BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.

There is a Chautauqua further on. First, there is a lake level, and just above it is the level of the “Point,” with its pleasant grass, its winding walks, its old Auditorium, shaded and hallowed with memories that have grown through multiplying years. The old cottages, and many of the old cottagers remain about this Auditorium—reminders of the old times, and the oldest times, of Chautauqua, when the first vesper service announced that “The Day Goeth Away,” and the “Nearer My God to Thee,” rang out under these forest arches. Who that was there can ever forget that hour? The altars were aglow that night, and hearts on fire. It was an experiment, but from the first it was an assured success. The time will come when the remaining sharers in that first feast in the evening light will be very few, and the last of them will receive honor, and the children of Chautauqua will listen to their story as with quivering lips and kindling eye they speak about that first evening under the trees, the words that broke the sacred silence, the songs that bore praise and wonder and joy to the heavens, and the friendships that were formed there never to be broken.

How many who joined in the first Chautauqua service have already “fallen on sleep” and gone out into a world sleepless and without nightfall, where, for vesper chant are substituted the hallelujahs of an eternal morning.

But let us go up higher. Beyond the Point and Auditorium level are the terraces that run along the hillside, one above another, gardens and cottages, with pathways and winding roads, leading up under welcome shadows to a higher Chautauqua—a long stretch of table-land crowned now with Temple and Chapel, Pyramid, Museum and Hall of Philosophy, while beyond, in the open fields toward the north we reach the highest point of our Assembly grounds, one of the highest on the lake. Thus from the landing and the beginning of our journey we ascend from the lowest to the highest, and find beauty, delight, pleasant welcomes and rewards all the way.

This study in the lay of the land which makes the physical Chautauqua is an allegory. There is an upper Chautauqua. And not all who visit the place see it, and not all who become Chautauquans reach it.

The Chautauqua movement is progressive, and its friends and students are expected to make advancement in the line of its conceptions and provisions. It has court beyond court in which it unfolds its progressive aims and introduces its disciples to the higher privileges of culture which it provides. No fences or lines mark these successive stages. They do not correspond with the topographical elevations, although we have found in the one a figure or symbol of the other. But such gradation exists, and I shall point it out.

I. The Assembly—Is the first point of approach to the true Chautauqua. It is the outer court open to the whole world. It has no restraints upon those who come, save those which are necessary to guarantee a financial support to the institution, and those rules of ordinary decorum which are essential to the quiet enjoyment and profit of those who pay their tribute and wait for the promised compensation. And this compensation comes in lectures on the widest range of topics, from the “Philosophy of Locke and Berkeley” to the light and cheery discussions about “Fools and their Folly.” Concerts by gifted artists, characterizations by rare impersonators, illustrations of life and manners in remote regions, by the aid of costumer and tableaux vivants, stories of travel, with photographic accompaniments colored, magnified, and illuminated; sermons by able ministers, lessons by competent teachers, attractions for lighthearted youth and wearied but rational age, in bonfires, processions, fireworks, illuminated fleets—these are the features of the outer court of Chautauqua for the entertainment, awakening, and broadening of people who come with no far-reaching or serious purpose, but who come to “hear” and “see” and have “a good time.” They are simply recipients. The will-power lies dormant, save as some stirring statement of lecture or sermon, or some unsyllabled passage in music opens the soul to the worlds all about it replete with marvel, beauty and power. So much for the outer Chautauqua. There are those who see this—only this and nothing more. They come and go. They wonder why they and others come, and yet they think they may come again—but are not sure. They do not forget Chautauqua, and they do not “go wild” over it. They smile at other people, whom they call “fanatics,” because they are full of it, and “bound to come again,” and to “come every year,” and always, and “would be willing to live there.” These have seen the Upper Chautauqua—for beyond the “Assembly” is

II. The Circle.—It is another court—further in, and a little higher up—with a white-pillared hall among the trees—“The Hall in the Grove,” about which a book has been written, and in which songs are sung and weird services held, and where strange inspirations fall on people. For those who belong to the Circle—the “C. L. S. C.” as everybody calls it—are advanced Chautauquans. They know why they come to the place. And they know when to come. They keep a calendar, and they mark the feasts, and they know what to do when they are there. They seem at home. There are hosts of them—all knowing each other, and apparently bound together by some secret association which has a mystic power. They wear badges on certain days, badges of different styles and colors and legends. In all this there is something singular and beautiful.

This “Circle” is a company of pledged readers in wide ranges of literature. The “Assembly” contains people who listen. The “Circle” is made up of people who read. The “Assembly” covers a few weeks. The “Circle” casts its canopy over the year and the years. The “Assembly” is at Chautauqua. The “Circle” carries Chautauqua to the world’s end—to the east and to the west, to Canada, to Florida, to Scotland, to the Sandwich Islands, to India, and Japan, to Cape Colony—everywhere.

The members of the “Circle” stand on a higher plane than the Assembly, because they put will into the work. They read what they ought, for months and years, everywhere, getting larger views of the world, and worthier views of life, and nobler views of the race, and of God the Father of all.

The “Circle” takes a wide sweep in the world of letters. Its themes are those of the college world. It puts the preparatory and college curriculums into good, readable English, and helps people out of college to know what is going on there; what the young people study in history, language, and literature; what authors they read, and what estimate is to be placed on them and their work. It gives glimpses of science, physical and metaphysical—pointing down to the rocks and up to the stars, and about to the fields and seas and the forms of life in plant and animal. Whatever college boys study, the “Circle” provides in some form and degree for parents to read, that home and college may be one in outlook and sympathy, in aim and delight. But there is something beyond.

III. The Inner Circle.—Beyond the readers are the students—those who have completed the four years’ reading in the “Circle,” and the members of the “Society of the Hall in the Grove;” have filled out the various memoranda; have certain seals on their C. L. S. C. diplomas, testifying to this fact, and to the reading of the additional books. These walk on the higher levels. Their names are enrolled in the “Order of the White Seal.” Their faces are turned toward the Upper Chautauqua.

It is possible that the members of the C. L. S. C. who walk in the inner circle may meet those who rank with them, although they have come hither by other routes—through the “Chautauqua Teachers’ Retreat,” the “Chautauqua Spare Minute Courses,” and the “Chautauqua Assembly Normal Courses.” As students, they all rejoice in the larger places of Chautauqua. But there are heights beyond these heights.

“Hearers,” “readers,” “student-readers,” successively mark the three ascending grades of the Chautauqua movement, as outlined in the “Assembly,” the “Circle,” and the “Inner Circle.” Beyond these three stages, we come to

IV. The University Circle.—Here are members of “The League of the Round Table,” whose seven seals on the C. L. S. C. diploma entitle them to this higher honor. Here, too, are advanced students in the “Chautauqua School of Languages;” these walk in the outer courts and among the sacred corridors adjoining the University itself. Chautauqua now means more than ever to them. The towers of the University rise above them. They ask why its doors may not open to them, and why they may not rejoice in work, real work, with after-tests in genuine examinations, and after-honors in diploma and degrees.

Some remain in this goodly place, hearing the songs that float down from the higher halls, enjoying converse with their fellows of the grander degree, and encouraging other and younger and more vigorous companions to go up and possess the land. Others knock at the door by the upper step, and as it opens, they enter the fifth and highest form of the Chautauqua movement—

V. The University, with its schools, colleges, and academiae; its teachers and professors, its text-books and tasks, its rigid examinations, and its promotions. Concerning the University, I shall write later on.