The Story of Chautauqua Part 14

THE a.s.sembly of 1889 opened on July 3d and continued fifty-five days, to August 26th. Several new buildings had arisen since the last session.

One was the Anne M. Kellogg Memorial Hall, built by Mr. James H. Kellogg of Rochester, New York, in honor of his mother. In it were rooms for kindergarten, clay modeling, china painting, and a meeting place for the Chautauqua W. C. T. U. It stood originally on the site of the present Colonnade Building, the business block, and was moved to its present location to make room for that building. Mr. Kellogg was an active worker in the Sunday School movement and from the beginning a regular visitor at Chautauqua. Another building of this year was the one formerly known as the Administration Office, on Clark Avenue in front of the book-store and the old Museum, now the Information Bureau and the School of Expression. When the offices of the Inst.i.tution were removed to the Colonnade, the old Administration Building was given up to business, and it is now known as a lunch-room. The School of Physical Culture, under Dr. W. G. Anderson, had grown to such an extent that a new gymnasium had become a necessity, and one had been erected on the lake-front. In the newer part of the grounds many private cottages arose, of more tasteful architecture than the older houses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chautauqua Woman's Club House]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rustic Bridge]

A notable event of this season was the visit of former President Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Among the lecturers of 1889 we find the name of Mr. Donald G. Mitch.e.l.l, whose _Reveries of a Bachelor_ and _Dream-Life_, published under the pseudonym of Ik Marvel, are recognized cla.s.sics in American literature. Other eminent men on the platform were Professor Hjalmar H. Boyesen of Columbia University, Professor J. P.

Mahaffy of Dublin University, Dr. Lyman Abbott, Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, Dr. Washington Gladden, Dr. John Henry Barrows, Professor Frederick Starr, who could make anthropology interesting to those who had never studied it, Professor Herbert B. Adams, and Corporal Tanner, the U. S.

Commissioner of Pensions, a veteran who walked on two cork legs, but was able to stand up and give a heart-warming address to the old soldiers.

Dr. W. R. Harper, who was teaching in the School of Theology, gave a course of lectures on the Hebrew prophets. Bishop Cyrus D. Foss, one of the great preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, delivered a sermon on one of the Sundays. The South sent us an able lecturer in Richard Malcolm Johnson. The orator on Recognition Day, of the Cla.s.s of '89, was Dr. David Swing of Chicago, who spoke on "The Beautiful and the Useful." Dr. Russell H. Conwell gave some lectures, abundant in their ill.u.s.trative stories.

I think that this was the year, but am not certain, when Dr. Conwell preached one Sunday in the Amphitheater a sermon of remarkable originality, listened to with the closest attention by his hearers, because he kept them guessing as to his subject until he was more than half-way through. He said in opening, "I will give my text at the end of the sermon, if I don't forget it; but I will tell you my subject. I am going to speak of a man whom our Lord called the Model Church Member."

We all began wondering who that man was, but n.o.body could recall him. He said that this model man lived among the mountains, and spoke of the influence of surroundings upon character; then that where he lived there were two churches, one large, the other small, one aristocratic and popular, the other of the lower cla.s.ses, despised; and that this man was a member of the church looked down upon; but these facts gave us no hint as to the model man's ident.i.ty. He puzzled us once more by saying that this was a business man who had good credit, and we were still in the fog;--when did Jesus ever talk about credit? Then he told in graphic manner, making it seem as if it had happened the day before, the story of the Good Samaritan, and the problem was solved. But he astonished us again by saying, "There was one part of this story which for some reason St. Luke left out of his gospel, and I am going to tell it now";--and of course everybody was eager to hear a brand-new Bible story not found in the Scriptures. He told that this man who had been robbed and beaten on the Jericho road, after his recovery at the inn, went home to Jerusalem, met his family, and then took his two boys up to the Temple to return thanks for his restoration. The service in all its splendor was described. One boy said, "Father, see that priest waving a censer! What a good man he must be!" But the man said, "My boy, don't look at that hypocrite! That is the very priest who left me to die beside the road!"

After a few minutes, the younger boy said, "See that Levite blowing a trumpet! He looks like a good man, doesn't he?" And the father said, "My boys, that is the very Levite that pa.s.sed me by when I was lying wounded! Let us go away from this place." And then one of the boys said, "Let us find the church of the Good Samaritan, and worship there." And Dr. Conwell added, "My text is, 'Go thou and do likewise!'" No one who heard that sermon, so full of surprises, could ever forget it.

