charles D. Williams of Trinity Cathedral, and in a few years Bishop (Protestant Episcopal) of Detroit, an independent thinker and powerful preacher, welcomed both on the platform and in the pulpit many times since that appearance, his first among us. I think also that Professor Bliss Perry of Harvard spoke for the first time this season, also President Benjamin Ide Wheeler. Others who came as old friends were Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, President Henry Churchill King, Dr. Graham Taylor, Dr. Cadman, Mr. Edward Howard Griggs, Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt, Miss Susan B. Anthony, and Miss Jane Addams. I must not forget that this summer Mr. Francis Wilson was with us again, and gave a lecture upon Eugene Field and his poetry, an appreciation inspired by friendship as well as literary insight. On a former visit to Chautauqua Francis Wilson not only joined the C. L. S. C., but formed a reading circle in his dramatic company, directing their studies and holding their literary meetings in railroad stations, in hotel parlors, and in the green rooms of theaters, wherever they chanced to be when the meeting day arrived.

On August 7, 1900, the corner stone of the Hall of Christ, "Aula Christi," was laid. The address on that occasion was given by Bishop James M. Thoburn of India. Bishop Vincent was now living overseas in Zurich, Switzerland, and could not be present. The stone was laid by Principal George E. Vincent and a telegram from his father was read. This Hall was one of the creations of Bishop Vincent's poetic mind. He aimed to make it a building not large, but beautiful, a sort of shrine, a chapel for meditation and prayer, a place of quiet, spiritual fellowship, not of class teaching, but of thoughtful addresses on themes directly relating to our Lord. Bishop Vincent did not possess the genius for raising large sums of money for his conceptions; he shrank from pressing them upon rich men. Another projector would have ventured boldly, demanded contributions and obtained them, to build the Hall at once; but Dr. Vincent was delicate in speaking of it, though all knew his ardent desires for this ideal. The building grew slowly as gifts were received. Begun in 1899, it was not dedicated until 1912. Although no thought of his own honor in this building was in the Founder's mind, yet to many it stands as his monument at Chautauqua. Most appropriately it is used as the center for the Department of Religious Work, and daily lectures are given within its walls on Biblical themes.