Chautauqua

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 478, 4 November 1919, Page 3

Chautauqua

(To tbe Editor.) Sir,—Supplementing the splendid articles submitted for the past month by " Scrutator," is this article from one who has been closely in touch with the Chautauqua community for the past eighteen years. Chatuaqua in the United States, Canada, and Alaska, is almost as necessary an institution in community life as the libraries, schools, and churches. President Wilson says that next to the press the Chautuaqua is the greatest medium of expression of public opinion known. During the war t4ie Chautuaqua platform was conscripted for war purposes as well as the press. Credit was given this | institution in a large measure for America's ready response to war loans, food conservation, and recruiting appeals. The backbone of the movement is the lecture staff which a programme takes to rural communities as well as to the larger cities. The musical numbers are supplied to lighten and entertain, but the part longest remembered by the public is the solid subject matter presented in an interesting way by the orators which each programme furnishes. Years of experience study, and thought, are combined in such a way as to make the topics of their discourses popular and attractive to both j young and old. The value of such lessons cannot be measured in terms of dollars and cents, or in the space of the really all too short week in which the Chautuaqua is in the community, but should be reckoned in the terms of the benefits and new visions gained by the boys and girls during the session and developed in the years to come. With reference to your Pukekohe Chautauqua, I am proud to j mention such lecturers as Judge George D. Alden, Dr. Arthur D. Carpenter, Mr M. C. Reed, and Dr Caroline Giesel. Had the New Zealand Chautuaqua Association requested these speakers at any other time of the year, I seriously doubt its ability to have secured them, in such demand are they by American managers.

Judge George D. Alden is known' to American audiences as " the grand old man of the platform." An orator of note, his lectures on the second and third days of your Chautuaqua are treats every man owes himself and his family. Clear thinking and sound logic, combined with a wonderful gift of oratory and a personality as pleasing as his words, make Judge Alden one of the most sought - after and popular of America's platform stars. Presenting lectures of concrete worth and popular interest the first and second days of Chautuaqua bring one of America's greatest Astronomers—Dr. Arthur D. Carpenter. ( Dr. Carpenter's two lestures," World's in the Making," and " Celestial Mechanics," are condensations of a lifetime's study and thought The public will long remember and quote Dr Carpenter. A Chautauqua programme would not be complete without one lecture on community building, and the management feels very fortunate in securing for that place Mr. M. C. Reed of Washington. Of particular interest at present to New Zealanders is the subject of " townbuilding "and as Mr Reed has been closely in touch with that movement in the States for a number of years, his lectures on the fourth and fifth days will be of interest and help to progressive citizens and community builders, Last, but assuredly, not least, the Chautauqua is bringing one of America's most noted woman physicians and surgeons, and, perhaps the most sought-after woman speakers in America — Dr Caroline Giesel. During the first few months of the war Dr Giesel toured the entire United States with America's famous "Flying Squadron," a picked company of America's leading men and women speakers whose mission it was to spread Government propaganda and aid in the war loan campaign and recruiting. Dr Giesel finished her course in medicine before she was twenty-one years of age; in fact, she was compelled to wait several weeks for her diploma after she was graduated. She later studied in Edinburgh and Petrograd. Possessing the logic and brain power of a man combined with o wonderful gift of language and a charming personality, Dr Diesel will mal<« the fifth and sixth clays of your Chautauqua memorable for the message she leaves in your midst. Representative. Nov. 3rd. I'll 9.