The elocutionary readers who entertained us during that season were Professor c.u.mnock, A. P. Burbank, George Riddle, George W. Cable, reading his own stories, and Mr. Leland Powers of Boston, with his rendering of _David Copperfield_, several other stories, and a play or two. Without the aid of costume or "making up," it was wonderful how he could change facial expression, and voice, and manner instantaneously with his successive characters. We saw Mr. Micawber transformed in an instant into Uriah Heep. From 1889, Mr. Powers was a frequent visitor, and his rendering of novels and plays enraptured the throngs in the Amphitheater. For many seasons he was wont to appear on alternate years.

On Old First Night, when the call was made for those present on the successive years, while the regulars stood up and remained standing as each year was named, it was interesting to watch the down-sittings and uprisings of Leland Powers. But we shall hear his voice no more, for even while we are writing the news of his death comes to us.

In this year, 1889, the musical cla.s.ses were organized as the Chautauqua School of Music, with instructors in all departments. Inasmuch as all people do not enjoy the sound of a piano, practicing all day scales and exercises, a place was found in the rear of the grounds for a village of small cottages, some might call them "huts," each housing a piano for lessons and practice. I am told that forty-eight pianos may be heard there all sending out music at once, and each a different tune.

The year 1889 brought another man to Chautauqua who was well-beloved and will be long remembered, the pianist and teacher, William H. Sherwood, who showed himself a true Chautauquan by his willing, helpful spirit, no less than by his power on the piano. When death stilled those wondrous fingers, Mr. Sherwood's memory was honored by the Sherwood Memorial Studios, dedicated in 1912.

When we realize that Chautauqua is a city of frame-buildings, packed closely together on narrow streets, in the early years having exceedingly inadequate protection against fires, we almost wonder that it has never been overswept by a conflagration. From time to time there have been fires, most of them a benefit in clearing away old shacks of the camp-meeting strata; and one took place on a night during the season of 1889. It swept away a row of small houses along the southwestern border of Miller Park, toward the Land of Palestine. Their site was kept unoccupied, leaving a clear view of the lake, except on one corner where a handsome building was erected, the Arcade. While the main entrance to the grounds was at the Pier, this was a prosperous place of business, but after the back door became the front door, through the coming of the Chautauqua Traction Company, giving railroad connection with the outside world, the business center of Chautauqua shifted to streets up the hill.

The year 1890 came, bringing the seventeenth session of the a.s.sembly.

This was the year when the Presbyterian House was opened, and also the C. L. S. C. building, erected by Flood and Vincent, for Mr. George E.

Vincent was now a partner with Dr. Flood in publishing _The Chautauquan Magazine_ and the books of the C. L. S. C. Subsequently the business of publication was a.s.sumed by the Inst.i.tution, and the building has been for many years the book-store, with rooms on the floor above for cla.s.ses in the School of Expression.

An announcement in the program of the College of Liberal Arts was that a School of Journalism would be conducted by Hamilton Wright Mabie, essayist, and one of the editors of _The Outlook_. Leon H. Vincent gave another course of literary lectures. Dr. Henry L. Wayland of Philadelphia was one of the speakers. John Habberton, author of the "best seller" some years before, _Helen's Babies_, lectured, read, joined the C. L. S. C. Cla.s.s of 1894, and was made its President. Dr.

Francis E. Clark, father of the Christian Endeavor Society, came and was greeted by a host of young Endeavorers. Dr. Alexander McKenzie of Cambridge, Ma.s.s., preached a great sermon. Mr. Robert J. Burdette, at that time an editor, but afterwards a famous Baptist preacher, gave one of his wisely-witty lectures. The Hon. John Jay, worthy son of one of New York's most distinguished families, gave an address. Dr. Fairbairn of Oxford was again among us, with his deep lectures, yet clear as the waters of Lake Tahoe. The orator on Recognition Day was Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, whose term as President made Wellesley great. Mr. Thomas Nelson Page gave readings from his own stories of southern life before the Civil War. A young man appeared on the platform for the first time, but not the last, who was destined to stand forth in a few years as one of the foremost of Americans. This was Theodore Roosevelt, whose lectures at Chautauqua were later expanded into the volumes on _The Winning of the West_. Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, soldier and historian, also gave lectures.

