Chautauqua Institution

From the record of ’82. Held in the Hall of Philosophy in August, 1882, at 5 p. m. [This report had been overlooked, and as it contains much that will be interesting, is here published.]

Dr. Vincent: What are the advantages of the C. L. S. C.? What are the advantages to our homes?

A voice: Unity in the family, in study and spirit.

A voice: System of reading at home.

A voice: It brings good literature into the house.

A voice: It trains intelligent citizens in the house.

A voice: It saves time that would be otherwise wasted.

A voice: It gives pleasant subjects of thought while we are about our daily work.

A voice: It promotes conversation.

A voice: It leads us into new lines of work.

A voice: It makes us more attractive to each other.

A voice: It keeps husbands at home in the evening. [Laughter.]

Mr. Martin: It keeps wives home in the evening.

A voice: It crowds out unprofitable occupation.

A voice: It leads to farther investigation.

A voice: It cultivates the conversational powers.

Dr. Vincent: It not merely brings subjects of conversation, it brings the power of conversation.

A voice: It makes the Southern people love the Northern people.

A voice: It lifts the home up a little higher.

A voice: It crowds out gossip.

A voice: It cultivates a missionary spirit.

Dr. Vincent: In what respect?

A voice: In getting people into the circle and into all kinds of work.

A voice: A lady says it makes the evening hearth exceedingly pleasant.

A voice: It inspires us to want to help others.

A voice: It has in one instance made a Christian of an Infidel.

A voice: In more than one instance.

A voice: There is a book in the course that will do that every time it is attentively read.

Dr. Vincent: What is that?

A voice: “The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation.”

A voice: And the “Tongue of Fire.”

A voice: And “The Outline Study of Man” is a wonderful book.

A voice: It helps fathers and mothers to grow up with their children.

A voice: It helps them cultivate their memory.

A voice: I found that I could remember dates much better than before.

Rev. W. D. Bridge: It brings the old into sympathy with the young.

A voice: It gives even old men books they would not have read.

A voice: It creates a spirit of union among all kinds of people that belong to it.

A voice: It brings the grown people into sympathy with the public school and its work.

A voice: It makes us better Christians and workers in the church.

A voice: It was suggested a moment ago that it brings the older people into sympathy with the young: I think it brings the young people into sympathy with the old.

A voice: It increases the respect of the young for the old also.

A voice: It teaches old people to become younger.

A voice: It makes old people wish that the thing had been thought of earlier.

A voice: It brings us to Chautauqua.

Dr. Vincent: That is a great thing for Chautauqua as well as for us.

A voice: It teaches us never to be discouraged.

A voice: It teaches us the spirit of propriety.

A voice: The first of the Chautauqua mottoes has been noticed; the other two should come in for their share.

Dr. Vincent: The other two mottoes should be recognized. It helps us to “keep our Heavenly Father in the midst.”

A voice: It shows in the class of ’82 the proof of the third motto, “Never be discouraged.”

A voice: It teaches us to “look up, and not down.”

Dr. Vincent: To “look forward and not backward,” to “look out and not in,” and “to lend a hand.”

A voice: It leads to an investigation of science by people who had never thought of it before.

Mr. Ingham: It teaches all classes to find a book store.

Dr. Vincent: Brother Ingham is in the book trade. [Laughter.]

A voice: It teaches people that no one is too old to study.

A voice: It gives a higher idea of the responsibility of life.

A voice: It makes the bookseller keep good books. [Applause.]

Dr. Vincent: It makes the bookseller keep the books at a lower figure.

A voice: It develops the habit of systematic thought and work.

A voice: It discovers people to themselves, showing themselves their natural bent and power.

A voice: It breaks down the deep seated denominational prejudices.

Dr. Vincent: Without in the slightest degree diminishing our loyalty to them.

A voice: It fits the mind for its eternal mission and home.

A voice: It makes one see what a wonderful thing a book is.

A voice: It puts the divine idea into all the study: “We study the words and works of God,” and this promotes unity of scientific and religious pursuits.

A voice: It selects a course of reading that we would not ourselves select.

A voice: It teaches us the value of time.

A voice: It teaches us to recognize God in everything.

A voice: It furnishes a good channel for the expenditure of money in connection with young people.

Dr. Vincent: We ought to say in connection with that, it builds up an individual library that acquires an individual preciousness; when a man looks at it he is rich, for he owns books bought himself. The square yards of books are not worth much. The books that are mine are worth much to me.

A voice: It makes it plain that the world is going forward and not back.

A voice: It helps the world to go forward, and helps others to acquire knowledge.

A voice: It gives us a hint as to the powers and possibilities of the mind.

A voice: It teaches me how very little I know myself.

A voice: I think it teaches old and young to appreciate art in its different forms.

Dr. Vincent: It enables people to distinguish between good preaching and poor preaching.

A voice: It teaches that faithful labor, though in a very limited degree, will be rewarded here and hereafter.

A voice: And that it will accomplish a great deal of good in addition to the reward.

A voice: It awakens latent energies in the mind.

A voice: It makes the common people better critics.

Dr. Vincent: It makes what they would call where caste prevails “common people” better critics. We have no common people in this country. We are all kings.

A voice: It makes us understand better the Chautauqua Idea.

A voice: It makes us patient in weakness and suffering.

A voice: It helps us bear the burdens of life.

