The _Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald_ will contain full reports of the
July and August meetings. The first number will be issued on Saturday,
August 4. There will be nineteen numbers in the volume. Price, $1.00;
in clubs of five or more, 90 cents. See our combination offer on
another page of this magazine.
* * * * *
Some railroad managers are employing the machinery of the Young
Men’s Christian Association among their men with good results. Mr.
Vanderbilt employs a religious worker on a regular salary to keep open
a room and conduct religious services for the benefit of his men in
New York. The N. Y., P. & O. R. R., a trunk line to the west, running
past Chautauqua, has adopted the same plan in Meadville, Cleveland,
and other cities. Railroad men are absent from home a good portion of
their time when on duty, and, as strangers in strange places, they are
greatly benefited by the religious homes provided by the corporations.
* * * * *
The Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent will deliver the Fourth of July oration at
Ocean Grove, and lecture before the Ohio State Teachers’ Association
the fifth of July at Chautauqua.
* * * * *
The Hon. James G. Blaine seems to have retired from political life.
A Washington correspondent, who evidently has studied his habits,
says in a New York paper: “It is with his venture into literature
that Mr. Blaine has mostly occupied his mind this spring. He seems
suddenly to have discovered the charms of the library and the study,
and as he has a literary workshop that is as suggestive and delightful
as money can make it, he is drinking the newly-discovered cup to
the dregs. His library is on the second floor. Here, after he has
breakfasted, he repairs and plunges into his work. Occasional visits
to the Congressional Library furnish him with much of the data that he
requires for his work, and this is supplemented by correspondence, by
his own letters and private records, and, more than all, by a memory
that seems to be able to recall all the events of his twenty years
of public life as though they were all crowded into yesterday. It is
not Mr. Blaine’s intention to make the work in any sense a series of
personal reminiscences, but briefly to describe, as a historian, the
important public events of the past twenty years. There is a good deal
of curiosity already to get hints of how he is doing it; but he keeps
his own counsel, and asks advice and hints of no one. He spends five or
six hours daily on this work, only quitting his desk in time to take
his afternoon drive. He expects to finish the work early in the winter.”
* * * * *
A beautiful satin program of the exercises of Shakspere’s Day, has
been sent us by the “Greek Letter Circle,” of Milwaukee. Evidently the
artistic as well as the “Literary and Scientific” is being cultivated
there.
* * * * *
The dean of the Chautauqua School of Theology, the Rev. A. A. Wright,
of Boston, Mass., is noticed by Dr. Daniel S. Steele, in _Zion’s
Herald_, thus: “It was the boast of Tyndale, before he translated the
New Testament into English, that he would enable the very plow-boys
to know more about the New Testament than the bishops themselves. The
attempt of Bro. Wright is more audacious. He has undertaken to make the
plow-boys and kitchen-maids know more of the original New Testament
Greek than the professionals themselves, who acquired their knowledge
in the slipshod and unscientific methods in vogue only forty years ago.
In carrying out his scheme he is constructing a serial lexicon on a
novel principle. He selects the most important word and groups under
it all its derivatives and compounds in Greek and English, requiring
a memorizing of these seed-words. Thus the student’s mind becomes a
nursery in which a whole forest of Greek is sprouting.”
* * * * *
In the political arena, young men are coming into position. Governor
Pattison, of Pennsylvania, is thirty-three years old, and the
Republican candidate for governor of Ohio, Mr. Foraker, is thirty-seven.
* * * * *
On Thursday, August 30, the C. L. S. C. alumni in New England will hold
a reunion at South Framingham, Mass. This will be during the session of
the Framingham Assembly. Preparations are being made by the officers
and committees to insure an interesting and profitable gathering. Mr.
A. W. Pike is president and Mrs. M. A. F. Adams is secretary of the
alumni association. The C. L. S. C. has more than doubled its numbers
in New England during the past year, and the history of New England
people is that they don’t give up a good institution when they have
once taken it to their hearts.
* * * * *
John B. Gough says: “The lecture business is declining, because the
people are inclining to music and theatricals.” We presume this is true
where the people have nothing but _lectures_ and _lectures_; under
such circumstances it is not a cause for wonder, but if any person
will take the pains to read the reports of “Local Circles” published
in THE CHAUTAUQUAN the past ten months they will observe how lectures
on a wide range of subjects, scientific and historical, philosophical
and practical, have been made popular, intermingled as they have
been with concerts, reunions, banquets, social life and a variety of
entertainments by enterprising organizations.
* * * * *
=C=hautauqua’s waters, clear and bright!
=L=isten, thence there comes to-night
=S=ongs so sweet my heart they win.
=C=harmèd Circle, take me in.
—E. O. P.
* * * * *
The symposium on the “Moral Influence of the Drama,” in the June number
of the _North American Review_, is an able discussion of the subject.
Dr. Buckley wields a keen lance, but there is a time for all things.
The editorial management that brings on this discussion in the summer
time, when the theaters are mostly closed, is not likely to do so much
toward correcting existing evils as if it had brought on the debate
when the theaters are opened in the fall time. The adaptation of truth
to an end is wisdom, but the adaptation in this case is to the end of
the season, when the evil is done, _vapor and effervescence_.
