The Florida Chautauqua is a success. Four months ago we had a dubious feeling that such an undertaking would fail of any real support in a clime which has always been so averse to adopting progressive ideas. Our healthy Chautauqua tree, we feared, would be enervated by tropical sunshine; but it has taken root with surprising readiness. And its growth is assured by the hearty northern support it is receiving. This support is a striking feature of Lake de Funiak. You see it in the pretty cottages that are being built about the grounds. They are generally owned by northerners. Wallace Bruce has a cottage there; Pansy is building one; Mrs. Harper, of Terre Haute, Ind., another; Dr. Hatfield, of Chicago, one, and Mrs. Emily Huntingdon Miller another. One delightful spot has been turned into an “Artist’s Corner” by Joaquin Miller, Mr. Durkin, Harper Brothers’ well known artist, and Mr. Gross, of Covington.

The attraction which Lake de Funiak has for literary and artistic people is easily explained. The country is enveloped in a mist of most fascinating story. Ponce de Leon and his warriors once searched its forest, and, perhaps, who knows, bathed in the lake’s clear waters.

It has an ideal climate. The lake lies on a ridge eighty by thirty miles in extent, and three hundred feet above sea level. “Too cold to raise oranges here,” the natives say, and sure enough it is, though east, at a lower altitude in the same latitude, orange groves are abundant. The beautiful LaConte pear, peaches, apples, and quinces, are the favorite fruits of this ridge. The result is that here in this overheated, indolent land, is formed an oasis with an even temperature, unknown to the mosquito, and unvisited by the cyclone.

No better place could be found for gathering the “material” in which the artist and the writer revel. These mammoth forests of pine, magnolia, cypress, palmetto, and oak, are broken by the settlements of a peculiar people. Northerners find here a fresh field of study for pen and pencil.

And it is a fresh field for the Chautauqua Idea. During the progress of the Assembly the people of the surrounding country were in a constant wonderment over the peculiar performances, but when they understood what was meant, their coÖperation was the heartiest, and their interest was untiring. The earnest workers who have undertaken to introduce the Chautauqua plans, if they are still in the first stage, are yet sure of abundant results.

In arranging the Florida Assembly the effort has been to have everything truly Chautauquan. Naturally we think of the Auditorium first, and at Lake de Funiak the situation is superb. The lake, which is about a mile in circumference, some sixty-four feet in depth, and its water of extraordinary clearness and purity, has a setting of grassy banks which slope upward from the lake some fifty feet to the edge of the forest. Into this bank, looking out over the lake, is built a square auditorium, large enough to seat 4,000 people, enclosed and furnished with an iron roof. All of the various Chautauqua developments have found their way there. The platform, presided over by the Rev. A. H. Gillet, the C. L. S. C., the normal work, a school of Greek, a kindergarten, school of cookery, and an art school. Prof. Sherwin was there, presiding over the chorus. Messrs. Fairbanks & Palmer opened a bookstore. There were Chautauqua singers, songs, speeches, and ideas, and they all took root. The beautiful situation, the desirable company that is building the new town, the vigor of the management, and its sound financial backing, evidence the future of Lake de Funiak. What more beautiful southern home could those of us who migrate southward from this land of snow and ice wish, than under the pines of Ponce de Leon’s fountain, surrounded by a band of the most earnest workers in the world, and in daily reach of the best thought which money and skill can bring together? Or if we can find time and money for but a month’s study of Florida and her people, what more delightful headquarters?