In 1911, the Miller Bell Tower at the Point beside the Pier was
dedicated. For years the chime of Meneely bells had stood in the belfry
of the old building on the Pier. But the piles beneath it were becoming
decayed and the bells by their weight and their movement racked the old
edifice. Their removal was necessary and the Tower was built adjoining
the wharf. A fine clock presented by the Seth Thomas Clock Company, and
the chimes, were placed in the summit of the Tower which received the
name "Lewis Miller Bell Tower." These bells ring five minutes before the
lecture hours, and at certain times, morning, noon, and night, the
chimes play familiar music. After the night bell, which may be either at
10 or 10.30, silence is supposed to reign throughout the grounds. One of
the original peal of four bells, afterward enlarged to form the chime of
ten bells, is named the Bryant bell, and is rung precisely at twelve
o'clock noon on the first day of October as a signal for beginning the
readings of the Chautauqua Circle. The name is in honor of William
Cullen Bryant, in recognition of his interest in the C. L. S. C.
During the season of 1911 a number of illustrated lectures were given by
Prof. R. W. Moore on "The Rhine"; by C. L. Harrington on "Aerial
Navigation,"--a lecture fully up to date at that time, surprising to
many who heard it and looked at the pictures. But that was before the
great war, and the same lecture would be hopelessly behind the times in
1921. Mr. Henry Turner Bailey showed us "A Dozen Masterpieces of
Painting," and Mr. Jacob A. Riis, "The Making of an American," Dr. Henry
R. Rose exhibited "The Oberammergau Passion Play," and Dr. H. H. Powers,
"Venice." Both President George E. Vincent and Director Arthur E. Bestor
gave lectures; also Edmund Vance Cooke and Mr. Earl Barnes, Mr. Leland
Powers impersonated stories and plays as nobody else could. Mr. Frank A.
Vanderlip gave three lectures on "Banking," which proved far more
interesting than most of us had anticipated. Dr. H. H. Powers told in a
series of lectures the stories of five great cities, Athens, Rome,
Florence, Paris, and London. Dr. Gunsaulus gave a series of lectures on
"Some of the Great Plays of Shakespeare"; Prof. S. C. Schmucker, a
series mingling science with history on "American Students of
Nature,--Audubon, Agassiz, Gray and Thoreau." Dean George Hodges in the
Department of Religion lectured in a course on "Christian Social
Betterment."
Among the chaplains of 1911 are the names of Bishop E. E. Hoss of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Dr. John T. Stone of Chicago, Dr.
Shailer Mathews, also of Chicago, Dr. C. F. Aked, then a pastor in San
Francisco, and Rev. Silvester Horne of England. The baccalaureate sermon
before the C. L. S. C. was this year given by the Chancellor, Bishop
Vincent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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