The Story of Chautauqua Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: Unitarian Headquarters]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Episcopal Chapel]

The Hotel Athenaeum was opened in 1881 and speedily filled with guests.

It aided in bringing to Chautauqua a new const.i.tuency and also spurred the cottage boarding-houses to improve their accommodations and their fare. From the beginning the waiters and other helpers at the Hotel, and also in the cottages, have been mostly young people seeking to obtain higher education, and paying their way at Chautauqua by service. I remember one morning finding a Hebrew book on my breakfast table. One meets unaccustomed things at Chautauqua, but I was quite sure the _menu_ was not in that language. I called the attention of the young man who brought in the breakfast to the book. He told me that he was studying Hebrew with Dr. Harper, and from time to time we had some conversation concerning his college work. Twenty years afterward I met a prominent Methodist minister at a Conference, who said to me, "Don't you remember me, Dr. Hurlbut? I used to wait on your table at Chautauqua and we talked together about Hebrew." That minister was a member of several General Conferences and some years ago was made one of the Bishops in his church.

Mrs. Ida B. Cole, the Executive Secretary of the C. L. S. C., is responsible for the following: A woman once said, "Chautauqua cured me of being a sn.o.b, for I found that my waitress was a senior in a college, the chambermaid had specialized in Greek, the porter taught languages in a high school, and the bell-boy, to whom I had been giving nickel tips, was the son of a wealthy family in my own State who wanted a job to prove his prowess."

There are a few, however, who do not take kindly to the democratic life of Chautauqua. I was seated at one of the hotel tables with a well-known clergyman from England, whose sermons of a highly spiritual type are widely read in America; and I remarked:

"Perhaps it may interest you to know that all the waiters in this hotel are college-students."

"What do you mean?" he said, "surely no college student would demean himself by such a servile occupation! But it may be a lark, just for fun."

"No," I answered, "they are men who are earning money to enable them to go on with their college work, a common occurrence in summer hotels in America."

Said this minister, "Well, I don't like it; and it would not be allowed in my country. No man after it could hold up his head in an English University or College. I don't enjoy being waited on by a man who considers himself my social equal!"

Other eminent Englishmen did not agree with this clergyman. When I mentioned this incident a year later to Princ.i.p.al Fairbairn of Oxford, he expressed his hearty sympathy with the democracy shown at Chautauqua, and said that whatever might be the ideas of cla.s.s-distinction in English colleges, they were unknown in Scotland, where some of the most distinguished scholars rose from the humblest homes and regardless of their poverty were respected and honored in their colleges.

Dr. Vincent, ever fertile in sentimental touches, added two features to the usages of the C. L. S. C. One was the "Camp fire." In an open place a great bonfire was prepared; all the members stood around in a circle, clasping hands; the fire was kindled, and while the flames soared up and lit the faces of the crowd, songs were sung and speeches were made. This service was maintained annually until the ground at Chautauqua became too closely occupied by cottages for a bonfire to be safe. It is noteworthy that on the day after the camp fire, there was always a large enrollment of members for the C. L. S. C. Of course, the camp fire was introduced at other a.s.semblies, by this time becoming numerous, and it attracted not only spectators, but students to the reading-course. At our first camp fire in the Ottawa a.s.sembly, Kansas, an old farmer from the country rushed up to Dr. Milner, the President, and said:

"I don't know much about this ere circle you were talking about, but I'm going to jine, and here's my fifty cents for membership and another for my wife."

There were only twenty members around the fire that night, but on the next day, there were forty or more on the registry at the Chautauqua tent.

The camp fire died down after a number of years, but the Vigil, also introduced in 1881, became a permanent inst.i.tution. In the days of chivalry, when a youth was to receive the honor of knighthood, he spent his last night in the chapel of the castle, watching beside his armor, to be worn for the first time on the following day. Dr. Vincent called upon the members of the Pioneer cla.s.s of the C. L. S. C., destined to graduate on the following year, to meet him in the Hall of Philosophy late on Sunday night, after the conclusion of the evening service. All except members of the cla.s.s were requested not to come. The hall was dimly lighted, left almost in darkness. They sang a few songs from memory, listened to a Psalm, and to an earnest, deeply religious address, were led in prayer, and were dismissed, to go home in silence through the empty avenues. After a few years the Vigil was changed from a Sunday evening of the year before graduation to the Sunday immediately preceding Recognition Day, for the reason that on the graduation year, the attendance of any cla.s.s is far greater than on the year before. The Vigil is still one of the time-honored and highly appreciated services of the season. Now, however, the Hall is no longer left in shadow, for around it the Athenian Watch Fires lighten up St. Paul's Grove with their flaring tongues. Generally more people are standing outside the pillars of the Hall, watching the ceremonials, than are seated before the platform, for none are permitted to enter except members of the cla.s.s about to graduate.

