ough we are not certain of the
precise year, was Mr. Horace Fletcher, whose name is in the dictionary
in the word "Fletcherize," which means to count the chewing of each
mouthful thirty times before swallowing it. We have tried some steaks in
the early Chautauquan days when fifty chews would hardly make an
impression. He spoke on the platform, and the few who could hear him
said that his talk was not about dietetics, but foreign politics, though
the two words are somewhat alike and they may have misunderstood him.
His fiftieth birthday came while he was at Chautauqua, and he celebrated
it by doing some amazing stunts, double somersaults, etc., into the lake
at the diving place. I sat at the table next to his at the Athenaeum and
noticed that he ate very slowly, but I could not count the chews on each
mouthful. A lady at the same table told me that Mr. Fletcher eschewed
coffee but put seven lumps of sugar in his tea, calmly observing that
his "system needed sugar." I know some young people who have the same
opinion concerning their own systems, if one may judge by the fate of a
box of chocolates in their hands.

In this year the School of Religious Teaching was reorganized, the
Department of Sacred Literature being conducted by Chancellor Wallace of
Toronto, and that of Religious Pedagogy, by Dr. J. R. Street. We may as
well insert here the fact that for many years before, and during the
seasons since that year, Sunday School lessons were taught in the
morning and a lecture given at the Park of Palestine in the afternoon by
the author of this volume. The plan with the lessons has been to give
every morning a preview of a coming Sunday School topic, so that by the
close of the season all the lessons for six months to come have been
taught, and at Palestine Park to treat the geography of the land
historically in a series of lectures. Also, it should be remembered that
every Sunday of the Chautauqua season, from the first year, a Sunday
School has been held in the morning, for all ages from youngest to
oldest, the grades being taught in different places on the grounds by
specialists in their several departments. For some years, if one strayed
on Sunday morning over Palestine Park, he might find a class of boys
seated on the hills around Nazareth listening to a lesson on the boyhood
of Jesus, and a group of girls looking down on the Sea of Galilee, while
a teacher was telling stories of the tempest stilled and the five
thous