ike to tell the
stories of Monteagle, Tennessee, of Mount Dora, Florida, of De Funiak
Springs, also in Florida, of the Arkansas and Dakota and Southern
California Assemblies. In fifteen years after Chautauqua began there
were nearly a hundred Assemblies, each independent of all the others,
yet all in friendly relation to the oldest and greatest of them all, the
mother--Chautauqua by the Lake.

CHAPTER XXV

YOUNGER DAUGHTERS OF CHAUTAUQUA

WE have seen how Chautauquas sprung up throughout the land, inspired by
the example of the original Assembly beside the lake. All these were
independent, arranging their own programs and securing their own
speakers. Chautauqua never took a copyright upon the name or a patent
for the idea. It was natural, however, for many of these Assemblies to
combine their interests, for it soon found that half a dozen Chautauquas
in the same section could save expenses by employing the same group of
speakers and passing them on from one gathering to another. There were
already lyceum bureaus offering lecturers and entertainers. At first the
Assemblies secured a few of their speakers from these offices, and after
a few years their entire programs were arranged in conjunction with the
bureaus. Finally the lyceum agencies began to organize and conduct
assemblies directly, and thus the Chautauqua circuit or the system of a
Chautauqua chain was developed. One office in Chicago, the Redpath
Bureau, is said to conduct three thousand Chautauqua assemblies every
year, others have charge of a thousand apiece, while there are lesser
chains of fifty, twenty-five or a dozen assemblies. I have been
officially informed that in the year 1919, ten thousand chain
Chautauquas were held in the United States and Canada. They are to be
found everywhere, but their most popular field is in the Middle West,
where "the Chautauqua" is expected every year by the farming
communities. These bureaus and the "talent" which they employ have been
combined in an organization for mutual interest, to avoid reduplication
in the same locality, to secure their workers and arrange their
programs. This is named the International Lyceum and Chautauqua
Association, holding an annual convention at which the organizers and
the participants upon the programs come face to face and form their
engagements. The circuit system has arisen largely through economic
causes; the saving of expense by efficient organization, the elimination
of l