assembly programs in general shows an advance, possibly as much from a quickened public conscience in our day as from deliberate planning on the part of most program makers. In the search for permanent hold upon their constituency managers say that something better than mere entertainment must be provided. No vital ethical problem is likely to escape presentation, pro and con, at these assemblies. Thus in varying Ireasure the true Chautauqua Assembly is a forum, a clearing-house of ideas, an observatory, a social crucible, a vacation school of all-around life for every member of the family, an influential center of ethical and educational forces.

THE SUMMER SCHOOL AND THE SUNDAY SCHOOL

JESSE L. HURLBUT, D. D.

BLOOMFIELD, N. J.

Within the last forty years there has arisen a new movement in education, wide in its area and powerful in its influence the summer

school.

In a country of such vast extent, such varied elements, and such abounding energy, as America possesses, it is not strange that there should be more than one source for this institution, already so great, the summer school. In fact, we can trace its varied streams up to three distinct origins, each apart from the other two, but all connected with education the college, the Sunday schools, and the public school. The first impetus to the summer school came from the college, through Professor Agassiz of Harvard, who in 1873 established the earliest summer school for the study of science at Penikese Island in Buzzard's Bay. The school itself was not successful and was soon abandoned; but it lived long enough to suggest the idea of summer schools, and it may stand at the head of the long roll of such institutions.

Entirely independent of the college summer school, arose another type in the same class at Chautauqua Lake in western New York, in 1874, only a year after Professor Agassiz's attempt at Penikese Island. This was the first Chautauqua assembly, parent of all the assemblies, and a pioneer in the plan of study out of school. The Chautauqua assembly arose, not from the college, but from the Sunday school. Its joint founders, Lewis Miller and John H. Vincent were leaders in the Sundayschool movement, and they aimed in the assembly to give instruction and training to Sunday-school teachers. The scheme, as planned and accomplished, was to gather a large body of Sunday-school workers for outdoor meetings, to give a definite course of study in the Bible and in Sunday-school teaching, to supplement the class-work by lectures on subjects relating to the Bible, to science, and to literature; to blend with study recreation and out-of-door life; to give an examination and confer diplomas. The plan was carried out to complete success. The enthusiasm ran high, the classes were large, the examination in writing was one upon one hundred questions upon the Bible and teaching, and one hundred and seventy-five persons presented papers containing answers, on the closing day of the assembly; of whom one hundred and forty-two received diplomas. This original Chautauqua assembly was the parent

of many similar institutions, and undoubtedly exerted a greater influence upon the movement for summer schools than did any other gathering.

A third origin of summer schools may be found in the public school. In 1878, five years after the first Harvard summer school and four years after the first Chautauqua assembly, a summer school was held mainly for public school teachers at Martha's Vineyard. Its originator and first conductor was Colonel Homer B. Sprague, at that time connected with the public schools of Boston.

Thus there have been three distinct origins for the summer school movement: the college, the Sunday school, and the public school. These three types can still be traced in different summer schools. There are great summer schools at the universities, as Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, and Chicago. There are Chautauqua assemblies and similar institutions by the hundred; and there are summer schools where thousands of teachers spend a few weeks in advanced study in their chosen depart

ments.

We are especially concerned in this paper, not with the history and progress of summer schools in general, but with the relation of the summer school to religious education through the Sunday school; and for this reason we return to the second of these three sources, the Chautauqua Assembly.

I. Let us notice the development of the summer school in general education at Chautauqua. It began, as we have seen, as a summer school for the training and equipment of Sunday-school teachers; very soon after the uniform-lesson movement made better teaching a necessity in the Sunday schools. There was a regular course of study, written examinations with high standards, and large classes of graduates who were known as the Normal Alumni of Chautauqua. If the limits of this paper would permit me to give the list of one hundred questions for the normal examination at Chautauqua in any of those earlier years, they would speak for themselves with regard to their standard; and the classes every year numbered hundreds who passed the examination, beside four or five times as many hundreds who attended the classes but declined the examination. In the course of years, the numbers coming under the influence of the Chautauqua Normal class would be counted not by the hundred but by the thousand.

