House^Garden 
——MWMMMWBB—HHBMM————WMWI i'~TI T — 
Vol. IV AUGUST, 1903 No. 2 
THE NEW CHAUTAUQUA 1 
By ALBERT KELSEY 
T HE work of redesigning this celebrated 
institution is yet in embryo, and it is 
therefore difficult to write of it except in a 
general and elementary manner. The plans 
have not been perfected in detail, but a 
scheme of rearrange¬ 
ment has been de¬ 
cided upon, and to 
this scheme any re¬ 
adjustment and fu¬ 
ture development 
must henceforth con¬ 
form. 
Chautauqua is an 
institution for popu¬ 
lar education. Here 
a student population 
of over ten thousand 
assembles during the 
summer months to 
pursue courses of 
study while living in 
cottages within the 
confines of the prop¬ 
erty. Upon rare oc¬ 
casions as many as 
thirty-eight thousand 
people have been 
drawn within the 
gates on a single day. 
The location is ad¬ 
mirable. The com¬ 
munity consists of one hundred and eighty- 
five acres of rolling land lying along the 
shore of a beautiful lake, and it is traversed 
1 The commission of rebuilding and developing the grounds and 
buildings of the Chautauqua Institution was awarded last December to 
Mr. Albert Kelsey. The Chautauqua Board of Directors, at his 
instance, have associated with him Mr. Warren H. Manning, land¬ 
scape architect, and Mr. J. Massey Rhind, sculptor. 
by three streams which pass through well- 
wooded ravines. Most of the visitors 
arrive by steamboat at the boat landing 
situated on a point of land extending into 
the lake. Others may land by means of 
small boats at a 
minor quay to the 
southward. The 
only other access to 
the grounds is by 
means of a land en¬ 
trance at which an 
electric line dis¬ 
charges passengers 
which it brings from 
the railroad stations 
of Jamestown and 
M a y v i 11 e, several 
miles distant. 
Development of 
the community has 
hitherto been that of 
accretion, in which 
urgent requirements 
of the moment have 
been satisfied with¬ 
out thought for the 
future. The Insti¬ 
tution has far out¬ 
grown the expecta¬ 
tion of its founders, 
and now, after thirty 
years of success in the cause of public educa¬ 
tion, the community finds itself confronted 
with an imperative need for reorganization. 
New departments are to be added to the 
curriculum, greater throngs are to be accom¬ 
modated, and Chautauqua, having passed 
from the tent age to the flimsy wooden age, 
Drawn by Albert IV. Barker 
A QUAY UPON THE LAKE FRONT 
49 
