From the beginning, people came to Lake Chautauqua to hear great speakers. General James Garfield, Schuyler Colfax, and President Rutherford B. Hayes often enlightened the interested crowds, but nothing did more to popularize the assembly than did the visit of President Ulysses S. Grant. Chautauqua assembly grounds soon began to appear across the country. "Each of them had its barn-like 'pavilion,' or auditorium, its cottages, its tents, its rude classrooms, and its inn or dining room. And each, of course, had its own program of lectures by famous men and women, its concerts and entertainments, its courses of study, and so on."2
The "courses of study" initially resembled those started by Bishop Vincent in the early days. He began a four-year college, of sorts, known as "the Chautauqua Literacy and Scientific Circle." Students who completed the "civilization" classes that covered a wide array of topics would be recognized for their efforts with a certificate. "By the end of the century, some fifty thousand men and women had been 'recognized' for their completion of the four-year course."3 Chautauqua also had a few rules that stemmed from its origins as a religious movement. "By tradition, and from the beginning, Chautauqua was always drinkless and, in the big tent, smokeless, only partly through fear of fire. In earlier days . . . religious services were held in the tent."4
