I smiled, the smile of kindly unbelief! His impulse, his dream was noble, to be sure, but so utterly impracticable. I tell this little tale to show how far below the reality were the expectations of us both. Only a few years after this conversation the enrolled members of the C. L. S. C. counted sixty thousand readers pursuing the course at one time, with probably as many more readers unregistered. The opening evening of the Assembly was held on Tuesday evening, August 6th. The vesper service beginning, "The Day goeth away, The Shadows of evening are stretched out, Praise waiteth for Thee, O God, in Zion," etc., was read responsively in the Auditorium between the Miller Cottage and the Vincent tent, then not far from the Point, when a sudden shower fell and a general rush was made to the new Pavilion in the ravine on the west. That was the last opening service attempted out-of-doors. Since that evening, the Pavilion, soon to become the Amphitheater, has supplied the stage for the speakers, sedate or humorous, short or long,--some of them longer than the audience desired--on "Old First Night." A few lectures were given from time to time in the old Auditorium, but after the season of 1879 it was left for smaller meetings of couples in communion of soul on the seats here and there under the trees. The inauguration of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle took place in the Pavilion on the afternoon of Saturday, August 10, 1878. On the platform, then lower than most of the seats, were a telescope, a microscope, a globe, some scientific apparatus, and a table filled with books, giving a scholastic setting to the exercises. Dr. Vincent presided, and with him were Bishop Randolph S. Foster of Boston, Dr. Henry W. Warren of Philadelphia, himself two years afterward to become a bishop, Professor William C. Wilkinson, whose pen in the following years wrote many books for the readers of the C. L. S. C., Professor James Strong of wide learning, and several other eminent men. The address of the day, unfolding the purpose and plan of the Circle, was given by Dr. Vincent. Many of us who heard him on that afternoon have thought since that this was the masterpiece of his lifetime, and it might worthily be so, for it launched a movement in education, the most influential and wide-reaching of any in the annals of the nation.