_May_ 20.--I recited "Scott and the Veteran" to-day at school, and Mary Field recited, "To Drum Beat and Heart Beat a Soldier Marches By"; Anna recited "The Virginia Mother." Every one learns war poems nowadays. There was a patriotic rally in Bemis Hall last night and a quartette sang, "The Sword of Bunker Hill" and "Dixie" and "John Brown's Body Lies a Mouldering in the Grave," and many other patriotic songs. We have one West Point cadet, Albert M. Murray, who is in the thick of the fight, and Charles S. Coy represents Canandaigua in the navy.
[Illustration: The Ontario Female Seminary]
_June,_ 1861.--At the anniversary exercises, Rev. Samuel M. Hopkins of Auburn gave the address. I have graduated from Ontario Female Seminary after a five years course and had the honor of receiving a diploma from the courtly hands of General John A. Granger. I am going to have it framed and handed down to my grandchildren as a memento, not exactly of sleepless nights and midnight vigils, but of rising betimes, at what Anna calls the crack of dawn. She likes that expression better than daybreak. I heard her reciting in the back chamber one morning about 4 o'clock and listened at the door. She was saying in the most nonchalant manner: "Science and literature in England were fast losing all traces of originality, invention was discouraged, research unvalued and the examination of nature proscribed. It seemed to be generally supposed that the treasure accumulated in the preceding ages was quite sufficient for all national purposes and that the only duty which authors had to perform was to reproduce what had thus been accumulated, adorned with all the graces of polished style. Tameness and monotony naturally result from a slavish adherence to all arbitrary rules and every branch of literature felt this blighting influence. History, perhaps, was in some degree an exception, for Hume, Robertson and more especially Gibbon, exhibited a spirit of original investigation which found no parallel among their contemporaries." I looked in and asked her where her book was, and she said she left it down stairs. She has "got it" all right, I am sure. We helped decorate the seminary chapel for two days. Our motto was, "Still achieving, still pursuing." Miss Guernsey made most of the letters and Mr. Chubbuck put them up and he hung all the paintings. It was a very warm week. General Granger had to use his palm leaf fan all the time, as well as the rest of us. There were six in our class, Mary Field, Lucy Petherick, Kate Lilly, Sarah Clay, Abby Scott and myself. Abbie Clark would have been in the class, but she went to Pittsfield, Mass., instead. General Granger said to each one of us, "It gives me great pleasure to present you with this diploma," and when he gave Miss Scott hers, as she is from Alabama, he said he wished it might be as a flag of truce between the North and the South, and this sentiment was loudly cheered. General Granger looked so handsome with his black dress suit and ruffled shirt front and all the natural grace which belongs to him. The sheepskin has a picture of the Seminary on it and this inscription: "The Trustees and Faculty of the Ontario Female Seminary hereby certify that __________ has completed the course of study prescribed in this Institution, maintained the requisite scholarship and commendable deportment and is therefore admitted to the graduating honors of this Institution. President of Board, John A. Granger; Benjamin F. Richards, Edward G. Tyler, Principals." Mr. Morse wrote something for the paper: