There comes to my own mind a vivid remembrance of that evening when for the first time I heard those magic words--"The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle." In the early spring of 1878, Dr. Vincent had just returned from an official visit to Europe, and I was no longer at Plainfield, five minutes' walk from his home, but by the revolution of the itinerant wheel a pastor, thirty miles distant. A message came asking me to spend an evening with him and talk over some new plans for Chautauqua. Of course, I obeyed the call, for I always gained more than I gave in any conversation with that fruitful mind. We sat in front of the fireplace in his study, and I listened while for an hour he talked of a new organization which he proposed to launch in the coming season, to be named _The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle_; with a course of study to be carried through four years, with forty minutes as each day's task, for nine or ten months of each year, in the various branches of knowledge, analogous to the four years of college study. He was so full of his theme and so eloquent upon it that I could only listen to the outpouring utterances. The general purpose was clear before him, but not the details of its operation. Dr. Vincent's eyes were ever set upward toward the mountain-tops glorious in the sunlight, and he did not always think of the thickets to be cut and the path to be made from the lower plain to the summit. I could see some of the difficulties in the way, some obstacles that must be overcome, and sagely shook my head in doubt of the scheme. It was a radical departure from the earlier ideals, for thus far everything on the Chautauqua program had been along the line of Sunday School training, and this was a forsaking of the well-trodden path for a new world of secular education. Why try to rival the high schools and arouse the criticism of the colleges? How would the regular constituency of Chautauqua feel at this innovation? No doubt under the spell of his enthusiasm, some would join the proposed class in literature and science--but how could science be studied by untrained people without laboratories, or apparatus, or teachers? And after the spell of the Chautauqua season would not the pledges be forgotten at home, and the numbers in the home classes soon dwindle away to nothing? Dr. Vincent asked me a question as we sat in the glow of the fireplace. "How many do you think can be depended on to carry on such a course as is proposed?" "Oh, perhaps a hundred!" I answered. "People who want to read will find books, and those who don't care for reading will soon tire of serious study." The doctor sprang up from his chair and walked nervously across the room. "I tell you, Mr. Hurlbut, the time will come when you will see a thousand readers in the C. L. S. C."