CLUB LIFE AT CHAUTAUQUA (1893-1896)
WHEN the Chautauquans gathered for the twentieth Assembly 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 unobstructed 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 Massey family of Toronto, a memorial of
their father, the late Hart A. Massey, one of the early Trustees of the
Assembly. Under the choir-loft and on either side of the organ, rooms
were arranged for offices and classes 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 shore 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 classes 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 associations 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. Wilcox 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 balls through the big
arches all day. No matter what popular lecturer was speaking in the
Amphitheater, the passer-by would find that same serious company. I
used to pass 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 passed 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.
[Illustration: Sherwood Memorial Studios]
[Illustration: 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.
There is a Press Club, composed of men and women who write books and
articles for publication. They hold social receptions for acquaintance
among wielders of the quill; perhaps it would be more accurate, though
less classic, to say, "pounders of the typewriter." Several times each
season they have an "Author's Night," when well-known writers, some of
them famous, read their own productions.
There is a Lawyers' Club, a Masonic Club, and a Grange Club, the latter
having its own building of Greek architecture; also a College Fraternity
Club of the wearers of sundry pins and keys.
The Bird and Tree Club has a large and representative membership of
those interested in identifying and protecting the fauna, flora, and
bird life of Chautauqua and its vicinity. On the Overlook, beyond the
Athletic Field, they have established a herbarium for the preservation
of the different forms of trees found on the ground.
We must group together, begging pardon of the members, many other
organizations, such as the W. C. T. U. All Americans know, some of them
to their cost, what those four letters stand for; the Y. W. C. A., which
has opened a Hospitality House of Welcome and Rest on Pratt Avenue; the
Daughters of the American Revolution, coming from every part of the land
for gatherings at Chautauqua; the Order of the Eastern Star, whose
secrets none but the initiated know; the College Men's Club, the College
Women's Club, the Ministers' Club, and there used to be, perhaps is
still, an Octogenarians' Club, whose members must swear to eighty years
of life. The King's Daughters and King's Sons meet weekly at the Pier
Buildings, and the Chautauqua Education Council, made up of
Superintendents, principals and teachers, holds two regular sessions
each week. If there are any more clubs, and their titles are sent to the
author of this book, they will appear in the new edition, after the
first hundred thousand copies are disposed of.
But we are forgetting the title of this chapter and must name some of
those who helped to make Chautauqua successful during the quadrennium
between '92 and '96. In 1893 Henry Drummond repeated at Chautauqua his
Lowell lectures in Boston on "The Ascent of Man." There were still some
old-fashioned "kiver to kiver" believers in the verbal inspiration of
the Bible who were alarmed to find an eminent Christian leader accept so
fully the conclusions of science; but the overwhelming sentiment of
Chautauqua was of rejoicing at his harmonizing the most evangelical
religion with the most advanced scholarship. Jane Addams gave some
lectures on modern problems of family and social life; Edward Eggleston,
long before a leader of the Sunday School Army, by turns preacher,
story-writer (his _Hoosier School-Master_ marked an epoch in American
literature, say the critics) and historian, was with us once more after
many years of absence. He said in an introduction, "I am glad to be
again among Sunday School workers, real crazy people, for I believe that
nobody can be a first-class Sunday School man unless he has a little
crack in his head on that subject." Frank G. Carpenter, who had traveled
in almost every land of earth, told us stories of his experiences and
observations; Kate Douglas Wiggin read charmingly some of her own
stories; Mr. John Temple Graves spoke in his fine rounded periods on
some topics of the time; Hon. Roswell G. Horr of Michigan instructed
while he entertained us. Dr. A. J. Palmer, who had thrilled the old
soldiers with his "Company D," now gave another lecture to them on
"Comrades." Besides these we heard on the platform Dr. Philip S. Moxom,
Professor George H. Palmer of Harvard, and his wife, Alice Freeman
Palmer; President Harper, Dr. Von Hoist; Dr. Conwell, and Dr. Joseph
Cook, returning to the platform with restored vigor after some years of
nervous breakdown. Miss Willard was with us again, and with her Lady
Henry Somerset of England, the head of the W. C. T. U. in that land.
