Why Humans Matter More Than Ever Mit Sloan Management Review
Why Humans Matter More Than Ever Mit Sloan Management Review
Why Humans Matter More Than Ever Mit Sloan Management Review
Why Humans Matter More Than Ever Mit Sloan Management Review
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7. The Digital Future of Management Series from
MIT Sloan Management Review
Paul Michelman, series editor
How to Go Digital: Practical Wisdom to Help Drive Your Organization’s Dig-
ital Transformation
What the Digital Future Holds: 20 Groundbreaking Essays on How Technology
Is Reshaping the Practice of Management
When Innovation Moves at Digital Speed: Strategies and Tactics to Provoke,
Sustain, and Defend Innovation in Today’s Unsettled Markets
Who Wins in a Digital World? Strategies to Make Your Organization Fit for
the Future
Why Humans Matter More Than Ever
8. Why Humans Matter
More Than Ever
MIT Sloan Management Review
The MIT Press
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
10. Series Foreword ix
Introduction: A Platform Greater Than Facebook xi
Paul Michelman
I Making Technology Fit for Humans 1
1
Humanizing Tech May Be the New Competitive
Advantage 3
Bala Iyer, Kristen Getchell, and Fritz Fleischmann
2
Managing the Distraction–
Focus Paradox 9
Carsten Lund Pedersen
3
Want the Best Results from AI? Ask a Human 15
Bhaskar Ghosh, Kishore Durg, Arati Deo, and Mallika Fernandes
Contents
11. vi Contents
II How We Work 21
4
Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation 23
Scott Latham and Beth Humberd
5
How AI Can Amplify Human Competencies 31
Ken Goldberg, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
6
How Human–
Computer “Superminds” Are Redefining the
Future of Work 37
Thomas W. Malone
7
Face the Future of Work 53
Lynda Gratton
8
How Emotion-
Sensing Technology Can Reshape
the Workplace 57
Eoin Whelan, Daniel McDuff, Rob Gleasure, and Jan vom Brocke
9
When Communication Should Be Formal 67
Antti Tenhiälä and Fabrizio Salvador
III How We Manage 77
10
Improving Communication in Virtual Teams 79
N. Sharon Hill and Kathryn M. Bartol
12. Contents vii
11
Get Things Done with Smaller Teams 87
Chris DeBrusk
12
Is HR Missing the Point on Performance Feedback? 95
Sergey Gorbatov and Angela Lane
13
The Leadership Demands of Extreme Teaming 111
Amy Edmondson, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
14
If You Cut Employees Some Slack, Will They Innovate? 121
Yasser Rahrovani, Alain Pinsonneault, and Robert D. Austin
15
Need Motivation at Work? Try Giving Advice 131
Lauren Eskreis-
Winkler and Ayelet Fishbach
16
Why People Believe in Their Leaders—
or Not 135
Daniel Han Ming Chng, Tae-
Yeol Kim, Brad Gilbreath,
and Lynne Andersson
17
Building an Ethically Strong Organization 147
Catherine Bailey and Amanda Shantz
Contributors 165
Notes 171
Index 183
14. Books in the Digital Future of Management series draw from
the print and web pages of MIT Sloan Management Review to
deliver expert insights and sharply tuned advice on navigating
the unprecedented challenges of the digital world. These books
are essential reading for executives from the world’s leading
source of ideas on how technology is transforming the practice
of management.
Paul Michelman
Editor in chief
MIT Sloan Management Review
Series Foreword
16. At MIT Sloan Management Review, we have published—
and will
continue to publish—
volumes of content extolling the impor-
tance of digital transformation, with much of it focusing on the
good that new technologies stand to deliver to both business
and broader society. I, myself, am a techno-
optimist. But there
are also times when we need to step back, take stock, and seize
just a bit more control over how our world is evolving.
Lately, many of us have been suffering a period of particu-
lar disquiet. The seemingly endless waves of technological and
political disorder have been deeply unnerving, as disruptions in
one arena feed turmoil in others.
How we choose to live our own lives is at stake as well. We
have become public citizens almost by force at the same time
that our trust in public institutions has plummeted. Our details
are for sale—
and we don’t know to whom. We find ourselves
looking for answers and action, for some sense of order to be
brought to bear. Yet we are not certain from whom we expect
this. It’s all gotten very personal.
Now, take a breath and consider for a moment whether a vast
swath of the world’s population hasn’t been experiencing an
extreme version of this lack of agency their whole lives.
Introduction: A Platform Greater
Than Facebook
Paul Michelman
17. xii Paul Michelman
So let’s agree to do something positive. There is a change nec-
essary today that only humans can bring about, one in which
we are not the forced reactors to technological advancement and
political discord but the architects of our own platform.
Most of you reading this have influence. I encourage you to
use it within your organizations and your communities. Lobby
for sound, sustainable policy that creates broadly felt value.
Demand that your companies look around the bend. Plenty of
lip service has been paid to the need for leaders to stop man-
aging for quarterly results. Let’s choose now to act on that call.
Dare to sacrifice a dividend for a development initiative, one
that eyes the challenges of the years ahead, not just the weeks.
Your shareholders are ready to hear your case.
Yes, there’s a platform greater than Facebook, and there are
ecosystems greater than Google. And we have not been tend-
ing to our biggest platform and most important ecosystems
with appropriate care. Let’s get back to taking the long view and
embrace the huge challenge of harnessing technology to create a
wealthier society, not just wealthier companies and individuals.
Now, more than ever, we need to look out for each other.
***
In this book, we bring together some of the best research and
analysis from MIT SMR on how to move forward into the brave
new digital world with nerve, effectiveness, and, most of all,
humanity.
Making Technology Fit for Humans
In the first section, we explore how new technologies, including
the most sophisticated types of artificial intelligence, depend on
human collaboration if organizations are going to realize their
18. Introduction xiii
full potential. Companies need to develop rules, principles, and
clear ethical guidelines to structure the interactions that their
smart objects have with humans.
We also need to think about how we regulate ourselves amid
the noise of data and tidal waves of information. “Managing the
Distraction–
Focus Paradox” by Carsten Lund Pedersen makes
this point: Those of us who hope to succeed as thinkers, man-
agers, and innovators in a world filled with technology distrac-
tions must learn how to manage our most valuable personal
resource—our attention.
How We Work
Next, we look at the big picture of how our work lives are
being redefined by new technologies. We need to understand
the ways that our jobs are evolving—
and the factors behind
those changes—
and we need to embrace the need to adapt and
become more collaborative.
Leaders must fully seize their central role in preparing their
organizations for the coming world of work. They need, as
Lynda Gratton argues in “Face the Future of Work,” to be “deeply
aware—
right now, not down the line—
of the transition taking
place.” Leaders must actively engage by acknowledging to their
teams that work is changing, by taking responsibility for help-
ing employees learn new skills, and by role modeling flexibility
around alternate ways of work such as job sharing. For many
leaders, these will be difficult challenges to face.
How We Manage
In the final section, we delve into how technology is changing
our work lives in the day to day. Virtual teams and collaborations
19. xiv Paul Michelman
that take place across professions, geographies, and industries
are, of course, all made easier by technology. But the skills
needed to capture the full value of these multifaceted collabora-
tions don’t come naturally to many people.
“We don’t always understand one another’s expertise or even
one another’s outlook,” Harvard Business School’s Amy Edmond-
son notes in “The Leadership Demands of Extreme Teaming.”
Empathy and curiosity will take leaders only so far, she main-
tains: “Leaders must also have a high level of self-
awareness to
keep reminding themselves of the things that they are missing.”
Each of us thinks that we see is “reality,” when in fact we don’t
know everything.
***
Edmondson is absolutely right when she says that we can all
learn to be curious, empathic, and interested in other people’s
perspectives, but she’s also right when she says that this kind of
humility is not a given. Ironically, as we move forward to man-
age ever more complicated systems and situations, we may find
that it pays to acknowledge the need to learn as we go. Saying “I
don’t have the answer” may not come easily, but it may be the
best way to get to a place where you do.
22. At Google’s annual developer conference, Google I/O 2018, the
company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, proudly demonstrated Google
Duplex, a new artificial intelligence voice technology, making
a remarkably human-
sounding reservation over the phone. The
problem was that the actual human on the other line did not
know she was interacting with a bot. Only after Google faced
backlash over concerns about this kind of deception did the
company agree to release Duplex with disclosure built in.
As software continues to “eat the world,” the potential for pri-
vacy and ethics violations increases. It’s clear that technology
executives and managers need to recognize the industry-
wide
factors that have contributed to the current fractured state of cus-
tomer trust and move toward a framework that puts users first.
First, let’s examine some of the contributing factors of the
current status quo.
Believing Moore’s law for too long Intel cofounder Gordon
Moore famously predicted that computing power, measured by
quantity of transistors, would double every year, leading to expo-
nential growth in this field. Moore’s law persisted throughout
Humanizing Tech May Be the
New Competitive Advantage
Bala Iyer, Kristen Getchell, and Fritz Fleischmann
1
23. 4 Bala Iyer, Kristen Getchell, and Fritz Fleischmann
the hardware and software age, and only recently have we begun
to consider its demise. With such a focus on growth and veloc-
ity of innovation, many technologists have found themselves ill
prepared to consider the impact of their technology.
Favoring the individual company over the collective users In
the tragedy of the commons, individual rationality and collec-
tive rationality are at odds with one another and are contradic-
tory. This same conundrum exists today in tech—
companies
capture and use customers’ personal information but fail to
show concern about the overall damage they cause by their indi-
vidual actions.
Companies have acted in favor of increasing market share,
but in the process have eroded the confidence and trust of cus-
tomers. This was quite clear as we watched Facebook’s Mark
Zuckerberg grilled by Congress over the consequences of Cam-
bridge Analytica’s data privacy scandal with Facebook user data.
Leading with tech first, questions second (or not at all) The rise
in artificial and augmented intelligence has led to a proliferation
of technologies that create, mimic, and facilitate conversation.
This means designers are now introducing empathy, personality,
and creativity to machine-
human interaction in ways that affect
user experience. The relationship a machine has with (and to) a
user becomes a new competitive advantage.
Everyday objects are now becoming smart objects with the
ability to interact with humans. What are the guidelines for
structuring these conversations? Google has raised the question
of whether users should be informed that they are interacting
with a computer. What ethical rules should be in play when it
24. Humanizing Tech May Be the New Competitive Advantage 5
comes to using these products, whether it’s a voice assistant, a
TV, or even a car?
Companies that excel in addressing these questions to gain
the trust of users will be given the opportunity to offer new
products and services to those users. The key ingredient here—
and this cannot be stated too often—
is trust.
