among the distinguished men and women who nearly every week gave
lectures or addresses to the young ladies, were to be found those who
told them of the religious movements and interests of the day. Not
only those of our own country, but those of a broader field, covering
all the known world.

Returned missionaries, with their pathetic stories of their past
life.

Heads of the great philanthropic societies, each one with its claim
of special and immediate importance.

Professors for theological seminaries and from prominent colleges,
discussing the prevailing questions that were agitating the public
mind.

Trained scholars in the scientific world, laden with their rich
treasures of research into nature's hidden secrets.

Musicians of wide repute, who found an inspiration in the glowing
young faces before them, that called from them their choicest and
their best.

Elocutionists, with their pathetic and humorous readings, always
finding a ready response in their delighted audience.

These, and many others of notoriety, were brought to the academy; for
Miss Ashton had not been slow in learning what is so valuable in
modern teaching,--_variety_.

If there were fewer prayer-meetings in the corridors among pupils and
teachers than in olden times, there was in the school more alertness
of mind, a steadier, stronger ability to think, and, consequently, to
study, and, therefore, judiciously used, more power to grasp, believe
in, and love the great Christianity to whose service the academy was
dedicated.

Nor was it by these lectures alone that the educational advantages
were broadened.

The library every year received often large and important additions.
It would have been curious to note the difference between the
literature selected now, and that chosen years ago. Then a work of
fiction would have been considered entirely out of place on the
shelves of a library consecrated to religious training. Now the pupils
had free access to the best works of the best literary authors of the
day, in fiction or otherwise. Monthly magazines and newspapers were
spread upon the library table. There was but one thing required, that
no book taken out should be injured, and that no reading should
interfere with the committal of the lessons.

In the art gallery the same growth was readily to be seen. The
portraits of the early missionaries who had gone out from the
school, and whose names had become sainted in the religious world,