No organization that has appeared in the past fifty years has been more
favored than the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle. From the
first the surroundings have been such as to aid its growth. Eminent
educators and literary men pronounced their blessings on its head the
day it was born. Thousands of people shouted its praises to the echo, in
the grove at Chautauqua, as soon as they saw what it was and heard its
name. Chautauqua had a history of five years to place behind the C. L. S.
C.—a history of enterprising investigation in the fields of science and
philosophy, Biblical literature, church and Sunday-school work, and moral
reforms. It was five years of hard work to popularize useful information
on all these lines of thought. This was a good beginning for the C. L. S.
C., and right here it started. With the summer meetings at Chautauqua it
has been associated during these first five years of its history. The C.
L. S. C. Commencement exercises are held in the Hall of Philosophy, in
St. Paul’s grove, at Chautauqua, and from thence the diplomas are sent
out to the graduates all over the world.
It never was the design of Dr. Vincent or Mr. Lewis Miller, the founders
of Chautauqua, that all the work of students should be pressed into the
compass of three weeks of meetings in August, but rather that Chautauqua
should be carried into towns and cities, into homes and offices and
workshops all over the land. When the C. L. S. C. appeared and its
curriculum was announced with the promise that every person who should
complete the four years course of reading in ancient and modern history
and literature, the sciences, philosophy and art, would graduate and
receive a diploma signed by the officers of the C. L. S. C., the idea
was easily carried abroad. The press of the country was ready, as we now
see, to assist. The plan was written up and philosophized upon from the
beginning; but more than this was needed to insure success. To make the
Chautauqua Idea as practical in a town five hundred or a thousand miles
away as it was at Chautauqua was a hard task to perform; but when it
was decided that the _individual_ could enroll his name in the C. L. S.
C. office and pursue his studies at home, or when traveling, by devoting
forty minutes a day to his books, and could fill out examination papers
at the end of each year, the practicability of the plan was admitted by
everybody. The organization was simple, the working of the system has
been almost perfect, and each succeeding year has witnessed a marvelous
growth; classes ranging from 7,000 up to 14,000 members have been
enrolled from year to year until the present outlook is more encouraging
than all the past.
The local circle has come to be an important factor in the working of
the organization. Men are clannish, and in the work of education the
world has always recognized the social element as a powerful agency. It
was natural that in the C. L. S. C. men and women, who had no scruples
on the question of the co-education of the sexes, should come together
and effect local organizations, elect their officers and do their work
methodically, under the inspiration of one another’s presence. Just as
in raising a building ten men are stronger than one man, so in a town
or city ten persons will lift up the Chautauqua Idea in more homes and
attract the attention of more people to it than one person possibly
can. “In union there is strength,” and while the practical working of
the “local circle” is to be seen in the growing intelligence of its
individual members, it is a fact that through the local circle the C.
L. S. C. is taking hold of the people in all parts of our land, and
thus demonstrating that the founders of Chautauqua have inaugurated an
educational system which has the merit of being a “Home College,” whose
privileges may be enjoyed by all classes and conditions of people. While
it is not sectarian or even denominational, it is Christian, and carries
correct ideas of God and the Bible, of Jesus Christ and redemption, of
the Holy Ghost and Christian life into every reader’s mind and into every
family where the course of study is received.