Moving from a “Can We?” to a “Should We?” Framework
Technology and business experts must do a better job of antic-
ipating challenges before making decisions, by asking key user-
centered questions before launching new products into the
market. The following questions on a technology’s impact must
be systematically addressed before bringing it to market:
• Will this technology result in overall good?
• What might be some unintended consequences of this
technology?
• What are the social and ethical impacts of the technology?
• Will this technology augment human intellect, disrupt it, or
substitute for it?
• How could this technology be used negatively against users?
Technologists won’t be able to answer these questions by
themselves—
which brings us to the most important question all
executives need to ask: What leadership structures do we need
to have in place to guide the future evolution of the technology
while controlling for unintended negative consequences?
We argue that the answer to this last question needs to be more
than simply “we need more engineers.” Instead, it is important
25. 6 Bala Iyer, Kristen Getchell, and Fritz Fleischmann
for leaders to embrace the following six principles and ensure
they are introduced at every level of the organization.
1. Assume responsibility. Companies need to assume ethical
and legal responsibility for the impact of their technology
on society. The burden of proof should be on companies to
provide reasonable assurances that they have scrutinized the
impact that their products would have.
2. Offer transparency. It is important that individuals have the
ability to access information about any technology they use.
Companies should provide frequent impact disclosures on all
developing technology, including answers to the questions
about their impact. Companies working on the cutting edge
of AI should be subject to external review.
3. Give users the right to be forgotten. If customers would like
to leave a product or system, they should be able to do so eas-
ily, with one click. This would apply to user accounts or per-
sonal and transactional data stored by a company. With the
European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation having
taken effect in May 2018, this is now a legal requirement for
companies doing business in Europe, not an option.
4. Anticipate technology adoption challenges. Questions about
a technology’s impact should not be addressed only after the
technology has been developed or in the case of public back-
lash. Concerns of intended and unintended impact need to
be addressed during the engineering process and embedded
in the development of a technology. Ethical considerations
can no longer be an afterthought.
5. Conduct experiments. Companies must seek empirical evi-
dence to determine how people react to new technology or
26. Humanizing Tech May Be the New Competitive Advantage 7
changesinexistingtechnology.Whenintroducingtechnology-
enabled product features, companies should conduct statis-
tical experiments to determine if users like the changes. For
example, if Facebook decides to provide automatic updates on
news feeds, it must first conduct multiple tests with a subset of
users and then release those data to the public.
6. Assemble a team of diverse thinkers. Tech firms must inte-
grate individuals with expertise outside of business and tech-
nology into decision-
making points across organizations.
New skill sets are required when, for example, companies
trying to develop conversational commerce technologies
seek to design a user experience that is more accessible and
humane. Linguists, scriptwriters, human development spe-
cialists, sociologists, physicians, scientists, psychologists, and
ethicists can help to evaluate the quality of interaction and
appropriateness of responses, how machines make users feel,
and how technology could impact society. Technology proj-
ects power, and how that power should be used is not a tech-
nological but an ethical, social, and political question.
In summary, it’s time to stop thinking of Moore’s law as if it were
a natural law. Humanizing technology should be a core capabil-
ity of companies for both ethical and competitive reasons. By
striking a balance between technological innovation and con-
cerns for users, organizations can achieve a new competitive
advantage—
one that legacy companies may, in fact, be better
poised to gain as many digital natives face rebuilding customer
trust as their next challenge.
28. In the time you’ve set aside to read this article, you’re likely to
check your phone. You’ll probably see notifications for emails
or text messages pop up on your lock screen. You won’t resist.
Once you’ve started thumbing through your apps, you’ll check
Twitter, too. If you use Twitter as your media feed, you may click
through to an article about blockchain or vacations in Barbados.
I’ll be lucky if you make it back here.
Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is
Doing to Our Brains, would have you believe that your behavior is
a serious problem, that the ephemera of the internet are hijack-
ing your ability to concentrate and think.1
I disagree—
or rather,
I’d argue that, in today’s workplace, the seductive clamor of the
web is a reality from which there’s no retreat. In the age of big
data and ever more powerful processors, we must absorb more
data at faster speeds. Those who’ll succeed in this distraction-
filled world as thinkers, managers, and innovators will need to
combine two seemingly opposing traits. They must be able to
absorb diverse information from a wealth of sources, and they
must be able to focus intensely. I call this the distraction–
focus
paradox. While these two qualities seem contradictory, together
Managing the Distraction–
Focus Paradox
Carsten Lund Pedersen
2
29. 10 Carsten Lund Pedersen
they make up the skill set for managing your most valuable per-
sonal resource—
your attention—
in a hyper-
connected age.
Yes, these abilities have always been important—
but their
combination will become more so in the coming years, as social
media and mobile computing continue to advance. (See “Skill
Set for a Connected World,” which presents the net effect of
differing combinations of these essential skills.)
Knowledge workers need diverse information. Research has
repeatedly shown that diversity in mental models—
that is, how
you interpret and see problems—
leads to better problem solv-
ing and more innovation.2
That’s a theme that courses through
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics, the memoir of
Richard Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service
Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University
of Chicago Booth School of Business and the 2017 winner of
the Nobel Prize in economics.3
As a young scholar, Thaler kept
noticing anomalies that defied standard economic models, like
Skill Set for a Connected World
“Productive distraction” balances curiosity and concentration.
Actively
seeking
diverse
input
Ability to focus
Agile and
disciplined
thinking
Fresh ideas
drowning in
white noise
Poor
decisions
and
collaboration
Cognitive
overload and
productivity
paralysis
30. Managing the Distraction–
Focus Paradox 11
the so-
called endowment effect—
the tendency of people to over-
value things they already own. Even as an established scholar,
his curiosity has ranged widely, as he has published papers on
such topics as why NFL teams make irrational decisions in the
annual player draft. To help make sense of such phenomena, he
collaborated with psychologists.
People like Thaler who seek out varied inputs have been
shown to be consistently better forecasters than those who rely
on more limited information diets.4
And the need to avail one-
self of a variety of perspectives has only increased. One of the
dangers of the rise of social media is that people’s networks are
insufficiently diverse—
and consequently risk becoming echo
chambers.5
This trend is exemplified by the notions of filter bub-
bles and “fake news.”6
We connect more and more, but often
only with people or publications that share our views.
Compare the experience of browsing at a bookstore a decade
or so ago with buying a book online today. In an old-
fashioned
store, as you ambled over to the business section, you might
happen across the archaeology and anthropology books. If you
had even a glimmer of interest, you’d find yourself studying the
spines. Maybe you’d end up buying Jared Diamond’s surprise
best seller, Guns, Germs, and Steel.7
Had you read that 1997 tour
de force, you would have learned about the original domestica-
tion of plants and animals and the evolution of disease immu-
nities and how both of those influenced the distribution of the
world’s wealth. Today, if you search for the latest business best
seller on Amazon, you’re highly unlikely to receive such an eso-
teric recommendation.
Tapping into diverse networks also fosters innovation. Much
innovation has originated from individuals relying on collabo-
ration with open networks—
and research has even shown that
31. 12 Carsten Lund Pedersen
people with more diverse Twitter feeds tend to generate better
ideas.8
So people need to train themselves to seek out sources
with heterogeneous views. Indeed, when I refer to “distraction,”
you could think of that partly as the cognitive load that comes
from immersing yourself in a more diverse network.
And yet, it’s also important to be able to focus intensely on a
specific problem, particularly as expectations of instant responses
to emails, alerts, and notifications nag at our attention. Ours is
the age of distraction, good and bad. The web blesses us with
news from Belarus and the latest advances in biology and bedev-
ils us with listicles and personality quizzes on such weighty top-
ics as which dog breed or which character from The Simpsons you
most resemble.
As the digital sirens continue to sing, maintaining energized,
deep focus matters even more. Some of the proponents of this
line of thought, including Cal Newport, author of Deep Work,
have argued that the ability to focus on a demanding task is
the way to differentiate yourself in a distracted world.9
This kind
of focus entails winnowing the demands and “productive dis-
tractions” vying for your attention and time. It also requires the
ability to shift between perspectives: seeing the details and the
broader context. If you can focus in this way, you can prioritize
what to think about (you can better plan) and you can know how
to think about it (you can better process). But being focused does
not mean behaving like a robot. Focus is the deliberate deploy-
ment of your attention. You lock in, rather than zone out.
As is so often true, too much of either of these information-
age virtues isn’t beneficial, either. If you ramble around the web,
pointing and clicking willy-
nilly without a goal or guidelines—
without a focus—
the white noise will block out your ability to
hear anything worthwhile. You won’t devote enough time to
32. Managing the Distraction–
Focus Paradox 13
critical tasks, nor will you distinguish important issues from irrel-
evancies. But, if you are too focused and deprive yourself of varied
views, you run the risk of lacking creativity and insight. Research
has shown that excessive focus can exhaust a person’s attention
and lead to ill-
conceived decisions and less collaboration.10
Yet having too little information and too little focus seems
even worse. Who’d settle for that? Of course, that’s the situation
we so often encounter in our digitized, socially connected world:
We’rebombardedwithtweets,emails,andFacebookandLinkedIn
requests from friends and colleagues, preventing us from finding
time to seek out fresh insights or to focus fully on the tasks we
consider most important.
The goal is, of course, the Golden Mean—
a balance between
diversity of input and intensity of focus. If you can achieve that,
you’re better equipped for our distracted age. This skill set can be
understood as a form of meta-
cognition—
like having a personal
project manager inside your head. These skills are analogous to
qualities possessed by the best leaders and organizations: consis-
tency and agility.11
People who can balance curiosity and concentration fit into
the metaphor of the “T-
shaped professionals” popularized by
Ideo, the design consultancy. The vertical leg of the T conveys
focus (expertise and insight) while the horizontal one conveys
open-
mindedness (empathy and collaborative curiosity). Accord-
ing to Ideo’s CEO, Tim Brown, T-
shaped people can focus deeply
on their particular domains while also interacting productively
with colleagues from different disciplines. These complementary
characteristics are often needed at Ideo when people solve spe-
cific problems.12
So how can you enhance your T-
shaped qualities? First, you
need to assess your abilities and position yourself in the skill set
33. 14 Carsten Lund Pedersen
matrix. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses, you can then
seek to improve. If you score low on seeking diverse input, chal-
lenge yourself to find new sources of information that broaden
your knowledge and contradict your assumptions. Or try being
your own devil’s advocate and asking yourself, routinely, what
would be the opposite perspective on this problem—
and what
type of information would support it?
If you score low on focus, turn off your phone (or at least
your notifications) and carve out blocks of time for undisturbed
thinking and reading. Philanthropist Bill Gates used to make this
a practice when he was running Microsoft. He’d take a “think
week” twice a year, retreat to a lakeside cabin, read, and ponder
his company’s future.13
These days, Gates posts thoughts about
the books he has read lately on his blog, GatesNotes.com, and
invites favorite authors to his office for lunch.14
And Gates’ good
friend, billionaire investor Warren Buffett, is likewise famed for
being a “learning machine” who, by his own admission, often
sits in his office and reads all day.15
You can also team up with collaborators who have strengths
that complement yours. Or you can just work on getting better:
Like many skills, self-
questioning and focus can be improved
through deliberate practice.16
We’re living in an age of uncertainty, driven by technologi-
cal and social change: Cars are driving themselves, drones will
soon be delivering packages, and the “free-
agent economy” is
demanding professionals who can reinvent themselves through-
out their careers. To thrive in these turbulent times, you must be
capable of “distracted focus.”
34. 3
Want the Best Results from AI?
Ask a Human
Bhaskar Ghosh, Kishore Durg, Arati Deo,
and Mallika Fernandes
Companies of all kinds are adopting artificial intelligence and
machine-
learning systems at an accelerated pace. International
Data Corp. (IDC) projects that shipments of AI software will
grow by 50% per year and will reach $57.6 billion in 2021—
up
from $12 billion in 2017 and just $8 billion in 2016. AI is being
applied to a range of tasks, including rating mortgage applica-
tions, spotting signs of trouble on power lines, and helping driv-
ers navigate using location data from smartphones.
But companies are learning the hard way that developing and
deploying AI and machine-
learning systems is not like imple-
menting a standard software program. What makes these pro-
grams so powerful—
their ability to “learn” on their own—
also
makes them unpredictable and capable of errors that can harm
the business.
AI’s Challenge: It’s Susceptible to Learned Bias
We frequently hear stories of AI gone awry. For instance, lenders
are grappling with AI systems that unintentionally “learn” to
deny credit to residents of certain ZIP codes, which is a violation
35. 16 Bhaskar Ghosh, Kishore Durg, Arati Deo, and Mallika Fernandes
of bank “redlining” regulations. Or consider an online transla-
tion program that, when asked to translate the phrase “She is
a doctor, and he is a nanny” into Turkish and then translate it
back to English, spits out: “He is a doctor, and she is a nanny.”
These bias-
induced situations can have serious business conse-
quences. When AI was being used in back-
office applications, the
chance of bias creeping in was limited, and so was the potential
damage. Now AI is being used extensively both in management
decision support and customer-
facing applications. Companies
risk damaging people’s reputations and lives, making strategic
wrong turns, offending customers, and losing sales. And the cost
of AI mistakes—
whether they come from bias or flat-
out error
based on unreliable data or faulty algorithms—
is rising.
The lesson here is that AI systems, for all their amazing pow-
ers, still need continuous human intervention to stay out of
trouble and do their best work. Indeed, companies are finding
that they get the most out of investments in AI and other auto-
mation tools when they think in terms of humans and machines
working together, rather than dividing work between humans
and machines and letting the machines operate independently.
When conventional software is installed, procedures and
rules are set in stone by human developers. By contrast, an AI
system develops its own rules from patterns in the data it is
crunching. And, as some companies have learned through real-
life situations, AI systems can jump to the wrong conclusions.
Three Guiding Principles for Successfully Adopting AI
Therefore, before diving into AI systems, companies should con-
sider three principles that can greatly improve the chances for a
successful outcome:
36. Want the Best Results from AI? Ask a Human 17
Principle 1: Remember, humans and machines are in this
together Nowhere is human–machine collaboration more rel-
evant than in installing and maintaining AI systems. Human
assistance is needed to teach and monitor AI systems properly
and keep them from drifting into dangerous territory over time.
This is not a job for IT departments alone—
it requires both tech-
nical expertise and business understanding.
Training and monitoring the ongoing performance of an
AI system requires that employees who are experts in software
collaborate with colleagues who rely on AI systems to do their
work. As users of AI output, these colleagues are in a position to
spot changes in how the program is performing and can act on
any issues that arise. Similarly, while a road-
mapping application
might use AI to plot efficient driving routes, a human driver can
override the system’s choices based on knowledge of rush hour
patterns or road construction.
Principle 2: Teach with (a lot of) data AI systems learn by
finding patterns in training data through various algorithms.
Typically, this is done with historical data and involves experi-
menting with different models. The trained models are statisti-
cally evaluated, and the best-
performing model is selected to be
deployed into production.
This means that AI has a lot to learn. For example, a busi-
ness often needs to evaluate how the brand is doing on quality
and service based on unstructured data like comments on Twit-
ter, news stories, Facebook posts, online reviews, and the like.
The model must be trained with real-
time data and program-
mers (or ordinary employees who have learned how to train
AI systems) and taught rules that the program would not pick
up on its own. Programmers would have to teach the system
37. 18 Bhaskar Ghosh, Kishore Durg, Arati Deo, and Mallika Fernandes
how to understand the true meaning and validity of consumer
comments.
Machines, for instance, don’t understand sarcasm (although
Israeli scientists say they have developed a program to identify
sarcastic comments). Other challenges in accurately parsing
user-
generated content include interpreting specific words dif-
ferently depending on the context—
“hot” would have a positive
connotation in the context of food but could have a negative
sentiment in the context of how comfortable the restaurant was.
Training can be labor-
intensive up front, but with a well-
structured methodology for developing unbiased training data,
training time of the AI system can be reduced by 50%, according
to Accenture’s internal research.
Principle 3: Continually test the results With AI programs, test-
ing not only is critical prior to release, but also becomes an ongo-
ing routine. Managers need to be confident that the system will
deliver accurate results from a variety of data.
Traditional software testing is determinate—
you need to test
only a finite number of scenarios. Once the program has been
tested for all possible scenarios, it is guaranteed to work. But
with AI and machine learning, you can’t predict every scenario.
You must continually monitor and test the system to catch data
biases as well as biases that develop in the algorithms that the
programs use to make judgments.
You can test for data bias by using more than one set of data—
for example, a loan-
application system based on historical data
will only perpetuate the biases inherent in that data, which will
likely show that members of certain groups in the population
have not qualified for loans. To correct for this bias, the system
must be tested and retrained with additional data. For instance,
38. Want the Best Results from AI? Ask a Human 19
to make sure that the algorithm that monitors consumer sen-
timent about your brand is working properly, you can test the
same set of data with different algorithms.
The New Normal: Teaching, Testing, and Working with
End Users
Effectively deploying AI requires a new conception of how soft-
ware is developed, installed, and maintained. Teaching, testing,
and working with end users of AI output must become a way of
life, enabling AI systems to continually operate more responsibly,
accurately, and transparently—
and allowing businesses to create
collaborative and powerful new members of the workforce.
42. 4
Four Ways Jobs Will Respond
to Automation
Scott Latham and Beth Humberd
There is no question that automation is changing the nature of
work. But are the robots really coming for your job?
One of the most popular narratives is that low-
paying jobs
are doomed, while college-
educated professions will remain
largely untouched. Analysts often focus on wages and education
as the primary predictors of job evolution, along with organiza-
tions’ potential to increase efficiency and reduce costs by chang-
ing or cutting jobs. But our research points to a more nuanced
explanation.
A review of the academic literature and public discourse on
automation revealed limited consideration of risks by profession.
So we did our own comparison, coding 50 professions (includ-
ing many from our literature survey) according to the type of
value jobholders delivered and the skills they used to deliver it,
to create a framework that helps workers assess what kind of
threat automation poses for them. We identified four paths of
evolution—
jobs will be disrupted, displaced, deconstructed, or
durable—
and found that value is more predictive of change than
wages, education, efficiency, cost, or other factors.
43. 24 Scott Latham and Beth Humberd
Counter to popular belief, it’s not necessarily blue-
collar or
non-
college-
educated workers who will be most threatened by
automation in the coming decades. Our analysis suggests that a
plumber may see less disruption than a legal professional. Sim-
ply instructing everyone to engage in continuous education and
skill development is remiss. Workers must understand the four
paths of job evolution—
and the factors behind each path—
if
they hope to adapt.
Understanding the Four Paths
A jobholder uses a core set of skills to deliver value in some form
to a recipient—
either externally to a customer or within an orga-
nization. Jobs evolve as those consumers’ perceptions of value
fluctuate along two dimensions: core skills and delivery mecha-
nism, or what we call “value form.”
For some jobs, core skill sets include a specific knowledge base
or craft. Others involve people skills and the ability to build rela-
tionships rather than technical expertise. Skills that can easily be
standardized, codified, or routinized are most likely to be auto-
mated. Those that involve hands-
on or real-
time problem solv-
ing are less so, because developing tools sophisticated enough to
handle such ambiguity is either too cost-and labor-
intensive or
technologically out of reach. For example, while an electrician’s
skills may seem vulnerable to automation, the application of
those skills varies widely according to the unique circumstances
of every client. This degree of customization would be difficult
to automate.
A skill set provides value only when it is delivered to a recipi-
ent, however, and the delivery mechanism may be transformed.
Here’s an example: A professor’s core skill set is expertise in a
44. Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation 25
certain domain. Such expertise has traditionally been delivered
to consumers (students) through in-
person classes. However,
online platforms and massive open online courses, or MOOCs,
offer new vehicles through which learning can occur. The core
skill remains the same, but technology is shifting the value
form as adaptive software and virtual tutors offer highly per-
sonalized instruction and support to growing numbers of stu-
dents with diverse needs. And computer-
directed learning will
continue to improve with the increasing sophistication of auto-
mation and AI.
We identified the four ways automation will affect jobs by
separately assessing the degree of threat to each profession’s core
Which Professions Are Most Vulnerable to Automation?
Threats should be assessed along two dimensions: How replaceable are
the core skill sets? And how much of a shift is there in the way value is
delivered?
Degree of threat to:
Value form
Degree of threat to:
Core skill set
High
High
Low
Low
Toll taker
Librarian
Pharmacist
Bricklayer
Accountant
Fast food
server
Real estate
agent
Physician
assistant
Electrician
Plumber
Livery driver
Photographer
College professor
Disrupted Jobs
Skills are highly
standardized, but
consumers still like
the way value is
delivered.
Deconstructed Jobs
Skills remain safe,
but form of value
delivery is shifting.
Displaced Jobs
Skills are deemed
obsolete, and
form of value
delivery is
irreversibly altered.
Durable Jobs
Both skills and form
of value delivery are
too difficult or costly
to automate.
45. 26 Scott Latham and Beth Humberd
skill set and value form. In “Which Professions Are Most Vulner-
able to Automation?” we describe those paths to evolution and
suggest strategies for navigating each one.
Disruption Disruption occurs when the skills in a job are highly
standardized yet the consumer prefers to receive value in the
same form. It typically follows a reduction in the production
costs of goods or services due to increased efficiency. For exam-
ple, fast
food workers’ core skill sets are highly threatened by the
implementation of self-
ordering stations and apps where cus-
tomers place their own orders. Food preparation in this setting
is also highly standardized and may eventually be automated
as well, disrupting workers in both checkout stations and kitch-
ens. Although these workers’ skills are threatened, the consumer
will continue to receive the same value form—
fast food prepared
consistently and quickly.
Some highly skilled professionals, such as real estate agents
and legal professionals, are experiencing similar disruption from
house-
hawking robots and the automation of document reviews
and other routine legal tasks (although the more nuanced work
of advising clients and negotiating in court requires human
lawyers, at least for now). Accountants—
another example—
are
seeing the automation of company ledgers and other types of
financial data. Value form is not threatened because consumers
still need access to their financials, but the skills used to generate
those financials are vulnerable.
Finding transitional roles in which human involvement
remains necessary is one adaptive solution. As large-
scale auto-
mation continues to spread, consumers will have to learn to
interact with nonhuman providers and adopt new routines. Dis-
rupted workers can function as a bridge, ensuring that value is
46. Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation 27
delivered to end users in its current form as processes are auto-
mated. For example, bricklaying robots are much faster and pos-
sess more stamina than their human counterparts. But for now,
human bricklayers are necessary to complement and safeguard
the robots’ abilities, read blueprints, and do corners.
Displacement With displacement, the core skills of a job are
deemed obsolete and the value form is irreversibly altered. Toll
takers and telephone operators have already experienced dis-
placement, but even highly skilled professions are not immune.
Take pharmacists. They fill prescriptions, deliver them to con-
sumers, and answer questions at brick-
and-
mortar pharmacies.
Yet as more prescriptions are filled online and delivered through
the mail, the value form and core skills of human pharmacists
are increasingly fulfilled by automated processes. Other jobs
facing displacement include librarians (for similar reasons) and
software developers (because the skill of writing code is easily
standardized, and thus value form has shifted away from in-
house development to open platforms such as the cloud).
Retraining is often recommended for displaced workers, but
that doesn’t always mean more formal education. They should
focus on quickly acquiring the most relevant skills in an area
with a relatively stable value form. In a volatile job market,
lengthy programs that require years to complete (such as extra
bachelor’s degrees) are likely not the best approach. Micro-
credentialing programs—
competency-
based certifications, mini-
degrees, and digital badges—
deliver qualifications more quickly
and offer more options on the path to a degree along with a
sense of accomplishment as individuals obtain marketable skills
fast. We suggest targeting high-
growth sectors that need work-
ers. A timely example is cybersecurity—
a rapidly growing field
47. 28 Scott Latham and Beth Humberd
where trained workers (who can qualify through certificate pro-
grams) are in demand.
Deconstruction In the case of deconstruction, the core skill set
remains safe, but the value form is threatened. Take, for example,
taxi or limo drivers, or anyone who operates a car service. Livery
drivers’ skills are central to the value delivered to customers—
getting from point A to point B safely and efficiently. While
those skills may be threatened by driverless automobiles at some
point, human drivers will likely be a necessity in the near term.
Yet the value form has already shifted. Traditionally, the value of
livery transportation was offered as part of a centralized fleet—
drivers were employed by a handful of taxi management com-
panies within a city. Now, the same value is being delivered by
Uber, Lyft, and others in the decentralized sharing economy.
Photographers and professors are facing similar deconstruction.
Their skills remain important, but consumer delivery prefer-
ences are changing.
When facing deconstruction, adapt your skills to new value
forms. While this sounds easy enough, the biggest impediment
is resistance to change. It is well documented, for example, that
many faculty resist online education as a new model for sharing
knowledge and expertise with students. Livery drivers would be
wise to adjust to evolving transportation norms instead of fol-
lowing these professors’ lead. When a new value form becomes
central to consumers’ expectations, you have a choice: acclimate
or fade into obsolescence.
Durability Often lost in workforce analyses is the fact that
many jobs will remain unchanged for the foreseeable future,
including some lower-
wage jobs. We refer to jobs as durable
48. Four Ways Jobs Will Respond to Automation 29
when neither the core skill set nor the value form is under
significant threat. Electricians and plumbers are highly dura-
ble professions because the work is rarely routine and the cost
to develop a technology that could deliver value in the same
form—
hands-
on problem solving—
is excessive. Another exam-
ple is the physician assistant. The skills associated with this
job—
medical training, insurance industry insight, bedside
manner—
will likely become more important as broader tech-
nological advancements require fewer doctors to treat more
patients. Doing much the same work for less money, physician
assistants may just disrupt the role of doctors.
The key for people in durable jobs is to avoid complacency
by keeping an eye on tomorrow. Consider whether consumers’
future preferences are more likely to threaten your profession’s
core skill set or its value form. Be aware that any job (includ-
ing those discussed here) could drift from one evolution path to
another over time. Thus, the framework we’ve described is a tool
to be consulted regularly, even if your job is durable now.
It’s difficult to tell which jobs will be disrupted, displaced,
deconstructed, or durable further down the road, but we believe
that the basic framework presented here will hold up to chang-
ing times. While others have acknowledged that automation
will affect jobs in different ways, our focus on jobs as a function
of value creation offers an explanation of the underlying dimen-
sions at play. Understanding core skills and value form as the
key units of analysis will help jobholders of all types respond to
workforce changes currently underway—
and tackle those that
are impossible to predict.
50. 5
How AI Can Amplify Human
Competencies
Ken Goldberg, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
Though artificial intelligence systems are already becoming
a part of daily life, recent debates about AI and the future of
work have gained a sense of urgency. The late Stephen Hawking
worried that humans “couldn’t compete, and would be super-
seded” by machines, while Tesla founder Elon Musk has sug-
gested that competition in AI could lead to World War III. The
Economist reported earlier this year that nearly half of the jobs
in 32 developed countries surveyed by the Organisation for Eco-
nomic Co-
operation and Development (OECD) were vulnerable
to automation, declaring “a wave of automation anxiety has hit
the West.”
Ken Goldberg, professor and department chair of industrial
engineering and operations research at the University of Califor-
nia, Berkeley, is pushing back on all of that. Instead of embrac-
ing the notion that robots will surpass humans and replace us in
the workforce (a concept referred to as “singularity”), he argues
for “multiplicity”—
a hybrid view of how new technologies and
people might work in partnership toward human goals. To an
extent, he says, this is how AI is already starting to function.
51. 32 Ken Goldberg, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
MIT Sloan Management Review correspondent Frieda Klotz
spoke with Goldberg about a future in which AI is a comple-
ment, not a threat, to workers. What follows is an edited and
condensed version of their conversation.
MIT Sloan Management Review: What areas of robotic technol-
ogy is your lab currently working on?
Ken Goldberg: We’re developing robot software for tasks as wide-
ranging as warehouse order fulfillment, home decluttering, and
robot-
assisted surgery. What’s common to all the work we’re do-
ing is the idea of algorithms and learning for robots, improving
our ability to analyze data and examples and then use that to
build control policies—
or models—
for how robots can move.
The area I’ve been working on for 35 years is robot grasping—
how to reliably pick up objects. It’s easy for humans, but it’s
a problem for robots. Basically, every robot is still a klutz, and
that’s a big challenge if you want to develop one that will declut-
ter a home or pack boxes in a warehouse.
Can you talk about your concept of multiplicity?
People keep saying we’re on the verge of a transition, the singu-
larity, when computers will take over. There’s a sense that AI is
a magical technology that’s going to transform industries and
replace humans, putting people out of work. But we’re not any-
where near that point.
There are really good technologies and many interesting de-
velopments, and in some domains machines can be better than
humans. Machines are very good at precision; they’re very good
at calculating numbers and pattern recognition. But there are
several domains in which machines, and especially robots, don’t
excel. The most advanced robotic grasping technique isn’t as
deft as a 3-
year-
old! I’m concerned that people have expectations
52. How AI Can Amplify Human Competencies 33
that are out of line with the current reality—
and that these will
distract us from what we should be worrying about and plan-
ning for. That’s what led me to multiplicity, the idea that we’ll
see new partnerships between teams of humans and machines.
Most of the systems that we use actually arise from human inter-
action. And this is already happening every day—
for example,
when by clicking on results, we give Google’s search algorithm
feedback that it then uses to refine future results.
Multiplicity requires diversity. If you look at a body of think-
ing called ensemble theory, you can prove that diversity is help-
ful for a machine-learning system. The relationship is some-
thing you can formulate mathematically. That’s really exciting,
because it’s consistent with what we’re starting to find about
groups of humans: that if you have a diverse group of people,
you get better, more creative ideas, more insights, and better
outcomes.
We’ll see different kinds of diversity, then—
not just between
people, but with people and robots putting their efforts together.
Exactly. Qualities like intuition, empathy, creativity are all
very human—
we’re very good at looking at holistic situations,
generalizations—
and we can blend those qualities with the pre-
cision that machines provide.
We should be celebrating this, because it literally leads to bet-
ter decisions and better processes.
In the next few years, how might robotics not be as useful as
people expect?
People claim that we’re going have autonomous trucks, which
would eliminate truck driver jobs. They say this about Uber driv-
ers or Lyft drivers too, but this is not going to come to pass.
53. 34 Ken Goldberg, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
We will make some progress; you can drive for good stretches
on the freeway today with a robotic system. But there are so
many complexities about driving in a city or a suburban envi-
ronment that make it so much harder, especially if you’re in a
truck, because there are narrow and winding streets to navigate.
We’re going to need human truck drivers for the foreseeable
future—
for the rest of my lifetime and my kids’ lifetimes.
Another example is that some claim there’s no future for
journalists. Computer systems take data about sporting events
and then generate stories, which read reasonably well. That’s
because they can identify patterns and put numbers and results
into those patterns, and it may work to an extent. But machines
don’t have the ability to pick up what is really interesting about
a sporting event, the particular nuances of what’s going on, or
make analogies about what the teams are doing.
Aren’t machine-
learning teams working on these kinds of dis-
tinctions?
They are, but realistically they are years away from making it
happen. What robots are great at are jobs that no one else wants
to do—
the dirty, dull, and dangerous jobs. I do think we’ll have
our decluttering robot that can tidy up around our homes in the
next 10 years, at a price we can afford. Robots will also excel at
tasks like washing windows on skyscrapers.
When it comes to more specialized fields like medicine,
some of my work uses data from human surgeons and inferred
models to develop robots that can perform suturing or remove
fragments—
tasks considered tedious by most surgeons. This
gives physicians the ability to be focused and present and have
more attention for the things that matter most.
54. How AI Can Amplify Human Competencies 35
What could business leaders be doing to allow these sorts of
partnerships to flourish in their organizations?
