Education: Chautauqua Up

Before the War, Presidents or Presidential candidates like Rutherford Birchard Hayes, William McKinley, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Evans Hughes used to make Chautauqua Institution a resounding soundboard. First automobiles, then radio, ousted Chautauqua from its eminence as the capital of U. S. summer culture and Presidential candidates ceased going there. Two and a half years ago the famed old centre of adult education and recreation on the tree-lined shores of Lake Chautauqua in Southwestern New York seemed to be passing gently into eclipse when its brisk, baldish President Arthur Eugene Bestor appeared in Buffalo’s Federal Court, laid his 59-year-old institution in the hands of two receivers (TIME, Jan. 1, 1934).

This year Chautauqua has suddenly burst into the news with its oldtime vigor. Every Presidential nominee except Unionist Lemke and Communist Browder has made Chautauqua a speaking stop. Never before had there been such a turnout of candidates.

Last week President Bestor capped his successful season by announcing that Chautauqua’s Reorganization Corporation, which has been quietly functioning for 30 months, had enough cash and pledges in hand to retire Chautauqua’s $500,000 bonded debt, $285,000 in unsecured claims, put Chautauqua in the clear once more.