In 1894 the Department of Elocution took a new title, "The School of
Expression," and enlarged its sphere under Professor S. H. Clark of the
University of Chicago, and Mrs. Emily M. Bishop. The program of the
years shows the school of Political Science to be remarkably strong,
with such teachers as Dr. Herman Von Holst, Herbert B. Adams of Johns
Hopkins, and another Dr. Adams of Yale. Professor Graham Taylor of
Chicago spoke on social questions, capital and labor. Hon. Theodore
Roosevelt, already rising to fame, was again on the platform. General
James A. Beaver, ex-governor of Pennsylvania; Professor Richard G.
Moulton; Hon. Carroll D. Wright, United States Commissioner of Labor;
Mr. Anthony Comstock, and Dr. E. E. Hale, Chautauqua's strong friend,
were some of the speakers. Dr. Hale, always original in his methods,
said that he had only thirty minutes to speak on "Poverty and
Pauperism." He began by saying, "I will stand on one side of this desk
and speak fifteen minutes on poverty." He showed in seven points that
every one of us belonged to the class named "poverty" and each one
should help the others. Then he walked over to the other side and gave
seven points on "pauperism," for which there were reasons but no
excuses. Poverty was a blessing; most of the world's greatest
benefactors have been poor men; but pauperism is an unmitigated evil and
should be stamped out of existence. General O. O. Howard, U. S. A., was
again on the platform in 1894, also President William H. Crawford of
Allegheny College, whose lecture on "Savonarola" made a deep impression.
There was great interest to see and hear Miss Helen Keller, the
wonderful girl, blind, deaf, and dumb, who had learned to speak without
hearing a voice, and had been graduated from Radcliffe College of
Harvard University with the highest honor. Another of the lecturers was
Mr. Jahu DeWitt Miller, whose private talk was as good as his public
lectures, which is high praise. The Recognition Day address this year
was by Dr. E. E. Hale, on "The Education of a Prince," the prince being
the poorest child living in America. It is worth remembering that a
photograph of the procession on that day shows at the head of the
flower-girl division--which now included boys, although the girls were
still in the majority--two mites of children, one Paul Vincent Harper,
son of President Harper, the other Isabel Vincent, the daughter of
Professor George E. Vincent. Those same children are now Mr. and Mrs.
Paul Vincent Harper of Chicago, still walking together.
In 1895, the season extended through fifty-nine days, from June 29th to
August 26th. Two new buildings, besides many new cottages, were now upon
the ground. One was the Baptist headquarters on Clark Street, the other
Higgins Hall on College Hill, built by the gift of Governor Higgins of
New York State. In the Schools during this season strong emphasis was
laid on the Department of English, with such instructors as Professor C.
T. Winchester of Wesleyan, Professor A. S. Cook of Yale, Professor
Sherman of the University of Nebraska, and Professor Lewis of the
University of Chicago. The last named gentleman bore a striking
resemblance to the portraits of Shakespeare; so that as he walked around
(habitually without a hat on his head) everybody was struck with the
likeness. I was told that when he sat down at Shakespeare's traditional
school-desk in Stratford, a crowd gathered before the windows and the
word was passed around "Shakespeare has come to life again!"
Other speakers in 1895 were Professor Richard G. Moulton, Dr. Josiah
Strong, President G. Stanley Hall, Professor Francis G. Peabody of
Harvard, Major J. B. Pond, Dr. John Henry Barrows, Dr. Edward Everett
Hale, President Harper, Prof. John Fiske, Principal Fairbairn, and the
distinguished General of the Confederate Army, John B. Gordon, Senator
from Georgia. His lecture on "The Last Days of the Confederacy," was one
of the great occasions of the season, and it was noteworthy that many
veterans of the G. A. R. were among the loudest in their applause when
their foe of thirty years before came upon the platform. Another event
of the summer was the visit of Governor William McKinley of Ohio, a year
before his nomination and election to the Presidency. During this season
also we were entertained with readings by Professor S. H. Clark, Mr.