CEOs should appreciate the value of the people who work for
them and reassure employees that AI systems can actually help
them do their jobs better, instead of replacing them.
AI will be able to perform many of the duller office tasks.
Think of the pain points that hinder workers from getting on
with the more important parts of their jobs—
scheduling meet-
ings, transcribing, taking notes, summarizing and indexing doc-
uments. What CEOs should be thinking about is how these tools
can enhance the performance of employees.
Is there any risk that you are underestimating machines and
their abilities?
I could be wrong, of course. But I have not seen any evidence
that a computer is capable of innovation and creativity. Robots
can be programmed to behave in a way that mimics human in-
ventiveness, but they’re unable to innovate spontaneously, to
exchange ideas the way people do, to forge truly new insights
or designs, and to recognize them as such. Doing this requires a
vast understanding of what is normal and what isn’t, which we
don’t know how to formalize.
It’s one element of the Turing test, which examines whether
a machine can keep up its end of an interesting conversation in
a way that’s indistinguishable from human intelligence. We’re
not even close; by that measure, we don’t have intelligent ma-
chines, and we haven’t made any progress, really, in 60 years.
All the developments in AI are exciting, but that human-
level
frontier is still as hard to breach as it was decades ago.
56. “students’ sessions” at Chautauqua, and by written reports and
examinations.
3.—COURSE OF STUDY.
The course of study prescribed by the C. L. S. C. shall cover a
period of four years.
4.—ARRANGEMENT OF CLASSES.
Each year’s Course of Study will be considered the “First Year” for
new pupils whether it be the first, second, third, or fourth of the four
years’ course. For example, “the class of 1887,” instead of beginning
October, 1883, with the same studies which were pursued in 1882-
83 by “the class of 1886,” will fall in with “the class of ’86,” and take
for their first year the second year’s course of the ’86 class. The first
year for “the class of 1886” will thus in due time become the fourth
year for “the class of 1887.”
5.—C. L. S. C. COURSE OF READING, 1883-84.
I. REQUIRED.
History of Greece.[I] By Prof. T. T. Timayenis. Vol. 2; parts 7, 8, 10
and 11. Price, $1.15.
Stories in English History by the Great Historians. Edited by C. E.
Bishop, Esq. Price, $1.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 16, Roman History; No. 24, Canadian
History; No. 21, American History; No. 5, Greek History. Price,
10 cents each.
Preparatory Latin Course in English. By Dr. W. C. Wilkinson. Price,
$1.
57. Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 23, English Literature. By Prof. J. H.
Gilmore. Price, 10 cents.
Primer of American Literature. By C. F. Richardson. Price, 30 cents.
Biographical Stories by Hawthorne. Price, 15 cents.
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So. By W. Blaikie. Price, cloth,
80 cents; paper, 50 cents.
Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology. By Dr. J. H. Wythe. Price, cloth,
40 cents; paper, 25 cents.
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. By J. B. Walker. Price, cloth, $1;
paper, 50 cts.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 18, Christian Evidences; No. 39,
Sunday-School Normal Class Work; No. 43, Good Manners; No.
4, English History. Price, 10 cents each.
The Chautauquan, price, $1.50, in which will be published:
Sunday Readings. Selected by Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Readings in Commercial Law. By Edwin C. Reynolds, Esq.
Readings in Political Economy. By Prof. George M. Steele, D.D.
Readings in French History and Literature. By Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Studies in American History and Literature. By A. M. Martin, Esq.
The Chautauquan will also contain, in the department of Required
Readings, brief papers, as follows:
Readings in German History and Literature.
Readings in Roman History.
Readings in American Literature.
Readings about the Arts, Artists, and their Masterpieces.
Readings in Physical Science.
ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR STUDENTS OF THE CLASS OF 1884.
58. Hints for Home Reading. By Dr. Lyman Abbott. Price, cloth, $1;
boards, 75 cts.
The Hall in the Grove. By Mrs. Alden. (A Story of Chautauqua and
the C. L. S. C.) Price, $1.50.
Outline Study of Man. By Dr. Mark Hopkins. Price, $1.50.
II. FOR THE WHITE SEAL.
Persons who pursue the “White Seal Course” of each year, in
addition to the regular course, will receive at the time of their
graduation a white seal for each year, to be attached to the regular
diploma.
History of Greece.[I] By Prof. T. T. Timayenis. Vol. 2. Completed.
Price, $1.15.
Chautauqua Library of English History and Literature. Vol. 2. Price,
cloth, 50 cents; paper, 35 cents.
Church History. By Dr. Blackburn. Price, $2.25.
Bacon’s Essays. Price, $1.25.
III. REQUIRED.—FOR THE WHITE (CRYSTAL) SEAL FOR
GRADUATES OF ’82 AND ’83.
For the benefit of graduates of the C. L. S. C. who, being
members of local circles, wish to continue in the same general line of
reading as undergraduate members, a White Crystal Seal Course is
prepared. This consists mainly of books belonging to the current
year’s study, but not previously read by the graduates. An additional
white seal is also offered to the graduates, the books for which are
specified under paragraph 4. Some of these books were in the first
four year’s course, and are therefore to be re-read. The payment of
one dollar at one time entitles a graduate to the White Crystal and
59. White Seals for four years. If only fifty cents is paid, it will be
credited for but one year.
The Chautauquan. Required Reading.
History of Greece.[I] By Prof. T. T. Timayenis. Vol. 2. Completed.
Price, $1.15.
Preparatory Latin Course in English. By. Dr. W. C. Wilkinson. Price,
$1.
Credo. By Dr. L. T. Townsend. Price, $1.
Bacon’s Essays. Price, $1.25.
IV. REQUIRED.—FOR ADDITIONAL WHITE SEAL FOR
GRADUATES OF ’82 AND ’83.
Brief History of Greece. By J. Dorman Steele. Price, 60 cents.
Stories in English History by the Great Historians. Edited by C. E.
Bishop. Price, $1.
Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology. By Dr. J. H. Wythe. Price, cloth,
40 cents; paper, 25 cents.
Biographical Stories. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. Price, 15 cents.
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So. By W. Blaikie. Price, cloth,
80 cents; paper, 50 cents.
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. By J. B. Walker. Price, cloth, $1;
paper, 50 cts.
Primer of American Literature. By C. F. Richardson. Price, 30 cents.
Chautauqua Text-Books, Nos. 4, 5, 16, 18, 21, 23, 39 and 43. Price,
each, 10 cents.
60. The following is the distribution of the books and readings
through the year:
October.
History of Greece.[I] Vol. 2. By Prof. T. T. Timayenis. Parts 7 and 8.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 5, Greek History. By Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Primer of American Literature. By C. F. Richardson.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
November.
History of Greece.[I] Vol. 2. By Prof. T. T. Timayenis. Parts 10 and 11.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 5, Greek History. By Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
December.
Easy Lessons in Vegetable Biology. By Dr. J. H. Wythe.
Biographical Stories. By Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 24, Canadian History.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
January.
Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. By J. B. Walker. 14 chapters.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 18, Christian Evidences. By Dr. J. H.
Vincent.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 39, Sunday School Normal Class Work.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
February.
61. Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation. By J. B. Walker. Completed.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 21, American History; No. 24,
Canadian History.
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So. By W. Blaikie.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
March.
Preparatory Latin Course in English. By Dr. W. C. Wilkinson. Half of
book.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
April.
Preparatory Latin Course in English. By Dr. W. C. Wilkinson.
Completed.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 16, Roman History. By Dr. J. H.
Vincent.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
May.
Stories in English History by the Great Historians. By C. E. Bishop.
Half of book.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 4, English History. By Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 23, English Literature. By Prof. J. H.
Gilmore.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
June.
Stories in English History by the Great Historians. Completed.
62. Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 4, English History. By Dr. J. H. Vincent.
Chautauqua Text-Books.—No. 43, Good Manners. By J⸺ P⸺.
Required Readings in The Chautauquan
6.—SPECIAL COURSES.
Members of the C. L. S. C. may take, in addition to the regular
course above prescribed, one or more special courses, and pass an
examination upon them. Pupils will receive credit and testimonial
seals to be appended to the regular diploma, according to the merit
of examinations on these supplemental courses.
7.—THE PREPARATORY COURSE.
Persons who are too young, or not sufficiently advanced in their
studies to take the regular C. L. S. C. course, may adopt certain
preparatory lessons for one or more years.
For circulars of the preparatory course, address Miss K. F. Kimball,
Plainfield, New Jersey.
8.—INITIATION FEE.
To defray the expenses of correspondence, memoranda, etc., an
annual fee of fifty cents is required. This amount should be
forwarded to Miss K. F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J., (by New York or
Philadelphia draft, Post-office order on Plainfield, N. J., or the new
Postal Note, to be ready about September 1.) Do not send postage-
stamps if you can possibly avoid it. Three-cent stamps will not be
received.
N. B.—In sending your fee, be sure to state to which class you
belong, whether 1884, 1885, 1886, or 1887.
63. 9.—APPLICATION FOR MEMBERSHIP.
Persons desiring to unite with the C. L. S. C. should forward
answers to the following questions to Miss K. F. KIMBALL, Plainfield,
N. J. The class graduating in 1887 should begin the study of the
lessons required October, 1883. They may begin as late as January
1, 1884.
1. Give your name in full.
2. Your post-office address, with county and State.
3. Are you married or single?
4. What is your age? Are you between twenty and thirty, or thirty
and forty, or forty and fifty, or fifty and sixty, etc.?
5. If married, how many children living under the age of sixteen
years?[J]
6. What is your occupation?
7. With what religious denomination are you connected?
8. Do you, after mature deliberation, resolve, if able, to prosecute
the four years’ course of study presented by the C. L. S. C.?
9. Do you promise, if practicable, to give an average of four hours
a week to the reading and study required by this course?
10. How much more than the time specified do you hope to give
to this course of study?
10.—TIME REQUIRED.
An average of forty minutes’ reading each week-day will enable
the student in nine months to complete the books required for the
year. More time than this will probably be spent by many persons,
64. and for their accommodation a special course of reading on the
same subjects has been indicated. The habit of thinking steadily
upon worthy themes during one’s secular toil will lighten labor,
brighten life, and develop power.
11.—MEMORANDA.
The annual ‘examinations’ will be held at the homes of the
members, and in writing. Duplicate Memoranda are forwarded, one
copy being retained by each student and the other filled out and
forwarded to the office at Plainfield, N. J.
12.—ATTENDANCE AT CHAUTAUQUA.
Persons should be present to enjoy the annual meetings at
Chautauqua, but attendance there is not necessary to graduation in
the C. L. S. C. Persons who have never visited Chautauqua may
enjoy the advantages, diploma, and honors of the “Circle.”
13.—MISCELLANEOUS.