But in a very few years the scope of Chautauqua instruction was widened from Sunday-school teaching to general education. This change was inevitable, and is not to be regretted by even the most enthusiastic Sunday-school worker. A school of languages arose at

Chautauqua, and soon the assembly became a summer college, with classes in almost every department, mental, moral, and physical. The Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle was inaugurated, carrying the light of culture to uncounted thousands. As the sphere of Chautauqua enlarged the relative prominence of the Sunday school decreased; and the Sunday-school department became one of the lesser lights at Chautauqua. A normal class is still maintained, but it no longer sends out its graduates in large numbers. Yet it may truthfully be said that the interest in Bible study is as great as ever in Chautauqua; and it is still an influence for high standards in Sunday-school instruction.

2. As an immediate result of the Chautauqua enthusiasm in its early days of the seventies, thousands of teachers and students went to their homes, carrying with them an aspiration for more knowledge and better work in the Sunday school. In their home schools, and in their local, county, and state organizations, they exercised a strong influence for teacher-training. The general secretary of a western state, once said to me, "These normal graduates of Chautauqua have the faculty for stirring up everybody where they live. If they don't always succeed in starting a normal class, they generally contrive to make their Sunday school uncomfortable without one." The demand of teachers who had caught the Chautauqua spirit made necessary the establishment of normal classes in many Sunday schools; and the Chautauqua Normal course grew up, having its headquarters at the Chautauqua center. Twenty-five years ago there were hundreds of such classes with tens of thousands of students; and in addition many individual students, not attached to classes, but studying alone. The course was at first for two years, of books to be studied and other books to be read, and with examinations sent from the Chautauqua office. Subsequently, the course was lengthened to four years, as it remains at present. Its numbers have greatly diminished, not because there is less interest in Bible study and teacher-training, but because the work was taken up by the state Sunday-school associations, notably in New York, in Illinois, in Massachusetts, and now in almost every state of the Union; and especially in the Canadian provinces, for the Canadians have always been earnest Bible students. The states now provide courses of study, examinations, and diplomas, and there are thousands of classes pursuing regular studies under their direction. Recently this work has been united and centralized under the auspices of the International Sunday School Association. An office in Chicago gives general supervision over all the field, sets up standards, recognizes courses and examinations, and provides a common diploma for all the state associations.

3. Chautauqua did not long stand alone as an assembly for religious instruction. In a very few years the Chautauqua model was followed in New England, in the middle West, beyond the Mississippi, and even on the Pacific Coast and in the Gulf states. Chautauqua assemblies sprang up like magic everywhere; and they have continued to grow and increase. It is now thirty-four years since the first Chautauqua assembly was held; and last year there were in the United States more than three hundred gatherings bearing the name Chautauqua. Each of these is independent of all the others. The mother Chautauqua has not the slightest control over her offspring, and perhaps half of this number of Chautauquas do not deserve the name, for they have forsaken the Chautauqua principles of education. But after making all deductions there remain perhaps a hundred Chautauqua assemblies, where the Chautauqua idea dominates; and in that idea the study of the Bible and the training of Sunday-school teachers is a strong element. In all the best Chautauquas there are classes for the training of Sunday-school teachers; and the number attending them must run into the thousands. All these assemblies are summer schools, and their work acts directly upon Sunday-school instruction.

4. There is one class of summer schools which demands special notice. Although an outgrowth of the Chautauqua movement, it has developed to such an individuality as to stand by itself. This is a group of summer schools held especially and only for Sunday-school training. They are called, "Schools of Methods for Sunday-school Work." The oldest of them has been held regularly at Asbury Park, New Jersey, for fourteen years. Other schools of methods are at Winona Lake, Indiana; Monteagle, Tennessee; Northfield, Massachusetts; Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in other places. A list of fourteen such summer schools wa published in the Sunday School Times of May 26, 1906, announcing their summer sessions for that year. In these schools, no attempt is made to hold entertainments or to have "popular" features. Study is the order of the day, an enrollment is made, and every meeting is a meeting for work.

5. Another department of this work must not be forgotten, that of text-books for the instruction of Sunday-school teachers, and those who may be teachers in coming years. This subject belongs to the summer school, because the demand for these text-books and the supply of that demand began at Chautauqua, was recognized thoughout the assembly field, and through the summer school reached the Sunday school. The reference is not to books on the International Sunday School Lessons; but books especially prepared for the general training of Sunday-school