* * * * *
We have some sympathy with the idea expressed by a correspondent in a
western State, that we should have degrees conferred on the graduates
of the C. L. S. C., under certain limitations, and in recognition of
certain attainments in literature, history, etc. The degree of the
Ph.D. is now conferred by some universities and colleges after the
applicant has passed required examinations, though he has never been
within the walls of the institution.
* * * * *
Postmaster General Gresham has introduced practical civil service
reform into his department. In a recent order he has issued to
postmasters, of the second and third classes, he says that the
postmaster must be in his office and attend to the business in
person; absence from his post, without permission from the Postoffice
Department, will be considered sufficient reason for dismissal from the
service. This is a wise and timely order, and General Gresham deserves
the thanks of the people of the country for inaugurating this reform.
* * * * *
Alaska is sadly in need of a civil government. The lectures of the
Presbyterian missionary, Dr. Sheldon Jackson, on the condition of
the people of Alaska, delivered at Chautauqua and published in the
ASSEMBLY HERALD and THE CHAUTAUQUAN, created quite a sensation and
attracted the attention of thinking Christian people in all parts of
the country. There is great need of interposition by the government at
Washington. The Presbyterian General Assembly, at a recent session in
Saratoga, appointed a committee, with Dr. Howard Crosby as chairman, to
visit President Arthur relative to giving the people of Alaska a civil
government. Let missionary societies and Christian assemblies petition
the powers that be until Alaska is redeemed from her present state,
which is little better in some places than barbarism.
* * * * *
The reasons for divorces are only equalled by the devices which parties
adopt to secure them. Major Nickerson, of the United States army,
sent his wife and daughter to Europe in 1880. The major promised to
follow them soon, providing he could secure leave of absence. His wife
waited but he did not come. He continued to write her and send money,
until about a year ago he began to send his letters and remittances
to his daughter. His wife asked an explanation, but he gave her no
satisfaction. At last she learned through her mother that he had
obtained a divorce and was married again, and that the ground on which
the divorce was obtained was desertion. The bare statement of the facts
in such a case teach us that our laws, as to granting divorces, are
lax and unscriptural, and should be reconstructed in the interests
of justice and the safety of the family as an institution against
designing men.
* * * * *
The Argentine Republic is doing a great deal of quiet work in
education, which might even be an example to us who look upon that
far-away land as out of the world. They have in their national college
a greater proportion of students than either England or Germany. To
obtain the most advanced methods, the government has just obtained
eight young women from the normal schools at Winona, Minn., to take
charge of the normal schools in the republic.
* * * * *
We learn that Prof. F. H. Bailey, the inventor of the astral lantern,
so highly commended by Bishop Warren and others, is now located at
Northville, Mich., and that orders for lanterns, or correspondence,
should be addressed to him, or to the Michigan School Furnishing
Company, at that place. We heartily wish that scores of our local
circles might procure one of these invaluable helps to the study of the
stars.
* * * * *
The present number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN closes the third volume. In
October will be published the first number of the fourth volume. Its
place will be supplied during the summer by the _Assembly Herald_,
published during August as a daily. Price, $1.00.
* * * * *
The article in the present number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN by John Lord,
LL.D., is an extract from a lecture delivered at Chautauqua.
* * * * *
The faculty of the Summer Assembly at Pacific Grove, Cal., have
determined to make natural history a specialty. The opportunities are
unrivaled, for all the wonders of the sea-shore are at their command.
In order to obtain specimens of the flora and fauna of the entire
coast, they have solicited members to send or bring collections of
dried plants, zoölogical specimens, etc.
* * * * *
Curiosity and lack of coolness were the causes of the terrible disaster
which marred Decoration Day of 1883, and threw a shadow over the glory
of the Brooklyn bridge. To rush to see what is the cause of a crowd, a
sudden noise or confusion, is a childish act, and yet there is hardly
one in a hundred but will do it. To keep still and cool when the crowd
becomes a stampede is almost unknown. How to prevent a panic and how
to act in a panic, are questions worthy the study of all intelligent
people, and it might not be amiss to teach the principles of coolness
and self-restraint to the young.
* * * * *
This month Mrs. Cook brings her party of Chautauquans back to America.
They have finished their “Tour Around the World,” and will spend their
vacation at home until it is time to start on their “Ideal Summer Trip
Beyond the Sea.” We only hope that all those who have enjoyed so much
their travels with Mrs. Dickinson and Mrs. Cook, will be able to take
the latter trip.
* * * * *
The new cover has been well received by both our subscribers and the
press. An exchange says of us: “THE CHAUTAUQUAN, the organ of the
Chautauqua Assembly, Chautauqua University, the Chautauqua Literary
and Scientific Circle, and other Chautauqua institutions, has made its
appearance in a very elegant new dress. It is not only handsome but
it contains more really solid, instructive, interesting and valuable
matter than any periodical known to us.” A lady from Illinois in
expressing her thanks for the improvement, writes: “I like the new
dress of THE CHAUTAUQUAN. It is artistic, and is a reminder of what
Chautauqua has been, and is, and what she still offers to the world.”
* * * * *
Macnabb’s photographic studio of art, at 813 Broadway, N. Y., is
sending out some very finely finished work. They offer special
inducements to clubs. The studio is certainly worthy the attention of
persons visiting the city and wishing pictures.