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:
To
the Editor of the Repository:
DEAR
SIR—June roses, etc., make our loveliest of villages a paradise this week. The
constellations are all glorious and the stars of earth far outshine those of
the heavens. The lake shore, “Lovers’ Lane,” “Glen Kitty” and the “Points” are
full of romance and romancers. The yellow moon and the blue waters and the dark
green shores and the petrified Indians, whispering stony words at the foot of
Genundewah, and Squaw Island sitting on the waves, like an enchanted grove, and
“Whalesback” all humped up in the East and “Devil's Lookout” rising over all,
made the “Sleeping Beauty” a silver sea of witchery and love; and in the
cottages and palaces we ate the ambrosia and drank the nectar of the sweet
goddesses of this new and golden age.
I
may as well say to you, Mr. Editor, that the Ontario Female Seminary closed
yesterday and “Yours truly” was present at the commencement. Being a bachelor I
shall plead guilty and appeal to the mercy of the Court, if indicted for undue
prejudice in favor of the charming young orators. After the report of the
Examining Committee, in which the scholarship of the young ladies was not too
highly praised, came the Latin Salutatory by Miss Clay, a most beautiful and
elegant production (that sentence, sir, applies to both salutatory and
salutatorian). The ‘Shadows We Cast,' by Miss Field, carried us far into the
beautiful fields of nature and art and we saw the dark, or the brilliant
shades, which our lives will cast, upon society and history. Then “Tongues in
Trees” began to whisper most bewitchingly, and “Books in the Running Brooks”
were opened, and “Sermons in Stones” were preached by Miss Richards, and this
old bachelor thought if all trees would talk so well, and every brook would
babble so musically, and each precious stone would exhort so brilliantly, as
they were made to do by the “enchantress,” angels and dreams would henceforth
be of little consequence; and whether the orator should be called “Tree of
Beauty,” “Minnehaha” or the “Kohinoor” is a “vexata questio.”
In
the evening Mr. Hardick, “our own,” whose hand never touches the piano without
making delicious music, and Misses Daggett and Wilson, also “our own,” and the
musical pupils of the Institution, gave a concert. “The Young Volunteer” was
imperatively demanded, and this for the third time during the anniversary
exercises, and was sung amid thunders of applause, “Star of the South,” Miss
Stella Scott, shining meanwhile in all her radiant beauty. May her glorious
light soon rest on a Union that shall never more be broken.
Soberly yours,
A VERY OLD BACHELOR.
________________
There was a
patriotic rally this afternoon on the campus of Canandaigua Academy and we
Seminary girls went. They raised a flag on the Academy building. General
Granger presided, Dr. Coleman led the choir and they sang “ The Star Spangled
Banner.” Mr. Noah T. Clarke made a stirring speech and Mr. Gideon Granger,
James C. Smith and E. M. Morse followed. Canandaigua has already raised over
$7,000 for the war. Capt. Barry drills the Academy boys in military tactics on
the campus every day. Men are constantly enlisting. Lester P. Thompson, son of
“Father Thompson,” among the others.
A young man asked
Anna to take a drive to-day, but Grandmother was not willing at first to let
her go. She finally gave her consent, after Anna's plea that he was so young
and his horse was so gentle. Just as they were ready to start, I heard Anna run
upstairs and I heard him say, “What an Anna!” I asked her afterwards what she
went for and she said she remembered that she had left the soap in the water.
_______________
Dr. Daggett's war
sermon from the 146th Psalm was wonderful.
SOURCE: Caroline Cowles Richards, Village Life in America,
1852-1872, p. 132-7
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