For the history of the C. L. S. C., an explanation of the Local
Circles, the Memorial Days to be observed by all true C. L. S. C.
members, St. Paul’s Grove at Chautauqua, etc., etc., address (inclose
two-cent stamp) Miss K. F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J., who will forward
the “Chautauqua Hand-Book, No. 2,” sixty-four pages. Blank forms,
containing the ten questions given in paragraph 9, will also be sent
on application.
14.—CHAUTAUQUA PERIODICALS.
The Chautauquan, organ of the C. L. S. C.; 76 pages; ten numbers;
$1.50 per year. Chautauqua Assembly Daily Herald, organ of
Chautauqua meetings; 8 pages; 48 columns. Daily in August; 19
65. numbers. Contains the lectures delivered at Chautauqua; $1 per
volume. Both periodicals one year, $2.50. Address Dr. Theodore L.
Flood, Editor and Proprietor, Meadville, Pa.
15.—BOOKS OF THE C. L. S. C.
For all the books address Phillips & Hunt, New York, or Walden &
Stowe, Cincinnati or Chicago.
[I] Students of the new class (1887) to be organized this fall,
and graduates of the classes of 1882 and 1883, not having read
volume 1 of Timayenis’s History of Greece, will not be required to
read volume 2, but instead of volume 2 of Timayenis’s, will read
“Brief History of Greece.” Price, paper, 60 cts.
[J] We ask this question to ascertain the possible future
intellectual and moral influence of this “Circle” on your homes.
66. CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL COURSE.
Season of 1884.
LESSON II.—BIBLE SECTION.
The Bible from God Through Man.
By J. L. HURLBUT, D.D.
The Sunday-school teacher in his work uses one book, and one
only. To that one book he appeals as an authority; the doctrines
contained in that book he asserts as truth; the moral system of that
book he insists upon as the standard for man’s obedience. It is
therefore necessary to know concerning the Bible:
I. The claims of the Bible believer.
II. The evidences supporting those claims.
I. There are four claims made on behalf of the Bible by those who
believe in it.
1. Its Genuineness. By this we mean that we possess the book
substantially as it was written. Not that we have an absolutely
perfect text, or that the translations represent precisely the original,
or that we know just when or by whom all the books were written,
but that the work has come into our possession without serious
mutilation or interpolation. We can accept it as the Bible.
2. Its Authenticity. By this we mean that the book contains the
truth. Its records are trustworthy history; its reports of discourses or
parables or conversations give the substance of their thoughts; its
67. statements upon every subject can be depended upon as honest and
truthful.
3. Its Inspiration. By this we mean simply that this book came
from God. “Divine inspiration we understand to be an extraordinary
divine agency upon teachers while giving instruction, whether oral or
written, by which they were taught what and how they should write
or speak.” (Dr. Knapp, quoted by McClintock and Strong.)
4. Its Authority. By this we mean that the Bible contains God’s
law, and was given to us as the standard in life. It contains “the only
rule, and the sufficient rule, for our faith and practice.” No doctrine is
to be accepted unless it is in accordance with the teachings of the
Bible, and no law is binding which conflicts with the higher law of
the Scriptures.
II. The Evidences Supporting these Claims. It is not necessary to
present the proofs of each claim apart from the others. Those
attesting the genuineness of the Bible will be given with Lesson iv,
“The Canon of Scripture;” but the other claims are so linked together
that the proofs of one are the proofs of all. If the Bible can be
proven true, its truth is of such a nature as to show a divine original;
and if it proceeds from God, it comes as God’s law. Hence we
present together the Ten Evidences of its Authenticity, Inspiration
and Authority.
1. Its Adaptation to Human Need. (1) We start with the
proposition that there is a God; a person who governs the universe;
not a mere personification of law or force, but a spiritual existence.
(2) God has a Law. If God has no law for man, then for man there is
practically no God. (3) We have a right to know that law. What
would be thought of a law-maker with absolute power, who
concealed his decrees, yet expected his subjects to obey them, and
punished them for disobedience? (4) We find just such a law as we
need in the Bible, and we find it nowhere else, for it is not stamped
into our consciousness, nor is it written in nature. (5) We conclude
then that the Bible contains the Divine Revelation.
68. 2. Its General Acceptance. The common consent of intelligent
society has accredited this book as authentic and divine. (1) We find
an early acceptance among those best acquainted with its facts, and
nearest to them; the Old Testament regarded as divine among the
Jews; the New Testament among the Christians. (2) We find a
continuous acceptance through all the centuries since; at no time
the chain of belief being broken. (3) We find a present acceptance
now; in this age of searching investigation, when nothing is accepted
on ground of tradition only, the Bible has more readers, more
students, more believers in the intelligent classes than at any
previous period of its history.
3. Its Characteristics. The Bible contains four traits which, taken
together, distinguish it from all other books. (1) Its Variety. Written
at intervals through 1,600 years, by more than thirty authors, in
different lands and different languages, it contains history, poetry,
genealogy, biography, ethics, epistles, doctrine, and many other
classes of composition. (2) Its Harmony. Underneath its variety of
the surface there is a harmony, so that its statements and its
principles are nowhere discordant. Contrast with this the discords of
scientists. Could we place on one shelf sixty-six books on astronomy,
written during sixteen centuries, by thirty writers, and find them
harmonious? (3) Its Unity. Amid all the different subjects of the Bible
there is one unifying purpose. It presents as its theme Redemption,
and every chapter in every book falls into line in relation to that
central thought. (4) Its Progressiveness. There is a steady
development of truth in Scripture, a growing light through its
centuries. We see the revelation beginning with Adam, taking a step
upward with Noah, another with Abraham, again with Jacob, and so
mounting higher in turn with Moses, Samuel, David, Isaiah, Malachi,
Peter and Paul, each on a loftier platform of spiritual knowledge than
the age before him, until John crowns the pyramid of truth in his
gospel and the Apocalypse. Not all the earth can show another book
besides the Bible with all these four traits, which show the work
divine.
69. 4. The Harmony of its Relations. The statements of the Bible
come into relation with facts ascertained in various departments of
knowledge; yet in none of these do we find contradiction, in all an
ever increasing harmony as our knowledge grows. (1) With
Localities. The Bible names more than two thousand places in the
ancient world; lands, rivers, seas, mountains, towns, villages,
brooks, etc., yet not a single locality has been placed wrongly by the
Scripture. (2) With Existing Institutions. We find in the world such
bodies of people as the Jews, the Samaritans, the Christian church;
such services as the passover, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, etc. Take
away the Bible and none of these can be accounted for; open the
Bible, their origin is plain. (3) With Historical Monuments. During the
present century thousands of ancient inscriptions have been brought
forth and deciphered, and the history of great empires has been
written, bearing close relation to the history of the Bible. But not a
line of the Bible annals has been discredited by these explorations,
and many Bible statements have been placed in clearer light. (4)
With Science. Though “the conflict of science and the Bible” has
been often referred to, yet the testimony of the best scientists is that
the opening chapters of Genesis are in substantial and growing
accord with geology; that the tenth chapter of Genesis tallies with
the latest conclusions of comparative philology; and that modern
astronomy furnishes the best illustrations of the attributes of God as
revealed in Scripture.
5. The Fulfillment of its Prophecies.—It is very evident that no
man, unaided by Divine wisdom, can know the future and make
prediction of coming events. Yet there is a book containing many
prophecies, which have been fulfilled to the letter. (1) There are
predictions concerning places, as Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem, Tyre,
Egypt, all differing in their statements, yet all brought to pass. (2)
There is a series of predictions concerning Christ, beginning in Eden
and extending through the Old Testament, growing in definiteness
as the hour of fulfillment drew near, and all accomplished. Thus the
New Testament and the Old mutually prove each other.
70. 6. The Person of Christ.—We find in the gospels four accounts, by
different writers, of one Person. They tell us that he was at once
God and man; that he grew up in a country village, yet surpassed all
the wisdom of the philosophers; that he could create food, yet
suffered hunger; that he could raise the dead, yet submitted to be
tortured and crucified; that he was free from worldly ambition, yet
became the founder of the greatest kingdom earth has seen. The
life, the character, the personality, is so unique and original that no
one could have invented it. Hence the writers of the gospels must
have drawn their sketch from the life.
7. The Candor of its Writers.—The authors of these documents
write like honest men, telling their story plainly, without partisan
bias. They relate the sins of their heroes, Abraham’s deception,
Jacob’s double-dealing, Moses’ anger, David’s crime, Peter’s denial,
Paul’s quarrel with Barnabas. Their tone of sincerity shows the
truthfulness of the narration.
8. The Elevation of its Teachings.—Here is a book, written in an
age when even the most cultured nations worshiped idols and held
the grossest conceptions of God, with correspondingly low ideals of
morals for men. Yet in such ages, the Bible presents a view of God
to which the world has been slowly broadening its vision; and a
standard of character which rises far above that of Plato, Cicero, or
Confucius, and is now adopted as the ideal manhood by ethical
philosophers. Whence, but from a divine source, came those lofty
teachings of the Scriptures?
9. Its Influence Upon the World.—What the Bible has done shows
the hiding of its power. (1) See its effects upon nations. The lands
where it is honored, America, England, North Germany, are the three
lands of most advanced civilization and largest hope for the race.
The lands where it is forbidden, as Spain, or where it is unknown, as
China, are those whose condition is most hopeless. (2) See its
effects upon individuals. The people who study the Bible are not the
drunkards, thieves, criminal classes. Those who have the word in
their minds and hearts become purer, better, higher than others. It
71. transforms men from sinners to saints, and its influence makes earth
a picture of heaven. No false book, no deceiving book could thus
make the world better.
10. Its Self Convincing Power in Experience.—There is in the
consciousness of man a conviction that the religion of the Bible rests
upon a sound foundation. And he who puts the Bible to the test in
his own experience, who lives its life, and follows its law, and enjoys
its communings, finds an assurance to the satisfaction of his spiritual
nature, that this book contains God’s message to his soul. Every
Christian’s experience is, therefore, a testimony to the truth and the
inspiration of Scripture.
[To those who wish to pursue this subject further we recommend
the following works: “Credo,” by L. T. Townsend; “The Logic of
Christian Evidences,” by Dr. Wright; Chautauqua Text Book No. 18;
“Christian Evidences,” by Dr. Vincent; “The Christ of History,” by
Principal Young; “Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament,” by
Rawlinson & Hackett; “The Story of Creation,” by Dr. Campbell; and
“Farmer Tompkins and His Bibles,” by W. J. Beecher, D.D.]
CHAUTAUQUA NORMAL CLASS—S. S. SECTION.
LESSON II.—THE SUPERINTENDENT: HIS QUALIFICATIONS,
DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITY.
By R. A. HOLMES, A.M.