I am not sure whether it was in this year, 1881, or the following that Dr. Vincent inaugurated the Society of Christian Ethics. This was not an organization with a roll of membership, dues, and duties, but simply a meeting on Sunday afternoon in the Children's Temple, at which an address on character was given, in the first years by Dr. Vincent. It was especially for young people of the 'teen age. No one was admitted under the age of twelve or over that of twenty. The young people were quite proud of having Dr. Vincent all to themselves, and strongly resented the efforts of their elders to obtain admittance. No person of adult years was allowed without a card signed by Dr. Vincent. These addresses by the Founder, if they had been taken down and preserved, would have formed a valuable book for young people on the building up of true character. They were continued during the years of Dr. Vincent's active a.s.sociation with Chautauqua and for some time afterward; addresses being given by eminent men of the Chautauqua program. But very few speakers could meet the needs of that adolescent age. By degrees the attendance decreased and after some years the meeting gave place to other interests.

The regular features of the season went on as in other years. The schools were growing in students, in the number of instructors, and in the breadth of their courses. The Sunday School Normal Department was still prominent, and on August 17, 1881, one hundred and ninety diplomas were conferred upon the adults, intermediates, and children who had pa.s.sed the examination.

CHAPTER XIII

THE FIRST RECOGNITION DAY (1882)

THE opening service of the ninth session was begun, as all the opening sessions of previous years, in the out-of-doors Auditorium in front of the Miller Cottage. But a sudden dash of rain came down and a hasty adjournment was made to the new Amphitheater. From 1882 onward, "Old First Night" has been observed in that building. A few lectures during the season of '82 were given in the old Auditorium, but at the close of the season the seats were removed, save a few left here and there under the trees for social enjoyment; and the Auditorium was henceforth known as Miller Park.

The crowning event of the 1882 season was the graduation of the first cla.s.s in the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. Taking into account the fact that it was the first cla.s.s, for which no advertising had been given and no announcement made in advance, the number graduated at the end of the four years was remarkably large, over eighteen hundred, of which eight hundred received their diplomas at Chautauqua and a thousand more at their homes, some in distant places. Years afterward I met a minister in a small town in Texas who had seen the report of the inauguration of the C. L. S. C., had read Dr. Vincent's address on that occasion, and joined the Cla.s.s of 1882, its only member, as far as he knew, in his State. One member was a teacher in South Africa, others were missionaries in India and China. Most of the regular visitors to Chautauqua in those early days were members of this cla.s.s, so that even now, after nearly forty years, the Pioneer Cla.s.s can always muster at its annual gatherings a larger number of its members than almost any other of the cla.s.ses. For many years Mrs. B. T. Vincent was the President of the Cla.s.s, and strongly interested in its social and religious life. She inst.i.tuted at Chautauqua the "Quiet Hour," held every Sat.u.r.day evening during the a.s.sembly season, at Pioneer Hall, by this cla.s.s, a meeting for conversation on subjects of culture and the Christian life. It is a touching sight to look upon that group of old men and women, at their annual farewell meeting, on the evening before the Recognition Day, standing in a circle with joined hands, singing together their cla.s.s song written for them by Mary A. Lathbury, and then sounding forth their cla.s.s yell:

Hear! Hear! Pioneers!

Height to height, fight for right, Pioneers!

Who are you? Who are you?

We are the cla.s.s of eighty-two!

Pioneers--Ah!

No college cla.s.s was ever graduated with half the state and splendor of ceremony that was observed on that first Recognition Day, in a ritual prepared by Dr. Vincent, and observed to the letter every year since 1882. He chose to call it not a Commencement, but a Recognition, the members of the Circle being _recognized_ on that day as having completed the course and ent.i.tled to membership in the Society of the Hall in the Grove, the Alumni a.s.sociation of the C. L. S. C.

