_Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Chautauquans_:—The Circle, you know, is symbolic
for the conception of perfection. The C. L. S. C. stands, therefore,
by its very title, for an inclusion of all knowledge. Dr. Wilkinson
this morning dealt with one half of that Circle, literature. There is
nothing to be added to what he said this morning, for certainly I would
not detract anything from what he said, if I could. The praise that he
awarded to literature as a means of education was well deserved, as it
was well given.
I thank him for having left us for this afternoon the other half of
the subject, and I want to say something to you about science. And I
approach it from the side of ignorance, not as a scientific man, but
as one whose education in youth, and ever since, has been neglected on
the scientific side, and who looks at science from the point of view
of desire and aspiration, not from the standpoint of satisfaction and
achievement. Certainly science has done a great deal for us in the mere
physical and material realm, and of that aspect Dr. Wilkinson spoke this
morning. It has enlarged, if not our comforts, certainly the material of
our comforts. It has enlarged, if not our satisfaction, at all events
our content. It is to science we owe the fact that we have so largely
increased the facilities also for our learning. Science has made for
us voyaging and travel easy; science has bound the different parts of
our nation together with iron bands; science enables us readily and
quickly to communicate with one another; science has formed our houses,
preserving us from cold; science has illuminated our houses, and redeemed
from darkness and night the hours that can be given to social intercourse
and study. In innumerable ways, science has added to our material and
moral well-being.
But it is of science as an educator that the words I have to speak
this afternoon are to be directed. I am sure nature has another aspect
than that of a mere servitor, and is a material educator. So science
has another aspect than that of adding to our mere material and bodily
comfort. Science ministers also to our intellect and our spirit, like
literature. I shall not undertake to put these in the balance, each over
against the other, and see which is the better of the two. Now, it is
scarcely necessary for me to point this to you who are pursuing both
literature and science, that both of these develop the mind. Science as
well as literature develops the soul and the spirit of man, the inner
life. Science is teaching us to observe. It is teaching us other things,
but that is all I wish to say to you this afternoon. It is teaching us
to observe—how to use our eyes. It is astonishing how many men and women
there are in this world who do not know how to use their eyes. Science
is making us observant of the minuter as well as of the grander of God’s
works. The motto of the C. L. S. C. stands on the wall before you, “We
study the Word and the Works of God.” The word written in man’s heart,
that literature opens to us; the works that are written on all nature,
that science opens to us.
I go out for a walk on the Catskills; I look off, I see the view, the
trees, the June aspect. But there is a scientist who walks by my side.
He points out to me the little scratches in the rock, and tells me it
is the path of the glacier, that here where I am walking the glacier in
the centuries long gone by made its march, and that there were higher
mountains here then than now, and there was a sea in the valley below,
and here are the marks, the footprints of it. He takes his hammer, breaks
a rock, and points out to me a trilobite. He tells me that all these
rocks are rich in the remains of animal life, they are filled with the
remains of those animals which have disappeared. He is seeing what I
did not see, what I did not know, he has learned to use his eyes, he is
teaching me that I am as one who, having eyes, sees not.
One does not need great apparatus to become in some small measure at
least, a scientific observer. I was brought up as a boy to think,
whether my teacher’s fault or my own I do not know, that the only use
of my eyes was to read books, and I read them. But the great book in
the midst of which I was living I never read. I know of some boys in my
home who have furnished themselves with some naturalists’ pins, some
cork, one of those boxes of drawers made to hold spools such as you see
in any dry goods store, and which you can get for a “thank you;” they
have provided themselves with a pole and a net, and now, when they go
out into the woods, it is not for frolic, or waste of time. They see a
bug or butterfly, they out with the pole and catch it. They are filling
a museum. When they catch their butterfly, they come home with more
questions about him, where he comes from, than I can answer. Whether
their museum comes to much or not I do not care. They are learning to
read that literature that comes before all books, the literature that God
has written in the clouds, in the rocks, in the mountains, and in the
flying things.
But science teaches us more than that. It teaches us not merely to
observe with our eyes, but with our inward nature. We do not simply see
works. “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” You do not
know a library because you know the names of the books that are printed
on the backs of them, and you have not begun to know science because you
have begun to gather a few isolated facts out of the heaven above, or the
rocks beneath, or the trees. Not until you have learned what is in the
books do you know literature; not until you know what is the truth that
lies behind nature and palpitates within it, do you know science.
The crown that is upon the brow of science is composed of stars, every
one of which is a star from God’s own heavens, and the hieroglyphic
roll she has in her hands, which we strive to read, is God’s own words,
no less than the printed book, from which we study of his word and his
works. Science and religion stand at the door of God’s great temple,
beckoning with one hand to those who stand without, and with the other
pointing to Him who sits upon the throne within.
