Dr. Vincent: All interrogations are in order in the way of criticism, questions relating to blunders in speech overheard, to infelicities on the platform, provincialisms, or to any imperfections of speech, which we desire in the interest of the English language and of a true culture to correct.

I receive a great many very sensible letters from members of the Circle. I received one during the summer or spring, to which I call your attention. I will read it. We have not been able to carry out the idea here, but at some time I trust will do so:

The letter closes:

It is a very happy, practical letter, and it was in pursuance of the suggestions made in that letter that Colonel Daniels was invited to take the class which he organized in geology. I have no doubt that many of you who attended several sessions of this class in geology found great benefit, and you have seen how the same kind of work may be continued on a smaller scale at home. If you have any thoughts in that direction, I shall be very grateful if you will write them to me. I hope to do something a little more thorough next year. We have in the history of Chautauqua had Prof. Winchell, and Prof. Rice, of Middletown, for very able lectures on geology. We shall do something in this line in the future. I read the letter because it was practical, just such as I like to receive.

A voice: How would it do for all of us to send on forty to fifty pounds of geological specimens to the museum from the various localities?

Dr. Vincent: Express prepaid. It might be well to write in advance to let us know the localities you represent, so that certain portions of Ohio, where the C. L. S. C. furore prevails, may not send several tons from the same neighborhood. [Applause.]

A voice: A lady here proposes to send specimens from Colorado.

Dr. Vincent: We should be very glad of them. There is no reason why, with our large organization through the world, we should not have at Chautauqua one of the best geological museums in the country.

A correspondent, a lady, writes from Colorado: “I think a knowledge of hygiene and medicine very essential to house-keepers, but it is one very little understood in the majority of households. I wish to offer the suggestion that a course should be founded in connection with the C. L. S. C. I can not go away from my home and spend time and money to take the course, but would be glad to take it up in the C. L. S. C., if offered.”

Dr. Vincent: Why may we not have a department, in which mothers and house-keepers might be interested; a department which would collect the various suggestions and devices for promoting house-keeping, that we may have the “house beautiful” in every home. Wealth is not necessary to such a result. Some of the most doleful places that I visit are the richest homes, where they have bare walls, or poor pictures on them, and carpets selected in the worst taste, and furniture that cost enough, to be sure, but was not selected wisely. When I go into a house, though it have very low ceilings, very small windows, and is very old-fashioned—built years ago, and though the people who built it did not have very much to build with—when I look at a house like that, and see on the walls pictures, selected for their real artistic value, even though inexpensive; when I see flowers and vines growing about; when I see the Atlantic, or Harper’s, or the Century on the table—and a few well-chosen books on the shelves—when I get into a house of that kind, my heart always warms toward the people who live there. We might have delightful homes all over the land. Brick and boards, lath and plaster do not make homes. It is not the large, costly house, I commend, but the house, little or large, cheap or costly, with evidences of taste here and there. Do you know that the first movement of true taste in many a house would not be the putting in of new pictures so much as the taking out of the old. (Laughter.)

Mr. Martin: Are the “Hall in the Grove” and the “Outline Study of Man” absolutely required for ’83?

Dr. Vincent: We put them on the list, but when asked if it were absolutely necessary to read them I said “No.”

Mr. Martin: I think that the memoranda will show that at least ninety per cent. of the class of ’82 have read it.

