The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, January 1884: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, January 1884: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture.; Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
One of the two rooms is the place where most of the clerical work of
the Circle is carried on by the efficient young secretary and her lady
assistants, who number from five to ten at different seasons in the
scholastic year. One young lady opens the letters received, which
sometimes number twenty-three hundred in a week, and never fall below
eleven hundred, and assorts them. Another finds constant employment in
answering inquiries, addressing circulars of information, in changing
the names and addresses of members who change their residences, or of
lady members who get married and change their names. About ten per
cent. of these people forget to state to which class they belong,
and consequently their names must be hunted up in the different
class-registers. [MEM. Whenever you write to the office, _always_
mention the graduating year of your class.] Another young lady keeps
account of the fees, and writes receipts to those who pay them, and
quite frequently finds it necessary to search the big books for the
address of a member who has forgotten to tell in what State he lives,
and forgotten also that there are twenty-seven towns of that same name
in the United States. [MEM. Always be sure to give your postoffice
address fully.] A couple more of the staff are busy at certain seasons
in filling and addressing the envelopes which are sent three or four
times a year to upward of forty thousand people. It requires most of
the time of one person to file the letters, postal cards and outline
memoranda received from the members, for every scrap of writing sent by
members of the C. L. S. C. is duly arranged in its alphabetical place,
so that it can be referred to at any minute. The secretary herself
sits at a table whereon stands a formidable pile of letters containing
questions upon every subject imaginable (beside others unimaginable);
outline memoranda to be examined, inquiries concerning seals on
diplomas, a labyrinth so intricate that nobody except the secretary
has the clue; requests for permission to substitute for the Required
Reading Mac-Somebody’s history of which nobody else has ever heard the
name; and occasionally a letter which warms one’s heart, as it tells
of the blessing which the C. L. S. C. has brought to a far-away home.
No letter remains long unanswered, and no inquiry, however slight, is
passed by.
A very careful account is kept with each member of the C. L. S. C., so
that quite a history could be written of each student’s relation to the
office. To each class of the Circle is assigned a large volume, ruled
to supply blanks for all the data. In this the names of the members are
enrolled in alphabetical order. Opposite each name are recorded the
answers upon the application blank; receipts of fees of membership,
with dates; receipts of outline memoranda, and a space for report as
to the member’s final destiny in the C. L. S. C., whether diploma or
withdrawal.
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