The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle is founded, at least in part, upon the idea that literature is a true good of life. Is it? That is the question which I raise for discussion to-day. A strange time of day, I hear some of you exclaim, for that question to be raised. Are we not nearing the end of the nineteenth century of the Christian era? May we not take a few things for settled, and is not the worth of literature one of those few? But there is a French saying that it is the unexpected which happens. So it is the out-of-season that is opportune—sometimes. And this seemingly out-of-season topic, this anachronism, the question of the value of literature, is perhaps exactly the thing that will prove timely to-day. For, incredible as it should seem, the real value of literature, the validity of the claim of literature to be regarded as a substantial human good, has of late been brought seriously into question. It is the men of science—not all of them, but some of them—that begin to challenge to literature its hitherto conceded title to be considered one of the great interests of mankind. These men say literature has had its day. A long day it has been, too long in fact, but the day is done now and literature must disappear. The future—such is their language—the future belongs to science. Science is the true great good of the human race. Science, they go on to represent, science can do for us what we really need to have done. Literature, on the other hand, can supply no real want of mankind. The great vogue that literature has enjoyed in the past, is due to an illusion—an illusion that with the broadening light of science, a light brightening and broadening every moment, dissolves and vanishes. More and more we are having done with the traditional and conventional. And anything more entirely traditional and conventional than the claim of literature on the attention and reverence of men does not exist. What we really need, and what we are going henceforth to insist on having, is substance, not shadow. Literature is shadow. It affords no satisfaction except to the sentiment. It makes nobody stronger, healthier, richer, more comfortable. It does not help us travel faster or travel more safely. It does not carry messages for us. It does not build our houses, or ventilate them, or warm them. It does not plant, or cultivate, or reap. It does not bind, or thresh, or grind, or cook. It does not invent any of the conveniences of life. We do not owe the sewing machine to literature, or the telegraph, or the telephone, or even the printing press itself, which so serves literature. Literature is a drone and an idler. Science works and produces. Science has done for us all the things enumerated, with many things beside, too many for enumeration, in which literature has had no useful part at all. Literature is a fine gentleman, a fine lady, sitting by with folded hands, hands folded and too delicate, far too delicate, for any productive employment.