CHAUTAUQUA.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 March 1919, Page 3

CHAUTAUQUA.

THE OPENING PROGRAMME. A great deal of curiosity is being aroused as to the nature of the Chautauqua entertainments to be given in New Plymouth on March 1-2 and following days- A good idea of -the opening programme may be obtained from the following report taken from the Feilding Star of the opening there. In response to the Mayor's welcome, Supcrintendenc Helen Carson, of New York, made a neatly phrased, well spoken, bright speech. She briefly sketched the rise of Chautauqua, explaining its simple origin and showing its development from a sort of summer school outing on the banks of Lake Chautauqua (in New York Stale) in 1574, into a vast educational institution, covering 48 States and extending into Canada and. even into Alaska.

The versatile Apollo Company then proceeded to provide a most enjoyable musical entertainment.

The success of the evening was even greater than that of the afternoon, all the Chautauquans -being at their best.

Miss Newman, who has charge of the Mother Goose pageant, to be given at the end,of the season, made a very good start upor. the raw material offering. On the succeeding afternoons and evenings the first part of the programme will be musical, with a change of artists each day, and th« second part a leoture, by a new lecturer each day.

Season tickets (transferable among families) may be obtained for 10s 6fl, covering every afternoon and evening, or <n average of lO'/ad for each occasion, which is about a third of the average price of single ticket? They will however, only he obtainable at this rate up to the morning of the opening, March 12.

If the Chatauqua continues as it has begun, New Zealand people will want more of it (states the Wellington Post). It may not become the institution here that it has become in America—temperament and national training are uncertain factors, with which there can be no reckoning—but it will achieve such success that its permanence will be hoped for by many and promoted by not a few. It has been said many times that the people of New Zealand do not rush the box-office when an entertainment is leavened with education—musical or otherwise —unless such leaven is carefully hidden. It is the truth that New Zealand people appreciate culture, clean comedy, and bright moralising; but it must not be thrown at them. The Chautauqua does not llirow things, and, what is more important, it realises that while people may be willing to be educated they must not bo tired. So it gives a little education (in the form of entertainment), and a little entertainment (with educative properties). Moreover, these American Chautaqua missionaries come here with their pleasant, breezy manners, and their clipped consonants, and they say: "If you people like this you have it at your door—right here."