We are accustomed to think of the early New England life as offering few expressions of artistic beauty, and there is much truth in this view, for the thoughts of our forefathers were directed chiefly toward theology. But we must never forget that those first adventurers came from England during the greatest age of artistic expression that England ever had, the time of Sidney and Spenser and Shakespeare. When the New Englanders had become settled in their new home, had become somewhat unified, that “fervid activity of an intense, newly-kindled, peculiar and individual life” resulted in all sorts of out-croppings of that desire for beauty invincible in the human soul. We should be surprised to see how general were attempts in dramatic form. In all the schools, in the homes, in the societies and lyceums everywhere, original dialogues and plays were the order; and the Sunday school, when invented, threw a generous mantle of charity over various colloquies, symbolisms, moralities, and other kinds of dramatic presentation. In Miss Pierce’s school there were many exercises of this character. Miss Pierce herself was devoted, like her nephew, to the English classics; she was a good reader, given to quoting long passages of poetry and making her pupils do likewise. To the compositions for gala days, declamations, colloquies and dramatic sketches were added. Then My name is Norval; on the Grampian hills My father fed his flocks, etc., was invariably spouted. “The Will, or The Power of Medicine,” is the subject of one play on record; also a colloquy on “Improvements in Education.” A play called “The Country Boy” was given, in which the characters were _John Hickory_ and _Hotspur_. In one called “The Curfew,” the hero is a robber disguised as a minstrel. “The Combat,” from “The Lady of the Lake,” was another favorite. Miss Pierce herself wrote some very respectable dramas which the pupils presented in the exhibitions at the close of school. On these occasions a stage was erected, scenery was painted and hung in true theatrical style, while all the wardrobes of the community were ransacked for stage dresses. When the principal’s favorite, “Jephtha’s Daughter,” was given, the Biblical hero, adorned with a helmet of gilt paper, surmounted by waving ostrich plumes, strode grandly in, declaiming, “On Jordan’s banks proud Ammon’s banners wave.” There was a procession of Judæan maidens, bearing the body of _Jephtha’s_ daughter on a bier after the sacrifice, and there was also a procession of sympathizing youths. For this part of the program the young students from the Law School came in very handy; and, judging by the diary of one of them which has been lately exhumed and published,[4] the young gentlemen of a hundred years ago were not so different from those of to-day.