* * * * *
Dr. Vincent then read the following letter from Counselor Gibson, of
England:
LONDON, 15th July, 1884.
MY DEAR FELLOW STUDENTS:—The pressure of engagements, which is
usually at its height in the month of May, and begins to relax as
June advances, has this year continued much longer than usual,
and threatens now to traverse the month of July; but I must not
again disappoint my dear brother, Dr. Vincent, by postponing my
letter till too late, as I unhappily did last year, for which I
ask his pardon, and yours.
I congratulate you, with all my heart, on the work of the year,
and on the wonderful growth of our Circle. How speedily has the
little one become a thousand, and many thousands!
I can not say that the Chautauqua Idea, pure and simple, has as
yet taken root in England; but there are approximations to it,
and the principles of which it is an embodiment are everywhere
gaining ground. To my mind Chautauqua stands for the keeping
together of many things which God hath joined, and which men are
too apt to put asunder. First, I think of holiday recreation and
wholesome study which many imagine to be mutually destructive,
whereas our experience proves them to be mutually helpful. Well,
the people here are beginning to appreciate this. In connection
with the great “Fisheries Exhibition,” which was the chief
novelty of the London season, last year, courses of useful
instruction were organized; and this year, as an important part
of “The Health Exhibition,” which has taken its place, lecture
courses, bearing on important branches of sanitary science, have
been delivered, and a number of useful little manuals, like those
with which we have become familiar in our Chautauqua course, have
been issued, one of them by Mrs. Gladstone.
Then, I think of secular and sacred culture, which there has been
quite too much disposition in our day to separate, and which
are, in my opinion, so happily combined in our studies. Here I
am reminded of the recent great Sunday-school meeting at Exeter
Hall, which I had the privilege of addressing, where the chair
was occupied by the Hon. A. J. Mundella, who manages with such
ability and energy the educational department of the government.
Mr. Mundella, who has risen from a very humble position, had
the foundation of his education laid in the Sunday-school, and
a night school connected with it, and when very young, received
much stimulus and encouragement by the presentation of a Bible
for proficiency in his Sunday-school lessons. He does not forget
his obligation, and his speech that evening from the chair was
eminently hearty and satisfactory. I am reminded, also, in the
same connection, of an important meeting held recently in the
Jerusalem Chamber, a private meeting, from which reporters were
excluded, and which, therefore, I must not report to you further
than to say that it was a representative gathering of leading
men of all denominations, including some distinguished Roman
Catholics, (one of whom, by the by, made the finest speech of
the evening), to consider the question whether it was possible
under a system of State Education in a country like England
satisfactorily to combine secular and religious instruction.
And this suggests another of our pleasing combinations at
Chautauqua, the drawing together, not only in fraternal
feeling, but also in important work, of Christians of different
denominations. I need not say that the current of the times
still sets in the same direction. The meeting in the Jerusalem
Chamber, above referred to, is an illustration of it; and as a
farther indication I may refer to the fact that recently the
rector of St. Paul’s, Cheswick, after due announcement, preached
and conducted divine service for Mr. McLeod, successor to Dr.
Cumming, of Crown Court. He did it with the full knowledge that
it might get him into trouble; but he was willing to have the
question tested at his expense. Considerable notice has been
taken of it in various ways, but no one has ventured to make any
complaint.
I take it that one prominent feature of the Chautauqua movement
is the desire and endeavor to bring those privileges which have
been hitherto to a large extent the possession of the few,
within reach of as large a circle as possible—the attempt to
bring the scholarship of the scholarly into far closer relations
with the wants of the people. And here I am reminded of the new
Oxford movement, of which you have no doubt heard—the resolution
of a large number of young Oxonians to devote themselves to
work in the East End of London for the educational and social
amelioration of its wretched poor. The plan involves residences
among the people and brotherly intercourse with them. It remains
to be seen, whether, without those high Christian motives which
have always been found necessary in the past, but so far are not
at all acknowledged, there will be that “patient continuance in
well-doing,” without which nothing worthy can be accomplished.
But whatever may be thought as to the probable success and
permanence of the movement, it is certainly a most gratifying
sign of the times.
But I am allowing myself to drift into a treatise _de omnibus
rebus et quibus dam aliis_, and must therefore call a halt, and
come to a period, which I do with renewed congratulations for
the past and hearty good wishes and earnest prayers for a happy
holiday season, and a prosperous and fruitful year of work.
I shall not sign myself your Counselor, though you honor me with
the title, for I am sure that any counsel I can give at this vast
distance is of very small account, but I do heartily call myself
your sincere friend,