CHAUTAUQUA.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 16212, 17 August 1918, Page 6

CHAUTAUQUA.

AN AMERICAN EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENT. Many people, no doubt, have heard the name Chautauqua, but 1 few probably know exactly what it means and what it represents. It is an AmericanIndian word, the name of a lake in New York State, and it is given to an educational movement which uses entertainment as an auxiliary, or as a kind of sugar-coating to the pill. It was started in America fifty years ago, the first gathering being held at Chautauqua—henco its name, and so popular ho 4 s it become that last year 15,000 gatherings were held in the States and Canada attended by 47,000,000 people—more than attended baseball games, from which fact its popularity may bo gauged. Its fame lias spread to Australia and New Zealand, whence requests soma time ago reached the headquarters of the movement that these countries should be included in the itinerary. Acting upon those invitations representatives have been over to -spy out the land and make preliminary arrangements for a visit. A tour of Australia has already been mapped out and the representatives are now in New Zealand on a similar mission. One of them, Miss Janet Young, arrived in New Plymouth yesterday, having already booked Hnwera, Wanganui, Feilding and Palmerston on her way up from Wellington. The first party of lecturers and entertainers will arrive in Australia in October and after working the Commonwealth will come to New Zealand about March next._ The lecturers will be some of America’s best platform speakers and the entertainers will, Miss Young assures us, bo “real good'” vocalists, musicians, etc. They bring along with them a tent capable of seating about 2000 people and usually stay about a week, with two or three changes of talent. President Wilson has expressed the opinion that Chautauqua “has done more to mobilise the minds of people and tq produce united action than any other institution.” Colonel Roosevelt calls it “the handmaiden of democracy and the people’s university ■ The New York Times says “the Chau-tauqua-is a non-partisan propagandas institution, aH'"open-air form, a recreational centre, a concert-hall, an educational bureau, and a lecture platform carrying the highest type of culture from town to town.”