WE have seen how Chautauquas sprung up throughout the land, inspired by
the example of the original Assembly beside the lake. All these were
independent, arranging their own programs and securing their own
speakers. Chautauqua never took a copyright upon the name or a patent
for the idea. It was natural, however, for many of these Assemblies to
combine their interests, for it soon found that half a dozen Chautauquas
in the same section could save expenses by employing the same group of
speakers and passing them on from one gathering to another. There were
already lyceum bureaus offering lecturers and entertainers. At first the
Assemblies secured a few of their speakers from these offices, and after
a few years their entire programs were arranged in conjunction with the
bureaus. Finally the lyceum agencies began to organize and conduct
assemblies directly, and thus the Chautauqua circuit or the system of a
Chautauqua chain was developed. One office in Chicago, the Redpath
Bureau, is said to conduct three thousand Chautauqua assemblies every
year, others have charge of a thousand apiece, while there are lesser
chains of fifty, twenty-five or a dozen assemblies. I have been
officially informed that in the year 1919, ten thousand chain
Chautauquas were held in the United States and Canada. They are to be
found everywhere, but their most popular field is in the Middle West,
where "the Chautauqua" is expected every year by the farming
communities. These bureaus and the "talent" which they employ have been
combined in an organization for mutual interest, to avoid reduplication
in the same locality, to secure their workers and arrange their
programs. This is named the International Lyceum and Chautauqua
Association, holding an annual convention at which the organizers and
the participants upon the programs come face to face and form their
engagements. The circuit system has arisen largely through economic
causes; the saving of expense by efficient organization, the elimination
of long railroad jumps from Assembly to Assembly, guarantee of
continuous engagement to attractive speakers, better publicity, and the
concentration of responsibility. It is found that the most successful
Chautauquas are held, not in cities, nor even in large towns, but in
the smaller places. The town of a thousand, or even one as small as five
hundred inhabitants, during its annual Chautauqua week will rally from
the farms and hamlets two thousand people to hear a popular lecture,
five or seven thousand during the week. In each place an advance agent
appears, interviews the business men, the ministers, and the heads of
any clubs or improvement societies, and obtains pledges of support by
the sale of a definite number of tickets. College boys make up the tent
crews; a Scout Master organizes the Boy Scouts; and trained experts
arrange for the advertising. The "morning-hour men" give lectures in
courses of uplifting nature on civic and national questions; the popular
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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