Will M. Carleton, and Miss Ida Benfey.
In the year 1895 another movement was begun at Chautauqua, which like
the W. C. T. U. has swept over the entire continent and wrought mightily
for the public welfare. At a Kindergarten Mothers' Meeting during the
session, Mrs. Theodore W. Birney of Georgia, gave an address urging a
National Congress of Mothers, and her appeal awakened a prompt
response. Many of those who had listened to her carried her message to
their own home-towns; Mrs. Birney at women's clubs and gatherings gave
her plea over and over; and when the General Federation of Women's clubs
held its convention in her native State of Georgia she presented the
proposition to the members. From that convention in 1896, a call was
issued for a National Congress of Mothers, to be held in the National
Capital. Mrs. Birney gave a year of tireless and wise preparation for
the meeting, which began on February 17, 1897. She was called to be
President of the National Congress, with Miss Mary Louisa Butler as
Organizing Secretary. The work was aided by the wide-reaching influence
and liberal gifts of Mrs. Phebe A. Hearst, who has been rightly called
the Lady Bountiful of the movement. Out of this National Congress grew
the holding of State-congresses in every part of the country and the
organization of local branches in almost every city. The Congress of
Mothers now has its central office in Washington, D. C. It is divided
into twenty-five departments of work--such as Americanization, Child
Hygiene, Child Labor, Education, Mothers' Circles, Thrift, and many
others, each having its chairman and plan of effective work. Out of a
meeting at Chautauqua, in 1895, has grown a nation-wide movement in aid
of mothers and teachers.
[Illustration: Arts and Crafts Building]
[Illustration: Miller Bell Tower]
In 1896 the schools were again reorganized under Dr. Harper's
supervision. The School of Fine Arts and the New York Summer Institute
for Teachers were new departments, the latter under the direction of the
Regents of the New York State University. The School of Sacred
Literature was increased in its faculty, having among them President
Harper, Professor Shailer Mathews, and Professor D. A. McClenahan of the
United Presbyterian Theological School. Prominent among the lecturers
this year were Dr. George Adam Smith of Scotland, Dr. Gunsaulus, Rev. S.
Parkes Cadman, Dr. Booker T. Washington, Rev. Dr. George A. Gordon, Dr.
Charles F. Aked, then of England, but soon to become an American,
Professor F. G. Peabody, Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, soon afterward the
President of Columbia University, and Dr. Russell H. Conwell. A lady
appeared on the platform whose experience had been unlike that of any
other woman in the land. This was Mrs. Robert E. Peary, who accompanied
her husband on one of his North Pole explorations and had a daughter
born within the polar circle--"The snow baby," as she was called. She
gave a lecture with stereopticon views descriptive of the life in the
frozen North. Another woman gave a lecture this year upon her travels in
Equatorial Africa, Miss Jessie T. Ackerman. President Charles W. Eliot
of Harvard University gave the oration on Recognition Day, his subject
being "America's Contribution to Civilization." In looking through the
list of the speakers on Recognition Day, I find the names of no less
than ten college presidents, and also that of the Hon. William T.
Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, who might be regarded
as standing at the head of the nation's educational system. The value of
Chautauqua as a force in education has been fully recognized by the
highest authorities.
FOOTNOTE:
[2] From the _Handbook of Information_ published by the Chautauqua
Institution (1918) we give the following extract. "The Chautauqua
tradition which taboos card playing and social dancing, and the rule
which forbids the sale or importation of alcoholic beverages, disclose
the influence which dominated the early life of the Assembly. As to card
playing and dancing, the tradition is preserved not because all agree in
condemning these things in themselves, but because they are deemed
unsuitable to Chautauqua conditions and even hostile to its life. It is
believed that they would prove divisive and distracting, and that they
suggest a very different type of society from that which Chautauqua
seeks to set up for a few summer weeks. Chautauqua, therefore,
disapproves these diversions as not only unnecessary, but as involving
disintegrating influences. The fact that many who indulge in these
amusements at home express gratification that they are not permitted at
Chautauqua is significant."