When the middle of June came there were important exercises, and on this occasion all was dignity and decorum. A long procession of schoolgirls came marching down North Street, walking under the lofty elms to the music of the flute and flageolet. The girls were gaily dressed and in the most joyous spirits. At the church each proud graduate received her diploma, a document printed elegantly upon white satin and bound with blue ribbon. Upon the refined surface was a beautiful picture, representing a lofty hill, on the top of which was a temple surrounded by rays of light. A clearly marked but steep and difficult path led up the side of this mountain. At the foot stood a lady who reached out her arm and pointed with a meaning finger to a bulky geographical globe that rested upon a pile of books. She seemed to say that only by means of most severe study would you be able to climb this hill to the radiant temple of learning. The meaning of the picture was well understood by the young graduate. Above the design amid the most wonderful flourishes of penmanship was inscribed the title “Litchfield Female Academy,” and below were printed the words: Miss ---- ---- has completed with honor the prescribed course of study--Grammar, Geography, History, Arithmetic, Rhetoric, Natural and Moral Philosophy, Chemistry, Logic, and the Principles of Taste. Several of these little diplomas, now yellowed with age, are preserved in the Town Museum at Litchfield. I do not know that Harriet Beecher came into possession of one of them; she probably went away to be a teacher herself before she reached that point. We learn, however, from this little certificate what was the course of study in the Litchfield Female Academy. But no such list of titles can give us any real idea of what the days at the Academy meant to Harriet. Miss Pierce was a woman of great ability. She herself had made an “Abridgment of Universal History” in four volumes which was used as a text-book in her school; and after plodding through this ample work the students followed it by Russell’s “Modern Europe,” Coot’s “Continuation,” and Ramsey’s “American Revolution,” and accompanied the study with map-drawing. They made historical charts in which the names of kings and queens were set in little sequins strung along a “riband” or skein of sky-blue silk. Within the charmed enclosure of this design were the royal genealogical patterns from Saxon to Brunswick with roses of red and of white appropriately interspersed. Nothing could be clearer. Mrs. Stowe thought so much of Miss Pierce’s method that when she had her own little family to bring up she wrote to ask Miss Pierce for a copy of the book she had used in childhood from which to instruct her children.