In Lesson I we considered the place, purpose and prerogatives of
the Sunday-school. That it may keep to its place, accomplish its
purpose, and enjoy its prerogatives, efficient organization is
necessary. By universal consent the chief officer of such organization
is called “The Superintendent.” Experience has proved that the
character of the school and its success or failure, as measured by
72. the standards already given, depend very largely upon the character
of the superintendent and his understanding of his work. This lesson
will content itself with answering briefly three questions:
I. What are the Qualifications of the Model Superintendent?—The
purpose of the school is the conversion and spiritual education of
those who are under its influence. This, therefore, must be the
purpose of the superintendent. As one can not teach what he does
not know, so he can not accomplish a purpose unless he knows
practically the steps which lead to its accomplishment. The
superintendent therefore must be (a) both converted and spiritually
educated. Conversion implies oneness with Christ in will and desire.
Christ’s will is the conversion of the world. To effect it he instituted
the church on earth. The superintendent must therefore be (b) a
member of the church, and a firm believer in it and its power.
The church in its endeavor to accomplish its holy mission has
instituted the Sunday-school. Its special function is the teaching of
the word. Its great need is and has been competent teachers. Their
appointment and continuance in office rests with the superintendent.
The superintendent should therefore be (c) a good judge of human
nature; (d) a person of approved teaching ability.
The school in active operation uses as its only text-book the Holy
Scriptures. The text-book is a difficult one. It deals with the deepest
problems of spiritual life and death. It is the offspring of a remote
day, and is filled with allusions to a state of society and social
customs entirely foreign to anything with which we are familiar. A
trained teacher in secular education with no knowledge of this book
may make utter failure as a teacher of it. A knowledge of it in its
entirety is absolutely essential to the teacher in the Sunday-school.
The superintendent must therefore be (e) a thorough and intelligent
scholar in Bible lore.
The membership of the Sunday-school, aside from teachers and
officers, is largely composed of children and youth. By nature
humanity tires of monotony. Children are more restive under
73. monotonous routine than those who have won self-control by
culture. To keep in the school its children and youth, to keep them
interested in its purposes while in the school, and to hold them
untiringly to the true work of the school, needs fertility of brain to
give proper variety to the conduct of the school, intelligence to
discern the effects of all measures that are adopted, tact to change
and adapt to the ever varying conditions of school life, and common
sense to direct and govern the whole. The superintendent must
therefore be (f) a person fertile in expedients and (g) a person of
intelligence, tact and common sense.
But often in the conduct of the school infelicities occur. The
different parts do not move in harmony with each other. Cases of
variance between pupils and teachers arise. Often times the school
suffers from financial lack. The chief officer of the school is the one
to whom all such matters come for final adjudication. The
superintendent therefore must be (h) a person of good executive
ability, that with firm, strong hand he may hold each part of the
system of which he is the center revolving in its own orbit, never
flagging, never tiring, never ceasing to do its own part in the work,
never clashing with any other. Such are some of the principal
qualifications of the superintendent.
II. What should be his personal character?—In general, all that is
suggested in the foregoing outline as to qualifications. But our
requirements must not end there. A man may be a so-called
Christian and yet be far from possessing the character which is an
essential to the Sunday-school superintendent. He may be a church
member, and be even less than a so-called Christian. He may be a
good judge of human nature, and yet himself a poor illustration of it.
He may be possessed of fine teaching power, and yet misuse it. He
may know the Bible as well as Erasmus, and yet be like Erasmus, the
subject of Luther’s keen reproach of being everything in word, and
nothing in deed. He may be all we have described, and yet lack in
character.
74. The superintendent therefore should be pious, “having reverence
for God, and for religious duties.” He should be devout, that is,
should carry into daily life the active expression of his piety. This
would forbid sudden anger, inconsiderate levity, trifling with
Scriptures, by thoughtless quotations, and all outward conduct that
does not comport with true consecration. He should be honest,
truthful in word and act, humble, loyal, and scrupulously observant
of the Sabbath.
His constant motto should be as he daily studies to build
character in himself and others, “Study to show thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed.” Let the
student make for himself an outline of what the superintendent
should be in character.
III. What are his duties?—They are four fold. (1) To his church.
(2) To his pastor. (3) To his teachers. (4) To his pupils.
His duties to his church are plain.
1. He should attend the regular services of the church regularly.—
This can admit of no negative. He should do it for its effect on
himself. He should do it as an encouragement to his teachers. He
should do it as an example to his pupils.
2. He should impress habitual church going as a duty upon his
teachers and pupils from the desk in the Sunday-school room, and
should use all means to effect the object.
3. He should contribute regularly and uniformly to all the
benevolent objects which the church presents as worthy of Christian
liberality. The reasons for this are too plain to need mention.
4. He should urge to the same duty the teachers and pupils of the
school, that they may each do their part, no matter how small, in
the work of Christian benevolence.
5. He should contribute of his means as God prompts him to the
support of his church, and not measure himself by the standard of
75. proportionate values. He should also teach the same duty in his
school.
6. He should be loyal to his own particular church; should know
its particular beliefs; should pray for its particular welfare; and
fearlessly do whatever lies in his power to promote its purity and
peace.
II. His duties to his pastor.
1. Is that of Coöperation. The pastor and superintendent should
know each other’s plans and purposes thoroughly. The pastor should
always be able to feel that in his superintendent he has one upon
whom he can depend, who will aid him in his work; share with him a
certain portion of the duties devolved upon him, and in all possible
ways be like Aaron and Hur, hand upholders in the fight against
Amalek.
2. That of Allegiance. The pastor is the one man of all the church
upon whom all eyes are fixed. Among his multitude of acts, some
will be misunderstood. Among the multitude of tongues some will be
captious and critical. A spark may kindle a conflagration. The
superintendent owes it to church and pastor to be loyal to his pastor
and render him the knightly service which the king could expect
from the lord. He should also teach the same duty to teachers and
pupils in the school.
3. He should be his Pastor’s Index Rerum; not his mentor, but his
reference, to which he can turn for information concerning affairs in
that portion of the church represented by the school. Sick children to
be visited, poverty to be helped with true charity, anxious souls
looking for the Savior, these and many similar are within the
superintendent’s knowledge oft times, when unknown to the pastor.
To bring them to the pastor’s knowledge is an evident duty.
4. That of Harmony. The pastor and superintendent should agree.
The school should have no plans or methods contrary to the pastor’s
76. desires. Church and school should walk the same path, and in it go
hand in hand.
III. His duties to his Teachers. While these are many we mention
but five, and these without discussion, leaving the student to fill up
the outlines.
1st. Supervision of Work. 2d. Personal and close Acquaintance.
3d. Frequent Visiting. 4th. Individual Coöperation. 5th. A Weekly
Teacher’s Meeting.
IV. What are his duties to his Pupils?
1st. To know each one personally. It is the measure of the
superintendent’s power. 2d. To visit them at their homes, or to
insure a visit by their teachers. It is his chief means of knowledge
concerning them. 3d. To review their knowledge of the lesson
regularly, from week to week, and at the quarter’s end to conduct a
thorough and systematic review of the quarter’s teaching. 4th. To
urge them to all of the various duties which are required of one in
the Christian life. 5th. To aid their home training, or supplement it, in
providing suitable methods for using their spare time. 6th. To set
before them the constant example of a pure and holy life.
78. EDITOR’S OUTLOOK.
THE C. L. S. C. PLAN.
No organization that has appeared in the past fifty years has been
more favored than the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
From the first the surroundings have been such as to aid its growth.
Eminent educators and literary men pronounced their blessings on
its head the day it was born. Thousands of people shouted its
praises to the echo, in the grove at Chautauqua, as soon as they
saw what it was and heard its name. Chautauqua had a history of
five years to place behind the C. L. S. C.—a history of enterprising
investigation in the fields of science and philosophy, Biblical
literature, church and Sunday-school work, and moral reforms. It
was five years of hard work to popularize useful information on all
these lines of thought. This was a good beginning for the C. L. S. C.,
and right here it started. With the summer meetings at Chautauqua
it has been associated during these first five years of its history. The
C. L. S. C. Commencement exercises are held in the Hall of
Philosophy, in St. Paul’s grove, at Chautauqua, and from thence the
diplomas are sent out to the graduates all over the world.
It never was the design of Dr. Vincent or Mr. Lewis Miller, the
founders of Chautauqua, that all the work of students should be
pressed into the compass of three weeks of meetings in August, but
rather that Chautauqua should be carried into towns and cities, into
homes and offices and workshops all over the land. When the C. L.
S. C. appeared and its curriculum was announced with the promise
that every person who should complete the four years course of
reading in ancient and modern history and literature, the sciences,
philosophy and art, would graduate and receive a diploma signed by
79. the officers of the C. L. S. C., the idea was easily carried abroad. The
press of the country was ready, as we now see, to assist. The plan
was written up and philosophized upon from the beginning; but
more than this was needed to insure success. To make the
Chautauqua Idea as practical in a town five hundred or a thousand
miles away as it was at Chautauqua was a hard task to perform; but
when it was decided that the individual could enroll his name in the
C. L. S. C. office and pursue his studies at home, or when traveling,
by devoting forty minutes a day to his books, and could fill out
examination papers at the end of each year, the practicability of the
plan was admitted by everybody. The organization was simple, the
working of the system has been almost perfect, and each succeeding
year has witnessed a marvelous growth; classes ranging from 7,000
up to 14,000 members have been enrolled from year to year until
the present outlook is more encouraging than all the past.
The local circle has come to be an important factor in the working
of the organization. Men are clannish, and in the work of education
the world has always recognized the social element as a powerful
agency. It was natural that in the C. L. S. C. men and women, who
had no scruples on the question of the co-education of the sexes,
should come together and effect local organizations, elect their
officers and do their work methodically, under the inspiration of one
another’s presence. Just as in raising a building ten men are
stronger than one man, so in a town or city ten persons will lift up
the Chautauqua Idea in more homes and attract the attention of
more people to it than one person possibly can. “In union there is
strength,” and while the practical working of the “local circle” is to be
seen in the growing intelligence of its individual members, it is a fact
that through the local circle the C. L. S. C. is taking hold of the
people in all parts of our land, and thus demonstrating that the
founders of Chautauqua have inaugurated an educational system
which has the merit of being a “Home College,” whose privileges
may be enjoyed by all classes and conditions of people. While it is
not sectarian or even denominational, it is Christian, and carries
correct ideas of God and the Bible, of Jesus Christ and redemption,
80. of the Holy Ghost and Christian life into every reader’s mind and into
every family where the course of study is received.
MARTIN LUTHER.
Our heritage of civil and religious liberty is an outgrowth of the
Reformation, begun in the fifteenth century. By common consent the
Protestant churches confess indebtedness to Martin Luther, the
principal agent raised up by God for the deliverance of his people.
