unced in the early circulars
for that year's study, then in every church and community two classes
must be organized and conducted with different readings. Another year
would require three circles, and still another four circles. Could
members and leaders be found for four separate clubs in one locality?
Would not the circle break up into fragments from the weight of the
machinery needed to keep the wheel in motion? Just then came the
suggestion--made by President Lewis Miller, as Dr. Vincent told me at
the time--that _both_ the classes should read the books together, making
the same course the second year for the Pioneers, and the first year's
reading of "the Vincents," as the members of '83 named themselves. In a
college there is a progression of studies, for one science must follow
another; but in the Chautauqua Circle, it makes no difference whether
the reader begins with the history of Greece or of Rome, or of England,
or of America. New members can enter any year and read with those
already reading. The Circle is a railroad train on a track with four
stations. You can board the train in England, America, or Greece or
Rome, and when you have gone the round and reached the station where you
began, you have completed the course and receive your certificate
ornamented with all the seals that you have won by additional reading
and study. The present four-year cycle of the C. L. S. C. consists of
the English, American, Classical, and Modern European years.

[Illustration: Baptist Headquarters and Mission House]

[Illustration: Presbyterian Headquarters and Mission House]

One more event of 1879 must not be forgotten. The Park of Palestine had
fallen into decrepitude. Some of its mountains had sunk down, and the
course of the River Jordan had become clogged up, so there was danger of
a lake at a spot where none was on the map, and of a dry bed below, long
after the Israelites had finished their crossing. Moreover, some
mischievous boys had mixed up its geography by moving a few of the
cities. Bethel was found where Kirjath-jearim should be; Joppa had been
swept by the ice in the breaking up of winter into the Mediterranean
Sea, and Megiddo was missing. The task of reconstructing the Park was
given to Dr. W. H. Perrine of Michigan, a scholar and an artist, who had
traveled in the Holy Land, had painted a panorama of it, and had
constructed a model in plaster. He rebuilt the Park from more permanent
materials, and succee