Of all the forty-six years of Chautauqua up to 1919, this was the most successful in its history. The attendance shown by the receipts at the two gates--one at the Pier where the steamboats landed their thousands, the other at the new station on the public highway where the trolley brought the tens of thousands--were far beyond that of any former year. The registration at the schools was sixty-two per cent. in advance of 1918, and eighteen per cent. beyond that of 1914, the best previous year. Every hotel and boarding house inside the fence was full, and pleas were made to cottagers to open their doors to incoming guests. Many who could not find lodging places on the grounds found homes in the hotels and hamlets around the Lake and came daily to the Assembly by trolley or by boat. During the opening week, Mr. W. W. Ellsworth gave two illustrated lectures, one on "Theodore Roosevelt," the other "The Rise and Fall of Prussianism," and Prof. Thomas F. Moran of Purdue University gave an appreciation of "Mark Twain, Humorist, Reformer, and Philosopher." Miss Maud Miner gave a popular recitation of "Comedy Scenes from Shakespeare." It was noticed that in the very opening the Amphitheater was filled;--what would it become at the height of the season, the first two weeks in August? The Devotional Hour from July 6th to 12th was held by Dr. Charles F. Wishart, in a series of studies in the book of Exodus, entitled, "A Free People in the Making," and from the story he drew frequent applications to the history of another "free people." During this week, Dr. Louis A. Weigle, Professor of Psychology at Yale University, began a course of lectures on "Character Building in the Public Schools" suggesting many thoughts--not all of them gratulatory--in those who heard them. On Sunday morning, July 13th, the great congregation heard Dr. Wm. P. Merrill, of the Brick Church, New York, deliver a sermon on the topic as announced, "The League of Nations," of which he declared himself unreservedly in favor. On this question there were two parties throughout the nation strongly opposed to each other and fiercely debating it, and when a fortnight later the chaplain, Bishop Williams, who was never known to sit on the fence, also came out vigorously for the League, Mr. Bestor began to look around for some speaker on the other side, for it has been a principle at Chautauqua to give both sides a fair showing, even when the Chautauqua constituency as a whole might be opposed to a speaker. A speaker against the League was found in Mr. John Ferguson, but he evidently represented the sentiments of the minority. Among the speakers of the second week were several on "The Aftermath of the Great War," among them Dr. Katharine B. Davis, Major-General Bailey, who had been Commander of the Eighty-First Division of the A. E. F., and Attorney-General A. Mitchell Palmer. Prof. S. C. Schmucker also gave a course of lectures on "The Races of Man."