We gladly join our brethren of a free press and the heralds of a free
gospel, in making some mention of this fourth centennial day. Want
of space must greatly abridge the tribute we would bring, and
forbids any attempt to weave such fitting chaplets as other hands
will certainly bring to the altar.
Four hundred years ago to-day, November 10, 1483, Martin
Luther was born in Eisleben, Saxony. The great German reformer,
whose words shook the world, and whose power, after centuries, is
felt by millions indebted to him, was of humble origin, his parents
being peasants of the poorer class, but religious, honest, self-
respecting people. He refers tenderly to them, and says: “In
supporting their family they had a hard and bitter fight of it.” His
own privations and hardships in early life were met with something
of the heroism and persistence of endeavor that marked his later
years. In school, though a sprightly lad, full of fun and frolic, and
often corrected for his faults by a severe master, he was yet a
diligent student, eager for communion with all truth. His ambition
and thirst for knowledge led him gracefully to accept what was
unfavorable in his circumstances, yet not passively or without
methods of improving them. The spirited youth, with some others
under like pecuniary embarrassments, rather than leave school, for a
time sought bread in the neighboring villages, and found way to the
hearts of their benefactors by singing at their doors. The songs of
the boys seem to have been offered and accepted as a remuneration
for the material aid they needed, and thus the depressing sense of
81. mendicancy was not so seriously felt. He earned his master’s degree
when yet young, having by his proficiency in both classical studies
and philosophy attracted the attention of some scholarly men. He
left school with honors, but not happy. Soon after began the great
struggle of his eventful life. On a careful introspection he found in
his quickened soul cravings that human knowledge could not satisfy.
Educated a Catholic, and observant of all their rites and ceremonies,
but finding little comfort in them, in his unrest and almost
despondence, he entered a monastery, thinking by fastings, penance
and prayers to find relief for a wounded conscience. The way to him
was dark; the conflict terrible; the unhappy monk knew of sin, but
not the Savior. The day of his deliverance was at hand, though for a
time he saw but the dawn. With the Bible found in his cell as his
almost only guide, he at length clearly apprehended the way of
salvation by faith alone—believing he was justified. The change was
great, and the whole tenor of his after life confessed it. The strong,
earnest, cultured man, rejoicing now in the gospel liberty, himself
baptized with the spirit and fully consecrated to work for others, was
a fit instrument for inaugurating any needed reformation. Led by the
spirit and ever true to his convictions, he was soon, though wishing
to avoid the issue, in open conflict with the Papal authorities. How
bravely, and with what results the battle was fought, is well known.
It was an open, manly fight. Any disguise with him was simply
impossible. He never masked his own position, nor sought to flank
that of the enemy. The warfare, on his part, was honorable, but the
shafts he forged were pointed, and hurled with tremendous force.
His multitudinous disquisitions, essays and replies came in quick
succession, as the exigencies of the controversy called for them. He
wrote, any reader will say, rapidly, from the fullness of his mind and
heart; and very few authors have left on their works so strong an
impress of their own personality. He is perhaps best known in his
“Table Talk.” There is a freshness in these off-hand sayings that is
charming, and quite disarms criticism. His greatest gift to the
German people was his faithful translation of the Bible into their
vernacular, and his commentaries that are still held in high esteem.
The reformer’s influence, great while he lived, has increased
82. immensely during the four centuries. As a biblical critic and expositor
his ability is now recognized by the general church. He held to the
spiritual and supernatural in religion, but recognized the human as
well as divine factor in the books of the Bible, and in that, too, the
church is in sympathy with him.
THE TEMPERANCE QUESTION.
Of this question it is the political aspect which at the present time
is most prominent. It is becoming a grave, disturbing force in our
politics. Viewing the temperance cause in the light of political action,
it is clear that it is advancing, and that those who have the cause at
heart have reason to thank God and take courage. No little chagrin
was felt when it was known that the noble action of the people of
Iowa a year ago, in voting for constitutional prohibition, was, owing
to a technicality, of none effect. But again in that great state the
battle has been fought; this time in a different way. The Republican
party there had the wisdom to champion the prohibition measure;
this plank was squarely inserted in the party platform, and in the
campaign recently closed it was the leading issue. We have the
result of the election, and it should give the friends of temperance
encouragement and hope. A second time this righteous principle has
triumphed. The Republican party has won the day, and if its avowed
purpose is redeemed in the State of Iowa, the sale of strong drink
will soon be made a crime. We turn to the state of Ohio, and here,
too, we see sure tokens that the temperance cause is moving
forward. The confession comes from prominent politicians, that if, in
Ohio as in Iowa, their party had adopted prohibition it might have
been better. This was not done; but the question in the late election
was submitted to a popular vote and the result, all things
considered, is most encouraging. Some sanguine people may have
had faith that the prohibitory amendment would be carried, but
perhaps the number was not large. That it received the great vote it
did in a state where the liquor interest is of such magnitude and so
83. strongly intrenched, is something to cheer and make thankful the
hearts of good people.
One does not need the vision of a prophet to see that the day of
the triumph of prohibition in our country is coming on. The right is to
win. The time is in the not-distant future when state laws and state
constitutions will say that men shall not make their living by
pandering to the depraved appetite of fellow men. The rum-seller’s
business will be made illegal and criminal. Even those who are
looking forward to the prohibition of the liquor traffic by the national
constitution will not long be called fanatical and visionary. But
meanwhile other work for temperance besides that looking to this
condition of things, so much to be desired, should not be neglected.
Personal effort to preserve the youth and reclaim men is always
demanded. People are clearly in error who say: “Prohibition or
nothing.” Laws whose aim is the curtailing of liquor selling, should be
sought, enacted, sustained and enforced as better than none at all.
Until we can have prohibition, let us have as stringent restrictive
enactments as possible. It is a short-sighted view of things which
prompts such a sentiment as this: “If we can not have prohibition,
let us have free rum.” The adage of the “half-loaf” and the “whole” is
full of sound wisdom. We can but think there are earnest
temperance men who make a grave mistake. Prohibition—
unquestionably the true measure to apply to the liquor traffic, and
for whose adoption we should persistently work—fills their minds
and hearts. They bend their energies to secure this. But for other
legal measures, falling short of this desideratum, and aiming only to
restrict the wretched traffic, they have no support. Everywhere
restrictive liquor statutes are seen very imperfectly executed for
want of interest and determined effort on the part of temperance
people, whose rigid enforcement would work a grateful change in
our communities. If the law says that the saloon shall not be opened
on Sunday; that it shall be closed at a certain hour of the night; that
intoxicants shall not be sold to youth under a certain age, or by any
provision looks to the diminution of the great curse of our people, it
should be regarded as good so far as it goes, for so much of
84. prohibition as it contains, and should have the support of good
citizens, though their hope looks and their labors are directed to the
total prohibition by law of the sale of strong drink as a beverage. To
make the best and most of what we have is the true policy in every
issue of life. If we can not have prohibition now, we can see that our
laws are enforced. When they are thoroughly enforced, we will be
much nearer prohibition.
AN EXTRA DAY IN THE CALENDAR.
“There is an island off the coast of New Zealand where the day of
the week changes. There Saturday is Sunday, and Sunday, Monday.
When Sunday noon closes, Monday noon begins. A man sits down to
his dinner Sunday noon, and it is Monday noon before he is done
eating.”
A correspondent sends us the above statement and asks, is it
correct? We answer: Not to the islanders, who, as ourselves, have
but 365 solar days in a year. But to a stranger coming there on his
voyage round the world, who has 366 at his disposal, it is true. He
has one day to spare, has no name or place for it in the week, and
just drops it out of his reckoning, as though it had never been. The
explanation is simple enough, even for the young. The revolution of
the earth on its axis, from west to east, once in 24 hours, gives the
sun an apparent motion round the earth from east to west. To us the
sun rises and sets. The succession of day and night is just the same
as if the sun really went round the earth. As the sun’s apparent
motion is from east to west, a man traveling eastward, at whatever
speed, will see the sun rise, reach the meridian, and set, a little
sooner each day than the day before. So the time indicated by his
watch, and that by the sun will differ more and more as he goes on;
and what he gains each day in time will evidently be to a solar day,
as the distance traveled is to the earth’s circumference. One degree
east will make a difference of four minutes, fifteen degrees an hour,
one hundred and eighty degrees twelve hours. Having reached the
85. one hundred and eightieth meridian, his chronometer and the sun
are just twelve hours apart, so he changes his reckoning, to avoid
confusion, and at noon Sunday calls it Monday. The correction is of
course too much, but if he waits till beyond that time it amounts to
more than half a day, and is constantly increasing. If the error is to
be corrected all at once—and this is the only way that is found
practicable—it should be done when it amounts to half a day. When
he has completed the circuit of the earth a whole day will have been
gained. If another man, from the same place of departure, go west,
or with the sun, he will lose a day, and the two meeting would be, if
neither had changed his reckoning, two whole days apart—yet each
had the same number of hours and minutes. He who had the
greater number of days had them just so much shorter. There is, of
course, no reason in the nature of things, why the days of the week
should be changed on the one hundred and eightieth meridian
rather than elsewhere. There must be some point from which
longitude is reckoned, and to avoid confusion English and American
navigators agree on Greenwich, near London, and their nautical
charts, almanacs, etc., are arranged accordingly. If they had taken
as their starting point Washington, the one hundred and eightieth
meridian would have been west of where it is, the number of
degrees between the places.
86. EDITOR’S NOTE-BOOK.
The privilege of joining the new C. L. S. C. class just forming will
be granted till the first day of January, 1884. This class will graduate
in 1887. It begins work with genuine Chautauqua enthusiasm. Send
applications for membership to Dr. J. H. Vincent, Plainfield, N. J.
The Protestant Episcopalians held their General Convention in
Philadelphia in October, and during this month they consecrated an
assistant Bishop for New York City, and another for the city of
Baltimore. The Methodist Episcopal Church will hold their General
Conference in the same city in May, 1884.
General Sherman says that he regards the Indian question as
substantially eliminated from the problem of the army. The
completion of the trans-continental lines of railway, and the
extensive emigration into the territories have made large
contributions to the settlement of the question. But for all that, we
shall find many demands made upon us by the Indians in the future.
Fair treatment of them will go far toward preventing trouble.
Governor Murray, of Utah, reports to the Secretary of the Interior
that a secret organization among the Mormons, which has been in
existence for a number of years, nullifies the laws of the United
States and prevents the execution of the decrees of the Supreme
Court. The Governor proposes to repeal the act giving a legislature
to the territory, and to rule the people directly by the United States
Government. That is a good suggestion, but why does not Governor
Murray do something to prevent Mormon missionaries importing
men, and especially women, from European countries to keep their
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