Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
sit at the feet of the masters
CHAUTAUQUA, NEW YORK
It has mythic force, Chautauqua does. There is no place like it. No resort.
No spa. Not anywhere else in the country, or anywhere else in the world.
—Historian David McCullough, Chautauqua speaker in 1995
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Former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor is not one to mince words. Asked
to name her favorite vacation spot, she doesn't blink an eye: the Chautauqua Institution, of
course. Unless you've experienced the intimate summer community in the southwestern tip of
New York, it's hard to explain Chautauqua. Part arts colony, part summer camp, part college
campus, part village square—“nirvana” is a word that springs to mind.
During its nine-week summer session, Chautauqua offers more than 400 special studies
courses on just about any topic you can name. Want to learn the mountain dulcimer? Master
astronomy? Perfect your Hebrew? Here, you can.
In fact, when it was started in 1874 as a summer training program for Methodist Sunday
School teachers, it was the first place in the country, probably the world, to encourage and ar-
ticulate a philosophy of self-improvement and lifelong learning. Its motto declares that every-
one “has as right to be all that he can be—to know all that he can know.”
More than 8,000 people are in residence on any given day during the season, taking
classes, listening to the daily 10:45 a.m. lectures, and enjoying the nightly arts performances.
The daily lecture series, always about burning issues of the day, is the lifeblood of Chautauqua.
Each of the nine weeks is themed. Recent examples include “The Meteoric Rise of China and
India,” “21st-Century Cities,” “Healthy Aging,” and the Middle East. Experts on these topics
are brought in to speak and lead discussions Monday through Friday.
Some of the names you might recognize who have been speakers here are Helen Keller,
Jane Goodall, Rudyard Kipling, Thurgood Marshall, Margaret Mead, Tom Ridge, Kurt Von-
negut, Susan B. Anthony, Alexander Graham Bell, and Jonas Salk. With a pedigree like
that, it's not surprising that Chautauqua Institution is a national historic landmark (designated
in 1989), noted for its landscapes, historic architecture, beautiful gardens, and significance