At the opening of the season in 1891, the members of the Chautauqua Circle counted more than a hundred thousand. Nine cla.s.ses had been graduated, another large cla.s.s was to receive its diplomas during that summer, and there were three undergraduate cla.s.ses each of nearly twenty thousand members, with another cla.s.s as large in prospect. Only a small section of each cla.s.s could be present at Chautauqua, the vast majority of its members being far away, some in distant lands. But among those who came to the a.s.sembly, the social spirit was strong. They loved to meet each other, held social reunions and business meetings constantly.

Each of the four oldest cla.s.ses, from '82 to '85, had its own building as headquarters, but all the later cla.s.ses were homeless and in need of homes. It was a great boon to these cla.s.ses when at last, in 1891, the C. L. S. C. Alumni Hall was completed and opened. Its eight cla.s.s-rooms were distributed by lot and furnished by the gifts of the members. As new cla.s.ses were organized year after year, they were welcomed by the cla.s.ses already occupying the rooms. It was not many years before each room became the home of two cla.s.ses, then after eight years more of three cla.s.ses, meeting on different days, but united in the general reception on the evening before the Recognition Day. Beside the eight cla.s.s-rooms on the second floor of the Alumni Building there is a large hall which is used before the Recognition Day by the graduating cla.s.s, and during the rest of the season by the new entering cla.s.s. In 1916, after the death of Miss Kate F. Kimball, Secretary of the C. L. S. C, this hall was named "The Kimball Room." The Alumni Building with its wide porches became at Chautauqua a social center for the members of the Circle and many have been the friendships formed there. On this season of 1891 the United Presbyterian House was opened.

The section of the Summer Schools formerly known as The Teachers'

Retreat, but now beginning to be called "The School of Pedagogy," was this year (1891) under the direction of that master-teacher and inspiring leader, Colonel Francis W. Parker of Chicago. He gave several lectures on the principles of teaching, but many besides the teachers listened to them with equal interest and profit. One of these lectures was ent.i.tled, "The Artisan and the Artist"; the artisan representing those in every vocation of life who do their work by rule; the artist, those who pay little attention to regulations, but teach, or preach, or design buildings, or paint pictures out of their hearts; and these are the Pestalozzis, the Michael Angelos, the Beechers of their several professions. We had a course of delightful essay-lectures in the Hall of Philosophy by Miss Agnes Repplier. The Rabbi of the Temple Emanuel in New York, Dr. Gustave Gottheil, gave some enlightening lectures upon the principles of the Jewish faith. At that time a prominent Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Edward McGlynn, was in rebellion against the hierarchy of his church, and maintaining a vigorous controversy in behalf of religious freedom. He had been dismissed from one of the largest churches in New York, and with voice and pen was denouncing the Pope, Cardinals, and Bishops. Father McGlynn came to Chautauqua and delivered a powerful address in the Amphitheater, pouring forth a torrent of language, shot as from a rapid-firing cannon. While at Chautauqua he was entertained at a dinner in one of the cottages with a number of invited guests. From the moment of meeting at the table, he began to talk in his forceful manner, never stopping to take breath. Dr. Buckley was present and several times opened his mouth but found no chance to interject a word, which was an unusual state of affairs for one who generally led the conversation.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Post-Office Building]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Business and Administration Building]

Another speaker who was heard with interest was Jacob A. Riis, with his ill.u.s.trated lecture on "How the Other Half Lives." Mr. Riis was only a newspaper reporter, not occupying an editorial chair, but Theodore Roosevelt spoke of him as "New York's most useful citizen." The cause of woman suffrage and reform had a splendid showing this season, for Frances E. Willard, Anna Howard Shaw, Susan B. Anthony, and Mary A.

Livermore, all spoke upon the Amphitheater platform. A visitor who made many friends was Rev. Dr. Percival, headmaster of Rugby School. Julia Ward Howe gave interesting reminiscences of Longfellow, Emerson, and other literary lights whom she had known intimately. John Fiske, one of America's greatest historians, gave a course of lectures on the discovery and settlement of this continent. Another historian whom we heard was John Bach McMaster, whose lectures were like a series of dissolving views, picture succeeding picture, each showing the great events and the great men of their period. In this year Dr. Horatio R.

Palmer a.s.sumed charge of the musical department, and for the first time waved his baton before the great chorus in the Amphitheater gallery.

