or the
direction of reading, and in the best sense for
popular instruction. To direct the reading for a
period of years for so many thousands is to affect
not only their present culture, but to increase
their intellectual activity for the period of
their natural lives, and thus, among other things,
greatly to add to the range of their enjoyment. It
appears to me that a system which can create such
excellent results merits the most cordial praise
from all lovers of men.

Colonel Francis W. Parker, Superintendent of Schools, first at Quincy,
Mass., and later at Chicago, one of the leading educators of the land,
gave this testimony, after his visit to Chautauqua:

The New York Chautauqua--father and mother of all
the other Chautauquas in the country--is one of
the great institutions founded in the nineteenth
century. It is essentially a school for the
people.

Prof. Hjalmar H. Boyesen, of Columbia University, wrote:

Nowhere else have I had such a vivid sense of
contact with what is really and truly American.
The national physiognomy was defined to me as
never before; and I saw that it was not only
instinct with intelligence, earnestness, and
indefatigable aspiration, but that it revealed a
strong affinity for all that makes for
righteousness and the elevation of the race. The
confident optimism regarding the future which this
discovery fostered was not the least boon I
carried away with me from Chautauqua.

Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer, President of Wellesley College, expressed
this opinion in a lecture at Chautauqua:

I could say nothing better than to say over and
over again the great truths Chautauqua has taught
to everyone, that if you have a rounded, completed
education you have put yourselves in relation with
all the past, with all the great life of the
present; you have reached on to the infinite hope
of the future.

I venture to say there is no man or woman
educating himself or herself through Chautauqua
who will not feel more and more the opportunity of
the present moment in a present world.

The character of Chautauqua's traini