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قراءة كتاب The Story of Chautauqua
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what he wrote of Chautauqua:
I keep Chautauqua in a fireside nook of my inmost affections and prayers. God bless the Literary and Scientific Circle, which is so marvelously successful already in spreading itself as a young vine over the trellis-work of many lands! What rich clusters may ultimately hang on its cosmopolitan branches! It is the glory of America that it believes that all that anybody knows everybody should know.
Phillips Brooks, perhaps the greatest of American preachers, spoke as follows in a lecture on "Literature and Life":
May we not believe—if the students of Chautauqua be indeed what we have every right to expect that they will be, men and women thoroughly and healthily alive through their perpetual contact with the facts of life—that when they take the books which have the knowledge in them, like pure water in silver urns, though they will not drink as deeply, they will drink more healthily than many of those who in the deader and more artificial life of college halls bring no such eager vitality to give value to their draught? If I understand Chautauqua, this is what it means: It finds its value in the vitality of its students. . . . It summons those who are alive with true human hunger to come and learn of that great world of knowledge of which he who knows the most knows such a very little, and feels more and more, with every increase of his knowledge, how very little it is that he knows.
Julia Ward Howe, author of the song beginning "Mine eyes have seen the glory," and honored throughout the land as one of the greatest among the women of America, wrote as follows:
I am obliged for your kind invitation to be present at the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Chautauqua Assembly. As I cannot well allow myself this pleasure, I send you my hearty congratulations in view of the honorable record of your association. May its good work long continue, even until its leaven shall leaven the whole body of our society.
The following letter was received by Dr. Vincent from one of the most distinguished of the older poets:
Dear Friend: I have been watching the progress of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle inaugurated by thyself, and take some blame to myself for not sooner expressing my satisfaction in regard to its objects and working thus far. I wish it abundant success, and that its circles, like those from the agitated center of the Lake, may widen out, until our entire country shall feel their beneficent influences. I am very truly thy friend,
After these endorsements, we may confidently affirm that a book on Chautauqua, its story, its principles, and its influence in the world, is warranted.
And now, a few words of explanation as to this particular book. The tendency in preparing such a work is to make it documentary, the recital of programs, speakers, and subjects. In order to lighten up the pages, I have sought to tell the story of small things as well as great, the witty as well as the wise words spoken, the record of by-play and repartee upon the platform, in those days when Chautauqua speakers were a fraternity. In fact, the title by which the body of workers was known among its members was "the Gang." Some of these stories are worth preserving, and I have tried to recall and retain them in these pages.
Feb. 1, 1921.
CONTENTS
| PAGE | ||
| Preface | vii | |
| CHAPTER | ||
| I. | —The Place | 3 |
| II. | —The Founders | 11 |
| III. | —Some Primal Principles | 27 |
| IV. | —The Beginnings | 38 |
| V. | —The Early Development | 63 |
| VI. | —The National Centennial Year | 72 |
| VII. | —A New Name and New Faces | 93 |
| VIII. | —The Chautauqua Reading Circle | 116 |
| IX. | —Chautauqua All the Year | 141 |
| X. | —The School of Languages | 160 |
| XI. | —Hotels, Headquarters, and Handshaking (1880) | 172 |
| XII. | —Democracy and Aristocracy at Chautauqua (1881) | 187 |
| XIII. | —The First Recognition Day | |