As everybody knows, the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America was observed everywhere in 1892. Chautauqua commemorated it in lectures on Columbus and his fellow-voyagers, and by a pageant presenting scenes from the history. The Chautauqua cla.s.s graduating that year was named the Columbia Cla.s.s, and as its members, several hundred strong, marched in the procession, Chancellor Vincent was astonished to see in the line his wife, wearing the graduating badge of cardinal ribbon. She had read the course through four years and kept it a secret from him, revealed for the first time at that Recognition service. The address on that day was delivered by Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus on "The Ideal of Culture."

Among the chief speakers in 1892 we find the names of two Presidents of Cornell University, Dr. Andrew D. White and Dr. James G. Schurman; Dr.

J. Monro Gibson, a London pastor and one of the Board of Counsel of the C. L. S. C. was with us; also Ballington Booth, Henry Watterson, the journalist, and President Merrill E. Gates of Amherst College. At this session also the Girls' Club was organized and conducted by Miss Mary H.

Mather of Wilmington, Del.

In the announcements of this year, the t.i.tle of Chautauqua University was allowed to lapse, and in place of it appeared "The Chautauqua System of Education."

CHAPTER XVII

CLUB LIFE AT CHAUTAUQUA (1893-1896)

WHEN the Chautauquans gathered for the twentieth a.s.sembly on July 1, 1893, they found some changes had taken place. The old Amphitheater, which had faithfully served its generation, but had fallen into decrepitude, no longer lifted its forest of wooden pillars over the ravine. In its place stood a new Amphitheater, more roomy and far more suitable to the needs of the new day. It was covered by a trussed roof supported by steel columns standing around the building, so that from every seat was an un.o.bstructed view of the platform. The choir-gallery was enlarged to provide seats for five hundred. The platform was brought further into the hall, making room for an orchestra. The seats were more comfortable, and could now hold without crowding fifty-six hundred people. A few years later, the old organ gave place to a greater and better one, the gift of the Ma.s.sey family of Toronto, a memorial of their father, the late Hart A. Ma.s.sey, one of the early Trustees of the a.s.sembly. Under the choir-loft and on either side of the organ, rooms were arranged for offices and cla.s.ses in the Department of Music.

During the previous season, 1892, a Men's Club had been organized and had found temporary quarters. It now possessed a home on the sh.o.r.e of the Lake, beside Palestine Park. In its rooms were games of various sorts, cards, however, being still under the ban at Chautauqua.[2]

Newspapers and periodicals, shower-baths, and an out-of-door parlor on the roof, very pleasant except on the days when the lake flies invaded it. The Men's Club building had formerly been the power house of the electrical plant, but one who had known it of old would scarcely recognize it as reconstructed, enlarged, and decorated. To make a place for the dynamo of the electric system, an encroachment had been made upon Palestine Park; a cave had been dug under Mount Lebanon, and the dynamo installed within its walls. The age of King Hiram of Tyre, who cut the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple, and the age of Edison, inventor of the electric light, were thus brought into incongruous juxtaposition. A chimney funnel on the summit of Mount Lebanon, it must be confessed, seemed out of place, and the Valley of Coele-Syria, between Lebanon and Hermon, was entirely obliterated. Bible students might shake their heads disapprovingly, but even sacred archaeology must give way to the demands of civilization.

An improvement less obvious to the eye, but more essential to health, was the installation of a complete sewer system. As the sewage is not allowed to taint the water of the lake, it is carried by pipes to a disposal plant at the lower end of the ground and chemically purified.

The water rendered as clear as crystal is then permitted to run into the lake, while the sludge is pressed by machinery into cakes used as fertilizer. An artesian well on high ground supplies pure water in abundance, with taps at convenient places for families. Originally the water in use came from wells. These were carefully tested by scientific experts, and most of them were condemned, but a few were found to give forth pure water and are still in use, though frequently and carefully tested. Near the Men's Club is a spring of mineral water containing sulphur and iron. It has the approval of chemists and physicians, and many drink it for its healthful effect.

One who looks over the programs of Chautauqua through successive years will notice the number of the clubs for various cla.s.ses and ages.

