whenever Chautauqua is named--Lewis Miller of Akron, Ohio,
the first and until his death in 1899 the only president of Chautauqua.

Lewis Miller was born on July 24, 1829, at Greentown, Ohio. He received
in his childhood the limited education in "the three R's--reading,
'riting and 'rithmetic," usual in the country school; and at the age of
sixteen was himself a school teacher. In 1849, twenty years old, he
began work at the plastering trade, but at the same time was attending
school. He became a partner in the manufacturing firm of Aultman, Ball
and Co., which soon became Aultman, Miller and Co., and was removed from
Greentown to Canton, Ohio. Here, about 1857, Mr. Miller invented and put
into successful operation the Buckeye Mower and Reaper, which made him
famous, and with other inventions brought to him a fortune. His home was
for many years, and until his death, at Akron. From his earliest years
he was interested in education, and especially in education through the
Sunday School. He became Sunday School Superintendent of the First
Methodist Episcopal Church in Akron, and made it more than most of the
Sunday Schools in that generation a _school_, and not merely a meeting
for children. He organized a graded system and required his pupils to
pass from grade to grade through the door of an examination in Bible
knowledge. He was one of the earliest Sunday School superintendents to
organize a Normal Class for the equipment and training of young people
for teaching in his school. At a certain stage in the promotions every
young man and young woman passed one year or two years in the Normal
Grade; for which he arranged the course until one was provided by Dr.
Vincent after he became Secretary of Sunday School work for the
denomination in 1868; and in the planning of that early normal course,
Mr. Miller took an active part, for he met in John H. Vincent one who,
like himself, held inspiring ideals for the Sunday School, and the two
leaders were often in consultation. It was an epoch in the history of
the American Sunday School when Mr. Miller built the first Sunday
School hall in the land according to a plan originated by himself; its
architectural features being wrought out under his direction by his
fellow-townsman and friend, Mr. Jacob Snyder, an architect of
distinction. In this building, then unique but now followed by thousands
of churches, there was a domed central assembly hall, with rooms
radiating from it in two s