A procession was formed, its divisions meeting in different places. The graduating cla.s.s met before the Golden Gate at St. Paul's Grove, a gate which is opened but once in the year and through which none may pa.s.s except those who have completed the course of reading and study of the C. L. S. C. Over the gate hung a silk flag which had been carried by the Rev. Albert D. Vail of New York to many of the famous places in the world of literature, art, and religion. It had been waved from the summit of the Great Pyramid, of Mount Sinai in the Desert, and Mount Tabor in the Holy Land. It had been laid in the Manger at Bethlehem, and in the traditional tomb of Jesus in Holy Sepulcher Church. It had fluttered upon the Sea of Galilee, upon Mount Lebanon, in the house where Paul was converted at Damascus, and under the dome of St. Sophia in Constantinople. It had been at the Acropolis and Mars' Hill in Athens, to Westminster Abbey, and to Shakespeare's tomb at Stratford, to the graves of Walter Scott and Robert Burns. Upon its stripes were inscribed the names of forty-eight places to which that flag had been carried. The cla.s.s stood before the Golden Gate, still kept closed until the moment should come for it to be opened, and in two sections the members read a responsive service from the Bible, having wisdom and especially the highest wisdom of all, the knowledge of G.o.d, as its subject.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Lutheran Headquarters]

[Ill.u.s.tration: United Presbyterian Chapel]

At the same time one section of the parade was meeting in Miller Park, in front of the Lewis Miller Cottage. Another was at the tent where lived Dr. Vincent, and still another division, the most interesting of all, on the hill, in front of the Children's Temple. This was an array of fifty little girls in white dresses, with wreaths in their hair and baskets of flowers in their hands. At the signal, the procession moved from its different stations, and marched past the Vincent Tent, led by the band and the flower girls, and including every department of Chautauqua, officials, trustees, schools, and Sunday School Normal Cla.s.s. In the later years each cla.s.s of graduates marched, led by its banner, the Cla.s.s of 1882, the Pioneers, bearing in front their symbol, the hatchet. Before all was the great banner of the C. L. S. C.

presented to the Circle by Miss Jennie Miller, Lewis Miller's eldest daughter, bearing upon one side a painting of the Hall of Philosophy and the three mottoes of the Circle; on the other a silk handkerchief which had accompanied the flag on its journey to the sacred places. The pole holding up the banner was surmounted by a fragment of Plymouth Rock.

The march was to the Hall of Philosophy, where the orator, officers, and guests occupied the platform, the little flower girls were grouped on opposite sides of the path from the Golden Gate up to the Hall; the graduating cla.s.s still standing outside the entrance protected by the Guard of the Gate. A messenger came from the Gate to announce that the cla.s.s was now prepared to enter, having fulfilled all of the conditions, and the order was given, "Let the Golden Gate now be opened." The portals were swung apart, and the cla.s.s entered, pa.s.sing under the historic flag and successively under four arches dedicated respectively to Faith, Science, Literature, and Art, while the little girls strewed flowers in their path. As they marched up the hill they were greeted by Miss Lathbury's song:

THE SONG OF TO-DAY

Sing paeans over the Past!

We bury the dead years tenderly, To find them again in eternity, Safe in its circle vast.

Sing paeans over the Past!

Farewell, farewell to the Old!

Beneath the arches, and one by one, From sun to shade, and from shade to sun, We pa.s.s, and the years are told.

Farewell, farewell to the Old!

Arise and possess the land!

Not one shall fail in the march of life, Not one shall fail in the hour of strife, Who trusts in the Lord's right hand.

Arise and possess the land!

And hail, all hail to the New!

The future lies like a world new-born, All steeped in sunshine and dews of morn, And arched with a cloudless blue All hail, all hail to the New!

All things, all things are yours!

The spoil of nations, the arts sublime That arch the ages from oldest time, The word that for aye endures-- All things, all things are yours!

The Lord shall sever the sea, And open a way in the wilderness To faith that follows, to feet that pa.s.s Forth into the great TO BE The Lord shall sever the sea!

The inspiring music of this inspiring hymn was composed, like most of the best Chautauqua songs, by Prof. William F. Sherwin. The cla.s.s entered, and while taking their seats were welcomed in the strains of another melody:

A song is thrilling through the trees, And vibrant through the air, Ten thousand hearts turn hitherward, And greet us from afar.

And through the happy tide of song That blends our hearts in one, The voices of the absent flow In tender undertone.

CHORUS

Then bear along, O wings of song, Our happy greeting glee, From center to the golden verge, Chautauqua to the sea.

Fair Wisdom builds her temple here, Her seven-pillared dome; Toward all lands she spreads her hands, And greets her children home; Not all may gather at her shrine To sing of victories won; Their names are graven on her walls-- G.o.d bless them every one! _Chorus._

O happy circle, ever wide And wider be thy sweep, Till peace and knowledge fill the earth As waters fill the deep; Till hearts and homes are touched to life, And happier heights are won; Till that fair day, clasp hands, and say G.o.d bless us, every one! _Chorus._

Another responsive service followed, read in turn by the Superintendent and the cla.s.s, and then Dr. Vincent gave the formal Recognition in words used at every similar service since that day: