Chautauqua Institution

“ Nothing can be more inconsistent with true public economy than withholding the means necessary to accomplish the object intended by the constitution to the national legislature. One of these objects, and one which is of paramount importance, is declared by our fundamental law to be the provision for the “common defense.” Surely nothing is more essential to the defense of the United States, and of all our people than the efficiency of our navy. ”

“ In themselves they are rather neat to look at, except for the signs of population at every window, where on a hot and steaming day everybody seems to press to get the air. You can see the baby at the breast, the hunchback elder child, the man rolling cigars, the Chinaman washing, the woman running her sewing machine, the musician practicing on the bugle, the dentist, perhaps, filling teeth in a tenement house at modest rates to suit. You may also see some quiet old German smoking his pipe and reading science, unaware that anything is much worse than it generally is in the world. ”

“ To a thief the profit is just $20,000. But the genius lies in concealing the simplicity of the business.
It was not strange that General Grant was deceived by young Ward. No one supposes that the General is an acute and expert man of business. But men who ought to be acute and expert men of business—for that is their calling—were as completely deceived as General Grant. There are always hindsight philosophers and small-eyed sons of detraction to seize such an occasion as the late panic to criticise great and good men. ”

“ We have provided a college outlook, a college outlook which touches every department in the realm of culture. We give a bird’s eye view of this vast world which appeals to every faculty of the soul. We touch the physical man, the physical world in which he lives, above among stars, below among stones, about among plants and animals. We study history, the history of the earth as revealed in science, the history of man as unfolded in the traditions and records of the race. ”

“ Massachusetts.—I am quite an invalid, so I take the reading slowly and in small doses, but I can not begin to tell the good it has done me.
New Jersey.—Life seems to me to have been lifted on a higher plane since my association with the C. L. S. C. I know I am a better wife, I love my Christian work better, I am better acquainted with the Master, and as the intellect is cultivated, the soul is pushed out into greater depths and heights and breadths.
Pennsylvania.—I enjoy the reading and study more than I can express, believing that its influence is elevating. ”

“ We avoid scrupulously everything that tends to the promotion of sectarianism in thought or spirit, but we believe in that profound philosophy, which all leading educators of life have recognized, that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” A culture of muscle alone is a one-sided culture. The culture of the reason alone is equally one-sided. A culture of memory alone is folly. The true culture is a culture of body, mind and heart, the soul in its entirety, with its many-sided relations to the truths which belong to those relations: God, neighbor, home, life, nation, time, eternity. ”

“ After he had healed a poor being, blind from his birth—a work transcending all but divine power—he returned and sought him out, as the most humble Sabbath-school teacher might have done; and when he had found him, cast out and persecuted by men, he taught him privately the highest secrets of his Messiahship. When the world around hung darkened in sympathy with his cross, and the earth was shaking with inward amazement, he himself was remembering his mother, and discharging the filial cares of a good son. ”

“ No one who has seen a sword-fish or a good picture of one, soon forgets the great muscular body, like that of a mackerel, a thousand times magnified, the crescent shaped tail, measuring three feet or more from tip to tip, the scimitar-like fins on the back and breasts, the round, hard, protruding eyes, as large as small foot balls, and the sword-like snout, two, three or four feet in length, protruding, caricature like, from between its eyes. ”

“ Whatever we native Americans think about the foreign methods of living in New York, those methods are as natural to the immigrants as it is for us to occupy a whole house. Indeed, the American in such cities as New York is becoming of necessity the imitator of the foreigner, because the rent of a whole establishment on that cramped island is out of the reach of any but the well employed and independently prosperous. ”

“ It is not easy to do your best work where you fail to rouse the sympathies of the student and make him feel something of the ardor which a liberal mind ever feels in the acquisition of knowledge. The Chinese are not an enthusiastic people, and except in a very few cases, it is impossible to make them such in learning of foreign things. They like to know as much as suits their imperative needs, and but few care enough about more to study with eager diligence. This struck me as being true of many of the students of this Peking college. ”

“ Remember that we want the coöperation of the sober, thoughtful and earnest people. The Chautauqua season is not a picnic; it is a season of rest, because a change of scene and occupation always refreshes mind and body. But our patrons are expected to bring their heads with them—and their consciences—that when they return home they may carry back new force and larger power to influence their neighbors. Chautauqua is ready to receive its pupils and guests. ”

“ It is as different as possible in external appearance from the habitations of royalty in European cities; no iron-barred windows, better fitted for a fortress than ordinary outlook, no gloomy, gray walls, chilly and forbidding, frowning down upon you, no squalid tenements thronged with degraded specimens of humanity press upon its outskirts to accentuate the beauties of the one and the miseries of the other. Instead of this, the White House rises fair and inviting from an elevation which seems just sufficient to bring it into relief as a conspicuous feature of the landscape. ”

“ It was simply the unconventional, blunt truth-telling of a child applied to a lying system of politics, and it cut like a knife.
Lowrie swore vengeance. “Let her alone, for God’s sake!” said one who knew her career. “Let her alone, or she will kill you. She has killed every man she ever touched. Let her alone.” He did not, and she did kill him with the truth. To his threats she returned the promise that she should continue to support Buchanan until she had broken him down in everlasting infamy. ”

“ Hundreds of our readers, who are not members of any evangelical church, and who are skeptical in their tendency, have read the book with great delight, and though prejudiced somewhat against the title, have given words of testimony to its wonderful power as a literary production, to say nothing about the vigor of its arguments. You say you “find sermons in stones, and good in everything.” Can you not, if you find good in everything, find good in a philosophical book written by a mighty intellect, acknowledged by the scholars of the past forty years? ”

“ We would go into battle with the odds all against us. The sides of our ships are as pasteboard to the high-power guns of the present time.
Our guns are as much use against two feet of iron armor, or its equivalent in steel, as a pop-gun is against a stone wall, and would make just about as much impression. And, although [596] we have just as brave, patriotic and skillful men and officers in our navy to-day as we ever had, they are not skilled or trained in the use of the proper weapons, in the management of modern weapons—such as their opponents will use against them. ”

“ Yet there is no United States war vessel with a greater thickness of side than seven inches of iron. Most of our monitors have only 5′′ armor.
The people of this country have reason to be proud of the deeds of their navy in the past, and many a time has the “ruler of the seas” lowered his flag to the stars and stripes. But those victories were gained with ships the equal of any in the world, and with guns which had no superiors and with crews and officers well trained and accustomed to the use of their weapons. Is it so now with our navy? ”

“ Beside torpedoes and fortifications there should be always at hand for the defense of our coasts, a sufficient number of as good iron-clads and torpedo boats as any nation in the world possesses, vessels that can go to sea, so that we can meet the enemy with the same kinds of weapons he opposes to us, and with enough of them to prevent the first hard blows. Then with this as a nucleus, and our ship-builders and our mechanics skilled in the work necessary to keep up such an establishment, we could build up a sufficiently large navy as the war progressed. ”

“ His dominions are spread out, system above system, filling all height and latitude, but he is never lost in the magnificent. He descends to an infinite detail, and builds a little universe in the smallest things. He carries on a process of growth in every tree and flower and living thing; accomplishes in each an internal organization, and works the functions of an internal laboratory, too delicate all for eye or instrument to trace. He articulates the members and impels the instincts of every living mote that shines in the sunbeam. ”

“ Her religion taught her that everything that she liked to do and enjoyed in the doing, was, by that token, sinful; and her husband and his family by thwarting her in all such enjoyments, unconsciously executing her theology against herself, set her upon expiating her sinfulness by engaging in the most disagreeable and trying work that she could find. Men and women before her have sought “in the world’s broad field of battle” relief from disappointment of the heart’s wishes, but few have put on the armor to punish themselves for not enjoying that disappointment. ”

“ No home should so far out-top the tastes of its inmates that they can not somewhere and somehow deck it with the record of their love and culture. It is an awful thing to live in a house where no new nail can be driven in the wall, and no tray of wild flowers, or of wood-mosses be set upon a window sill. ”

“ I think we shall gain members here to the C. L. S. C., and I shall do all I can. I think we ought to have a strong circle here. I work in the railroad shops, and I read The Chautauquan to the men nearly every noon.
Colorado.—I am, like many another member of the C. L. S. C., a “busy mother,” but I have always been able to find time for my required reading, and for a good deal more that seemed to be suggested by the readings. To say the course of systematic reading is a delight to me, is to but feebly express my appreciation. It is a continual benefit, and an abiding stimulus to self-culture. ”

“ It has come to pass that our best patrons and friends are those who have graduated in other schools, while we continue to increase the usefulness of Chautauqua for those in whose behalf it was founded. The success of the “Idea” along the whole line is not merely a satisfaction; it is a promise and a prophecy. There is every reason to believe that its broad, philanthropic, refining and elevating tendencies will continue to develop new methods of giving knowledge to all. But, of course, a benevolent enterprise like ours depends upon the sustained interest and enthusiasm of its friends. ”

“ How many things I could teach a lot of youngsters in the average school room in the way of an imaginary trip to Europe that should last several weeks or months! And what an opportunity we have, what facilities we have for the furtherance of a scheme like this, in the photographs, the engravings and books of travel, and all sorts of things that abound everywhere, by which little people might go with you, and be glad all the while they went, and learn all the more because they were glad. ”

“ After a few successful battles, and an ill-timed excursion into England, the army was disbanded, and the unfortunate Wanderer was compelled to flee for his life, disguised as a servant. He sought refuge in a cavern where seven outlaws had taken up their abode. With these men he remained about three weeks, and when the hour of his departure came they said: “Stay with us; the mountains of gold which the government have set upon your head may induce some gentleman to betray you, for he can go to a distant country and live on the price of his dishonor; but to us there exists no such temptation. ”

“ Every year we put away in its vaults $100,000,000, for which we have no present use. Our resources in metal in the ore, and in everything connected with the material of ship building and gun building is almost beyond comparison with any other country. With one year’s surplus of revenue we could build a navy that would cause the most powerful nations to fear and respect us, and which would be the surest harbinger of peace. But our people are beginning in a slow way to realize that we need a reorganization of the navy, and Congress has appropriated the money for the building of four new vessels. ”

“ A very wide question is sometimes raised as to how far the absence of such marked types as those of the past indicates an improved age in the present, and whether indeed the opposite of this may not be the case. It may be argued, and not quite without some show of reason, that the tendency to reduce all characters, stations, and kinds of life to a largely universal correspondence, and the merging of markedly distinctive traits into a general resemblance, is an indication of weakness rather than of strength, and that thereby society suffers a loss instead of securing a gain. ”

“ A well written article in a local paper on the work done, shows how thoroughly its influence is appreciated: “When one has passed an evening with such a club, that has been faithfully kept up year by year, not for social delight but for hard study of history, philosophy, belles lettres and the evidences of the Christian religion, he realizes the worth of it and since music, good music too, is ever added to the mental labor as joint refiner of mind and heart, he approves the ‘club’ as one of the finest social and literary organizations that has ever blessed this city.” ”

“ His is the idea, his the inspiration, and his its fulfillment in time; and therefore no good deed but lives and grows with the everlasting life of God himself. And as the acorn, because God has given it “a forming form,” and life after its kind, bears within it not only the builder oak, but shade for many a herd; food for countless animals, and last, the gallant ship itself, and the materials of every use to which nature or art can put it and its descendants after it throughout all time ”

“ Our government, by encouraging such an industry, would be but providing itself with the best of weapons, and would be putting the country in a secure state of defense.
Germany, ten years ago, adopted a scheme for the improvement of her navy, which before that time was of little consequence, and part of the policy was, to build her own armor-clads, and everything pertaining to the navy in her own country, and she has so far succeeded that her navy, though not the largest, is one of the best in the world, and was all created by her own people, and at a small annual expenditure. ”

“ He gave us an inspiring talk upon the theme of which he never tires, and intensified our love for this noble course, and increased our desire to do more and better work, feeling that though it may be superficial in comparison to a regular college course, it is elevating in its influence and character, and enables those of us who have left youth and school days far back in the past, to feel that we are not retrograding, but at least can be within hailing distance of those who are fresh and thorough in the same subjects. ”

“ A marvelous light falls through the western window upon the cabinets with their treasures, the many flowering plants and inviting easy chairs. But even here history must intrude; a marble table of hexagon shape is said to have been the property of General Jackson, and tradition asserts that broken places here and there in the smooth surface are the traces of his seal ring when his hand was brought down with that terrible emphasis peculiar to him on certain occasions.
The elevator which was put in for “Grandma Garfield,” she never returned to the White House to use. ”

“ The man who attends to his neighbor’s business generally has his hands full. So has the man who attends to the motions of his neighbor, the moon. By the time he investigates her parallax, diameter, distance, revolution on her axis, sidereal and synodic revolutions, the form of her orbit, her phases, discusses her physical properties, determines her heat, height of her mountains, size of her craters, describes her librations, [571] decides upon the effect she exercises on the weather, and a thousand more or less of other things, he had better settle down and make it the business of his life. ”

“ He seemed to have thought for himself, to have a fair understanding of the subject, and would have delighted the fiscal reformers of America by the soundness of his hard money principles. He expressed great dissatisfaction with the currency of China, and hoped for a speedy and thorough reform. So does every man who travels in this strange country. Inside the walls of Peking there is one way of reckoning money, outside there is another; a few miles off one may find a third, and so on, ad infinitum. The currency of China is the most bewildering subject on the face of the earth. ”

“ Krupp, supply the world with guns? Why should not we, instead of Mr. Yarrow, of England, supply the world with torpedo-boats, etc., etc.?
We have supplied other nations with muskets; an American invented the gun which fires a hailstorm of 1,200 bullets per minute, and which bears his name, the Gatling gun; and our fellow countryman is supplying the world with revolving cannon, but not from the United States. Every one of our manufacturing industries has been assisted by the government by high tariff on similar articles of foreign manufacture. ”