Replying to a question as to what they think of the Chautauqua Idea the following quotations from recent letters will be interesting to present day Chautauquans: G. STANLEY HALL President Clark University I can only say here that I have a very high appreciation of the Chautauqua idea. I have seen it in operation on the spot for a week at a time for a number of seasons, having given lectures there myself, have met traces of it elsewhere, and have seen their publications. I am heartily in sympathy with it and have a high appreciation ot its great educational services. REV. S. PARKES CADMAN, D. D. Pastor Central Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. The elevating influence of such work as yours cannot be easily overestimated. The mission you sustain has started many a lad on the upward path and also many a girl. BISHOP HENRY W. WARREN One of the greatest developments of our century is the Chautauqua system of reading. It offers what men of best judgment deem most fitting courses of reading for all people. It brings to the denizens of the lonely farm much of the culture offered by the college and the city. IDA M. TARBELL Of the American Magazine I have your letter asking me what I think of the Chautauqua Idea, by which I suppose you mean putting in the way of the mass of people intelligently arranged courses of systematic reading. I believe it a most practical and useful idea, and that in the years since it was first expounded by Bishop Vincent, it has done an enormous amount to enliven the minds and stimulate the interest of the people in this country. I wish you all success in your efforts to spread it. F. N. GODFREY Master New York State Grange, Olean, N. Y. I have always considered the Chautauqua Idea, and the Chautauqua Reading Course splendid opportunities for people of all classes to acquire a broad and general knowledge in broadening their social lives, and the making of better citizens. ROBERT STUART MACARTHUR Calvary Baptist Church, New York City. I regard the Chautauqua Idea as one of the most important ideas of the hour. This idea, when properly utilized, gives us a "college at home." It is really a university extension course. It is a genuine inspiration toward culture, patriotism, and religion. The general adoption of this course for a generation would give us a new America in all that is noblest in culture and character. KATHERINE LEE BATES Professor of English Literature, Wellesley College With increasing experience as a teacher, I have come to put less and less faith in educational system and equipment. In so far as the Chautauqua Idea aims to bring the great book to the eager mind, it has my cordial endorse ment. CHARLES R. HENDERSON The University of Chicago In my little book, "The Social Spirit in America" I have already for many years urged the importance of the methods used by Chautauqua for popularizing science and literature. The longer I observe its working the more deeply am I convinced that this kind of effort promises great reward and magnificent results. It is the missionary spirit taking possession of the splendid results of modern science and university study and making them available as far as possible for busy people and for those who are at a distance from intellectual centers. By means of the correspondence course, isolated people on ranches and in little villages far from laboratories can come in sight of the main results of modern investigation of science and of the best things in the world's literature. I wish you all success. JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS Extension Lecturer and President National Consumers' League After close observation of the work at Chautauqua and at other points in the country where its affiliated work goes on, I can say with confidence that it is among the most enlightening of our educational agencies in the United States. MARY E. WOOLEY President Mount Holyoke College It is a pleasure to express my appreciation of the work which is being done by the Chautauqua Institution. I have realized that there are many people who cannot have the advantage of long continued school and college training, whose lives are broadened and stimulated by the Chautauqua courses. A TYPICAL TESTIMONY Cults have their vogue, and after their day give place to the newer fads of the moment, the affectations of yesterday being eclipsed by the eccentricities of today, but Chautauqua is neither a cult nor a fad; it has acquired the stability of an institution, too firmly grounded to be staled by either time or custom and the part it has so conspicuously played in moulding the intellectual development of the past generation abundantly demonstrates its title to be counted as a potent factor in the intellectual life of the present and future generations. Year by year its courses grow in attractivenesss and usefulness-for the happy blending of the two qualities is primarily responsible for the enormous success it has achieved-and its beneficent work in stimulating mental and ethical development in those whose reading would otherwise be without purpose or aim becomes more and more apparent as the number becomes legion of those who owe to the inspiration of Chautauqua their broadened mental horizon and enlarged outlook upon the problems that loom larger and larger in life's hurly-burly. The chief merit and the secret of the enormous progress of the Chautauqua Idea is the fact that its literature, while not so alluringly simple as to enable the student to glide into a priceless heritage of knowledge without effortwithout which nothing tangible and abiding is ever achieved-yet avoids the forbidding pedantry calculated to repel those who must needs learn while they earn. Familiarity with subjects popularly associated with Professor Dryasdust is unconsciously acquired in its skillfully arranged courses, the alluring charm of their literary treatment endowing that which was hitherto repellent with a new fascination and opening up to the expanding mind of the student unsuspected realms of interest and mental profit. Chautauqua makes its appeal to all classes with equal force the college graduate and the man whose formal education terminated with the public school; young and old, both sexes, find here common ground. Those who have covered the subjects in the higher institutions find in the reading courses new points of interest and abundant material to refurbish and renew knowledge long dormant and those entering the Elysian fields for the first time are made aware how easily, with a comparatively small expenditure of effort and time, vast stores of knowledge and widening interests are opened to them. But beneficent as the courses are in themselves, unfolding to those who follow them new realms of thought and achievement, their chief value is in the stimulus given to more comprehensive reading along lines that appeal to the individual student, to be expanded at will. This inspirational quality is one of the greatest of Chautauqua's assets, for thousands of successful men and women owe to its initiative conspicuous triumphs in all walks of life. Without its original stimulus the great majority of this successful host would have been distinguished only by unrelieved mediocrity. While the solitary student will reap inestimable benefit from conscientious and diligent study of the courses along the lines indicated, as thousands have done, with resulting |