John Heyl Vincent
1832-1920. Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Sunday school educator. Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, he studied briefly in the Wesleyan Institute in New Jersey and was ordained elder in 1857. He held pastorates in Illinois, pioneered in Sunday school improvements such as uniform lessons (1872), and with Lewis Miller in 1874 started the world-famous Chautauqua* conferences in W New York State. The general conference of his church elected him bishop in 1888. He served in Switzerland from 1900 to 1904. The Chautauqua Movement (1886) is one of his more important books.