WHAT IS CHAUTAUQUA?

Taihape Daily Times, 14 March 1919, Page 4

WHAT IS CHAUTAUQUA?

(To. the Editor.)

Sir. —Since the inevitable question “What is this Chautauqua affair?” meets one at every turn. I take the privilege, as m average bystander, of exp*cssing ;n irdividual opinion through your valuable columns. To use one of their own terms of expression, I guess these Chautauqua folk haven’t come along merely to entertain and amuse us; they haw* to come to make us think, and I reckon, when they reached the Taihapc stage of their tour, they realised it was about the biggest job they had ’ever struck. They haven’t come to dazzle us with the American Stars and Stripes. It ’s “Rule Britannia” they want’us to sing in our hearts now and always, even though the war is over. The seeds of Bolshevism have spread the thistledown all over tire world. Some of it has even reached Taihape, a tiny speck somewhere on the globe's surface. This particular band of weed-inspectors has come to warn us of the danger of this particular thistle-down. They are dosing ns with ntedicinc called Patriotism., Let us not take it as the illustrated boarder took his medicine two nights running and skipped a night. I vote wo give three cheers for the Chautauqua movement, and sing “Rule Britannia.” —I am, etc., “A WAKING PATRIOT.”