Work has begun in the Chautauqua University. Courses of study in several departments have been prepared. Some students have been enrolled. Large numbers of letters of inquiry are being daily received, and the outlook is brilliant for a work far in advance of anything which the projectors of the enterprise had hoped. A lovely spot at Chautauqua, on the north side of the grounds, toward Mayville, has been selected as the center of the University. It will be inclosed and beautified. Within it will be the University offices, and colonnades, and halls accessible to those of our members who shall be able to visit Chautauqua in July and August. It will be known as “The Academia.”

The professors who have been appointed are for the most part men whose reputation as successful and experienced teachers is firmly established, and who will bring to this new work the same enthusiasm which has characterized them in other fields. Circulars containing full information concerning the aims of the University, the courses already prepared, the departments to be organized, the requirements for specific degrees, and the estimated cost of the course, may be obtained by addressing the Registrar, R. S. Holmes, at the central office in Plainfield, N. J. The Chautauquan for October announced our purposes and general plan. We now present some of the prominent and distinguishing features of our work:

1. The Chautauqua University is the only institution of the kind in the world. It stands alone. True, there are some other circles which, by correspondence, have pursued special and limited courses upon some particular subject; but ours is the only school whose avowed object is to conduct its students over the whole field of liberal learning, and reward them at their journey’s close, with a well earned degree. To all, who as pioneers in the field of education by correspondence, have helped to demonstrate the feasibility of organized effort in this direction, the Chautauqua University pays willing tribute. Their success gives footing to our confidence. If history can be so taught, why not philosophy, or logic, or literature, or any kindred topic? If Hebrew can be so taught, why not any ancient language? If French can be so taught, why not any modern language? True, we lack the presence of the living teacher, but the chief value of the teacher’s presence is to test the accomplished work of the student, and to prompt by word and hint to better work in lines of which the student had not thought. Both of these can be accomplished by our method. The one condition is work—earnest, persistent work.

Teaching by correspondence is like conversation by telephone. We may never see each other, yet speak as face to face. We are miles apart, maybe, yet answer voice to voice. We are far without the range of possible personal contact, yet more in immediate obedience to each other’s will. So with teacher and pupil, they are mutually unseen; yet teacher’s letter on pupil’s table, and pupil’s letter on teacher’s table are a visible presentation of each to the other. They are widely separate; yet by correspondence question and answer are interchanged in rapid succession. Their paths of life never converge; yet teacher and pupil move mutually in daily lines which want and its supply make necessary.

As the soldier may fight battles and win victories under the direction of a general whom he has never seen, so the student may win in fields of learning without once seeing his teacher’s guiding hand.

2. The Chautauqua University makes no limitation in the time allowed to students, to complete her prescribed courses. Our students are not limited by time. They are not actuated by the spirit which hurries young men through college, seminary, and professional school, that at the earliest possible moment they may reach their chosen field of labor. Many of our students have reached their life work. They are on farms, in shops and stores, in factories and foundries, in press-room and in pulpit, in counting-room and court house, at home and by the way. They thirst for knowledge; to them we open the fountain. Their leisure time they would use in making reparation for lost opportunities of earlier years; or in supplementing the moderate acquirement which those earlier years had given. We offer them wise direction in this work, and say, Use the leisure that you have—make moments even at the cost of sacrifice; learn how to double moments by the quality of the work you crowd into them; choose from our courses of study those which you can pursue, and then pursue them till you reach the reward which we offer for their satisfactory completion. Do it; in four years, or six years if you can; in eight years, or ten years if you must, but do it; let nothing turn you from your purpose—after the struggle comes the victory, and the fruit of that victory will be not only the knowledge which you crave, but what is far better, power over self, and the habit of self use.

3. The Chautauqua University does not require one who is enrolled as a student to take a complete course of study before giving official recognition to work already accomplished. It is not possible for persons circumstanced as our students will be to devote so much of time each day to study that they can do the whole work of a college course in the ordinary four years. It may be that after a year or two of study, and the completion of some one department course, interruptions may arise which will disarrange a student’s plans and thwart for the time his purpose. To such students we promise to give official recognition. Should the work pursued be that of a single department, of several, or of all, much or little, for each finished branch of study the student will receive an official certificate signed by the professor with whom he has studied, and by the Chancellor and Registrar of the University; and whenever any student shall have obtained certificates, representing all the departments which are essential to the obtaining of any specified degree, the presentation of these certificates to the Board of Trustees will entitle their owner to the degree without further examination. In this there is no purpose of lowering the standard of requirement or of making an easy road to a degree. Certificates will represent rigid, searching and thorough examinations. We are not aware that such a course is pursued by any other institution. The student who is compelled to leave his college course unfinished leaves behind him on the books of the institution his record, but bears with him no official certificate of that record.

4. The Chautauqua University takes the student where it finds him. This makes education possible for the classes of society for which this enterprise is begun. Absence from home becomes unnecessary. We bid no man leave other duties undone, in order to study. We shorten no business hours; we shut no office doors; we turn no key upon the wants of a busy world. But when days are rainy and trade is dull, when the harvest is ended and the fences are mended, the winter’s fuel gathered and the farm implements are all repaired, when the shut-down of dull times comes in the factory, when household work is over, when evening comes, then are we ever at hand to whisper, give us your hours, and turn your backs upon the amusements, the frivolities, the wastefulnesses of the world. We ask no father or mother to toil and save that one from the home fireside may have the benefits of college education. We say to all, pursue together the paths we mark out for you. We increase no household expenses by the evening and morning hour’s study which we require. The small comparative outlay of money our courses make necessary will be repaid in ennobled character, and in more comprehensive views of life. We lay our text-books on the anvil, and some day we shall see Elihu Burritt or Robert Collyer emerging from the smoke and grime of the shop. We will place a law book by the cobbler’s side, and ever and anon he casts his eye at the open page; and by and by the cobbler’s sign is down and the shop is deserted—but an eloquent voice is pleading at the bar the claims of justice and humanity.

5. The Chautauqua University comes into competition with no other institution. We do not want as students those who can go to college. We do not wish to influence any one to neglect college opportunities freely offered. We expect that the work of the Chautauqua University will be to arouse so much interest in the subject of general liberal education that by and by in all quarters young men and women will be seeking means to obtain such education in established resident institutions. We expect to see the cause of education receive an impetus which it has had from no other source in the last quarter of a century. Meanwhile, we appeal to the classes already mentioned in our first article. “Worthy young people not able to go to college;” “those who, having begun a college course, have been compelled to abandon it by circumstances beyond their control;” and those “more mature men and women who, at the maximum of their mental power, desire to make amends for the educational omissions of the earlier years.”

In touching upon these several points we have to some extent repeated ideas already advanced in our general announcement. This was necessary in order to give prominence to these aspects of our scheme which seem to be worthy of emphatic public notice, and also to serve the purpose of making general answer to questions being asked in numbers too great to admit of personal answer. With a single word we close. October has come and well nigh gone, but let no one by that consideration be debarred from entering upon our course of study. Our doors are always open. It is better to begin with the year. But it is better to begin now than not at all. Our professors will gladly welcome as pupils any who are actuated by an earnest desire to enter the realms of the liberal arts, and in their names it is our pleasure to urge upon you careful consideration of the purposes and possibilities of the Chautauqua University.