Largest of all is the Woman's Club, of which Mrs. Emily Huntington Miller was the first President, succeeded by Mrs. B. T. Vincent, and carried on under her leadership for many years. When on account of failing health Mrs. Vincent felt compelled to resign her office, her place was taken by Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker of Texas, who had been President of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs in the United States. This Club includes more than two thousand members, and its daily meeting in the Hall of Philosophy brings together a throng, often too large for the building. In 1918 the Club purchased a cottage fronting on the lake, near the Hotel Athenaeum, as a headquarters, a place for social gatherings and rest rooms for women.

Besides the Women's Clubs and the Men's Club, there are at least a dozen other a.s.sociations of people having tastes and interests bringing them together. We will name the most important of these without regard to their chronological order.

There is the Athletic Club for men and boys over sixteen, directing the organized sports and providing all forms of out-of-door recreation. It has a club house on the lake with bowling alleys and boat room, shower baths and lockers, and a reading room.

The Golf Club has a nine-hole course, situated on the rising ground of eighty acres opposite the traction station. The money has been contributed for a Country Club House, soon to be built at the entrance.

The donors, it is understood, are Mr. Stephen J. Munger of Dallas, Texas, one of the Trustees, his wife, and Mrs. Frank B. Wilc.o.x of St.

Petersburg, Florida, in memory of her husband.

Chautauquans of some years' standing will remember the old croquet ground, where now stands the Colonnade, and the group of solemn gray-beards who used to frequent it and knock the b.a.l.l.s through the big arches all day. No matter what popular lecturer was speaking in the Amphitheater, the pa.s.ser-by would find that same serious company. I used to pa.s.s them while going to my home and coming from it several times each day. On one occasion I stopped and struck up an acquaintance with a tall old gentleman who always wore a high hat and a long double-breasted coat. I learned that he was the President of a Bank among the mountains of Pennsylvania, and that he had come to Chautauqua suffering from nervous prostration, making him utterly unable to do business and scarcely desiring to live. He pa.s.sed the croquet court, sat down, and was invited to play. He began and found himself, for the first time in many months, actually interested in doing something. He began to enjoy his meals and to sleep at night. All that summer he played croquet, never listening to a lecture, and at the end of the season went home almost well. From that time croquet became more than his recreation, almost his business. He told me that there were others like himself who found health and a new enjoyment of life in the game. When the ground was needed for the new business block, the courts were removed to the ravine on the other side of the grounds, near the gymnasium. About that time croquet was developed into a more scientific game, a sort of billiardized croquet, with walls from which a ball would rebound, and arches a quarter of an inch--or is it only an eighth of an inch?--wider than the ball. To find a name for the new game they struck off the first and last letters, so that croquet became Roque, and in due time the Roque Club arose, with a group of players who live and breathe and have their being for this game. People come from far, and I am told, to attend its tournaments at every season.

There is also a Quoit Club meeting on the ground near Higgins Hall, beside the road leading up College Hill.

The Young Woman's Club is for those over fifteen years of age, while the Girl's Club has its membership between eight and fifteen, meets in its own Club House near the roque courts, and is enthusiastically sought by those no longer little girls, yet not quite young women.

Wherever one walks around Chautauqua he is sure to see plenty of boys in blue sweaters bearing on their bosoms the monogram in big letters C. B.

C, initials of the Chautauqua Boys' Club. They too have their headquarters near the athletic field and find something doing there all day long.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sherwood Memorial Studios]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Traction Station]

For the little ones, there is the kindergarten at Kellogg Hall, and out of doors beside it the playground, where the tots make cities out of sand and find other pleasures. And we must not forget the Children's Paradise, the completely equipped playground in the ravine at the northwestern part of the grounds. I remember hearing Jacob A. Riis, the father of the city playgrounds, say in one of his lectures: "They tell me that the boys play ball in the streets of New York and break windows when the ball goes out of the way. Good! I hope they will break more windows until the city fixes up playgrounds for them!" Jacob Riis lived long enough to see at Chautauqua one of the finest playgrounds, and to find in it one of the happiest crowds of children on the continent. One blessing for tired mothers at Chautauqua is that their children are in safekeeping. They may be turned loose, for they can't get outside the fence, and in the clubs and playgrounds they are under the wisest and most friendly care.

There are Modern Language Clubs in French and Spanish, with conversations, recitations, and songs in these languages. "No English Spoken Here," might be written over their doors, although nearly all their members elsewhere do their talking in the American patois. There was a German Club, but it was suspended during the war, when German was an unpopular language and has not yet been reestablished.

The Music Club holds gatherings, in the Sherwood Music Studios on College Hill.