Dr. Vincent: I am glad to hear it; but you remember when an objection was made two years ago to the “requiring” of a local, modern book like the “Hall in the Grove,” I said in a general way we did not require it, but we preferred it. I will tell you why the “Hall in the Grove” was written. It is my old story of the esprit du corps. The college provides for this by its surroundings—the old buildings, the old elms, the old campus, the class songs, the memorial days, the pleasant memories, the struggles and rivalries in recitation, the sports, the diploma, the honor, the prestige in the world outside, the relative standing of “our” college and the other colleges. All these things create in the student the esprit du corps which makes him glad to say, “I belong to this or that college.” See the working of this spirit in a college boat-race. Take these old dignified and pious editors of religious papers, who have not been in a boat, unless to cross to Europe, for twenty-five years. Let old Wesleyan row with Cornell, and Harvard, and Yale, and Brown, you will find the old Baptist editor, or the old Methodist editor, who opposes all that sort of thing, close up an editorial on the modern follies in college, “Nevertheless, we were somewhat glad when we read that Wesleyan stood so well in that race.” [Laughter.] That is the spirit which characterizes the college life. There is educating power in it. It is a good thing for a boy to have it, and for a man to keep it. Now, we of the C. L. S. C can have nothing of this kind unless we construct it or grow it in our own way. So we have “Our Hall”—the Hall of Philosophy. Look at it by moon-light, or in the morning, or with its eager crowds at the vesper hour. The other evening a lady said, “There is something very fascinating about this Hall.” Then here are our St. Paul’s Grove; our path-way from the gate to the steps. Do you remember on Commencement Day the flowers strewn by those little darlings, who only knew that they were doing a beautiful thing, and did not see how far down it went into your hearts? Then there are our Athenian Watch-fires and our songs that excel for poetry and inspiration all the songs that were ever written for any educational society on earth (I am proud of our Chautauqua songs and our Chautauqua poetess, Miss Lathbury),—all these things help to create the spirit of Chautauqua. Pansy has given in her “Four Girls at Chautauqua,” and especially in the story of “The Hall in the Grove,” a true interpretation of Chautauqua and in a delightful way has shown the effects of the movement on society. All these things tend to give an esprit du corps to the C. L. S. C., and when you carry your diploma and remember your march from gate to goal the other day, you say, “I was present at the graduation of the class of ’82, and I shall go there as often as I can.” What the vision and the experience do for us who come here “The Hall in the Grove” will to some extent do for those who can not come. This enthusiasm will do for our members what the similar element in four years of college discipline and experience do for college students. And that is why I said let us have “The Hall in the Grove” written, so that people who never come to Chautauqua shall feel that they are one of us, that they really seem to have been there.

Questions concerning pronunciation of words were then taken up. The words “wiseacre,” “housewife,” “area-r” (a New England mispronunciation), “septuagint,” “Charlotte Yonge,” “khedive,” “Chautauqua,” “Celtic,” “truths,” were considered. The differences of opinion expressed justify our readers in consulting Webster or Worcester.

Dr. Vincent: I hope the Class of ’83 will be here to-night, according to the program, at nine o’clock for the Class Vigil. I am very anxious to see every member of that class. The Class of ’84 will please meet here when this service closes.

Written question: Where is volume four of the “History in Literature?”

Dr. Vincent: That work on English Literature (Chautauqua Library) was commenced by an accomplished lady who has been ill ever since she wrote the first volume.

Written question: Are we to use the same text-book on Greece as the first year?

Dr. Vincent: We are.

Written question: What is the Bryant Bell? Did Bryant give it?

Dr. Vincent: He did not. We gave that name to the bell we purchased. We own only one bell. The other bells are furnished by the house of “Clinton H. Meneely Bell Company,” of Troy, N. Y.

Written question: Will reading the White Seal Course for the last two years give us the white seal?Dr. Vincent: Yes, sir.

I will now proceed to state the objects of the S. H. G. “The Society of the Hall in the Grove” has for its object the improvement of the graduates of the C. L. S. C. in all things that tend to true life, physical, intellectual, social, and spiritual; the permanence of the Chautauqua Idea and spirit, the keeping of the place, and the protection of the articles which have acquired a peculiar sacredness to all C. L. S. C. Chautauquans. In furtherance of these objects the Society of the Hall in the Grove shall select an executive committee of twenty-five members, whose business it shall be to appoint the working committees for each year. And each year all the members who are elected in 1882 shall constitute the nucleus or foundation of that committee. For example, if you elect twenty-five ladies and gentlemen this year, and next year ten of them are absent, the fifteen who are present make the nucleus of that executive committee. In that way we shall keep up a permanent element. It will be your duty to elect twenty-five members. The “Messenger of the Hall,” appointed by the Superintendent of Instruction, shall be chairman of that executive committee. We hope to retain this Messenger for years. The committee shall be elected in 1882. Then there ought to be several special committees. We had some annoyance on Saturday. That banner was left standing in the Amphitheater. It is a banner that no money could buy. It might be easily mutilated. We need a committee to protect that banner from one end of the year to the other. We need also a permanent “Guard of the Gate.” It is only a conceit, and some people may think it is ridiculous, but we do not mind that. It is a pleasant conceit that no one pass under that arch who has not a right to pass under it. It is the business of the Guard to carry out this law. We had the gate photographed to-day, but the gate was opened, and opened by the Guard. There should be a committee on correspondence. You see we have quite an amount of work to do as a “Society of the Hall in the Grove.” I make these announcements so that you all who are interested may know, and that we may become a formal “order” and duly elect our committees.