Dr. Vincent: In many places there is no social enjoyment for those who do not dance. The C. L. S. C. gives us congenial society. I have known many people where the habit of dancing and card playing prevailed, to justify these indulgencies on the ground that there was nothing else to do. In a few such places the C. L. S. C. has turned the dance and the card table out of doors. Of course some of you do not look at that matter as I do. There may be some of you who dance or allow your children to attend dancing school, and some of you allow your children to play cards. I have avoided dogmatism on all subjects where the Word of God does not come in as the final authority. I never like to dogmatize about these things. But I do believe that such is the condition of society to-day, and such are the unseen perils of the day—perils always present—that the family that can enjoy itself thoroughly in an intellectual way, so as not to create a taste for the stimulating power of the dance and the card table and of the theater is a safer, and in the long run, a happier family than the family otherwise controlled by so-called worldly tastes. [Applause.] It becomes us to be very free from dogmatism about these things, because we do not want to lay down laws that have not been laid down for us; but if we can, let us substitute the influences of the C. L. S. C. for these things.

Written paper: The C. L. S. C. gives new hope and courage to those who have thought that the days for personal improvement had gone by.

Dr. Vincent: Dr. Wilkinson, in his address the other day, made reference to the fact that I myself had never enjoyed college opportunities. I did enjoy the very best academic opportunities up to the time that I should have entered college, but circumstances, which seemed very much like Providence, interposed at that crisis in my life, where the question was settled by three contingencies. I suffered from a bronchial affection, and my friends regarded me in great peril physically. I submitted three questions to three men after serious thought and earnest prayer, and resolved to be governed by the decision of the three men if they should decide in the same line. To one, an able scholar and a most efficient preacher, and a man occupying a high position in the church, I submitted the question of my intellectual fitness, and gave him a long account of my intellectual history. To another man, my father, I submitted the financial part of the business. That was a question that he alone could settle. To a distinguished physician, one of the ablest in New York City, I submitted the question of my physical health. Now, said I, if these three men combine in their decision, I shall consider the question settled in that way. If they differ, I shall consider it still open. The decision of all three was quite in a given line, and I entered very soon into the active ministry.

The fact that I lacked the prestige of the college was humiliating to me to the last degree. It made me morbid for years. I was too honest to impose on people, and therefore too likely to betray myself where no good could come of it, and where there was no necessity of it. But my humiliation led me to do this thing: To turn my theological studies and the preparation of sermons into means of mental discipline; to acquire the habit of laying hold of a subject, and of holding on to it, and persisting in holding on to it until I could master it, so that if I did not have more than a smattering (and I did have a smattering of Greek and Latin and Hebrew to begin with), I would have the discipline of thinking on subjects and of tearing them open on my own account. I tried to do that through all the years of my active ministry.

I drew up for myself a sort of C. L. S. C. thirty years ago, and took glimpses of all that the boy examines in college, so that the C. L. S. C. of to-day developed out of it, and different as it may be, it is the result of bitter experience and immense effort, so far as I was personally concerned.

I really ought not to have mentioned these things to you. I have never done so anywhere except to a limited circle of friends. When I watch boys in college, their pleasures and struggles; when I look at the buildings, at the bronze statue of the first president of Yale, the libraries, the art department, the scientific department; when I hear that old bell ring from day to day, when I look on the campus and see the boys marching or lounging, singing the college songs; when I see them striving for preËminence in the athletic arena; when I remember that certain prerogatives depend upon victory on this side or the other; when I see old men who were students fifty or sixty years ago, the oldest that are left, and see the joy that comes from the inspiration of such memories, then I see that it is a great thing to be able to give old people and every-day people a touch of the joy and hope and memory that colleges alone can give, and no one unless identified with such an institution can feel.

It is for that purpose that we have the “Hall in the Grove,” and the “Arches,” the “Memorial Days,” the “Badges,” the “Diplomas,” etc. Privileges heretofore limited to college life are thus and now guaranteed to the old and the young. This is another benefit that comes from the C. L. S. C. [Applause.] I should have taken a shorter time to tell it, but I could not.

Written paper: In accordance with your request for the members of the Circle to remember each other at the throne of grace each Sabbath afternoon, would it not be well to have a set hour, say five o’clock, Sunday afternoon?

Dr. Vincent: The suggestion is a good one. We will call five o’clock Sunday afternoon “Our Sacred Hour.” Mr. Bridge, make an item for the columns of The Chautauquan, that it may reach all the members of the Circle.

As I said the other night, we are not all of the same way of thinking, but we may all think upward, and whatever the degree of our thought and the kind of our faith, if the look be upward, there will be an uplift. If with sincere desire we pray for others and seek God’s glory, he will lead us into all truth. Let us appoint with your approval five o’clock Sabbath afternoon for the uplook in order to uplift. Those who approve lift your hands.

My friends, while the formal worship—the going aside and kneeling down, and observing the form of worship—is very useful, the idea of prayer is not limited to the place or particular mode, or to the words you speak. Prayer is sometimes the mightiest that leaps without words out of the inmost heart to the highest heaven. Let us think a prayer wherever we may be. Sometimes when people are too busy with their hands and under the pressure of every-day labor to retire, and have not words or place for the specific act of prayer, the uplift of the soul, the upreach, is prayer that brings down abundant blessings. Let it be so with us. Let us not be bound too much by times and circumstances and words. Let us have the heart, and let forms and words come as they will, and let us not neglect times and forms and words.