ded in making it more accurate in some details, as
well as more presentable in appearance. But man-made mountains are by no
means "the ever-lasting hills," and the Park of Palestine needs to be
made over at least once in ten years if it is to be kept worthy of
Chautauqua.

CHAPTER XI

HOTELS, HEADQUARTERS, AND HAND-SHAKING (1880)

THE seventh session of the Assembly opened in 1880 with another addition
to the Chautauqua territory. Fifty acres along the Lake shore had been
acquired, and the Assembly-ground was now three times as large as that
of the old Fair Point Camp Meeting.

This season saw also the foundation laid for a large hotel. It is worthy
of record that the Hotel Athenaeum was built not by the Assembly Board,
but by a stock company of people friendly to the movement and willing to
risk considerable capital in its establishment. More than one promising
Assembly had already been wrecked and many more were destined to
bankruptcy by building large hotels before they were assured of guests
to fill them. It must be kept in mind that everywhere the Chautauqua
constituency was not, and is not now, the wealthy class who frequent
summer hotels and are willing to pay high prices for their
entertainment. A Chautauqua Assembly, whether in the east or the west,
is mainly composed of people possessing only moderate means, but eager
for intellectual culture. Whenever a Chautauqua has been established in
connection with the conventional summer hotel, either it has become
bankrupt from lack of patronage, or the hotel has swallowed up the
Assembly. The Hotel Athenaeum at Chautauqua was not the property of the
Assembly, and might have failed--as many, perhaps most, of the summer
hotels at watering-places have failed once or more than once in their
history--without endangering the Assembly itself. The men who built the
Athenaeum, led by Lewis Miller and his business partners, risked their
money, and might have lost it, for there were seasons when it paid no
dividends to the stockholders, and other seasons when the profits were
small. Yet this hotel drew by degrees an increasing number of visitors
who were able and willing to enjoy its advantages over those of the
earlier cottage boarding houses, and it led to better accommodations and
a more liberal table in the cottages, until now the Hotel Athenaeum is
only one of a number of really good houses of entertainment at
Chautauqua. It is given prominence in our story beca