Details
March 24, 1894.
My dear Edie,--
Vacation has begun, and I am alone in my room now.
I think vacation will be very pleasant. It is a rest to have only a
few girls here, and have it quiet- Even though I keep busy all the
time, it is a rest to do what I feel like doing, when I feel like doing
it. During vacation we have to read DeQuincey's Confessions of an
Opium Eater, and Joan of Arc and English Mail coach, for English -
Gertrude Smith and Arlie Raymond and I have
or sewed- (Arlie Raymond is making over an old silk skirt into a waist). I dont like the book at all. I think DeQuincey is the most conceited, egotistical man I ever read. Miss Sweet gives us lectures in English class, and they are very interesting- She has such an
interesting, though peculiar, quiet way of talking- Her lectures on Lamb were fine.
Most of the girls went away yesterday noon. Vacation began at half past eleven, but as Ray had no recitation before that, she started before breakfast yesterday morning, taking the 7:47 train for New York, and going from there to Springfield. She took a trunk along, and all her old clothes, as her grandmother is going to have all her spring sewing done
the night before saying that Vassar was much excited about the Salvation Army, and that fifteen girls and Mrs. Kendrick had joined it. That is all he told about it, and he did not send the article. If it had not been for this episode, I should not have had the slightest idea of what you were referring to: since I have not heard the Salvation Army mentioned (any more than casually, once or twice, when girls were discussing the different speakers who have been here) since Mrs. Booth was here. That perhaps shows how "excited(?)" the college is over it. About a dozen girls did join the Auxiliary League when Mrs. Booth was here. By so doing they gave five dollars to Mrs. Booth and promised to use their influence in favor of the Army,
As for the matter of "sermons" that was all past and over long ago, and I am sorry you have been stirred up over that. I was not at all convinced that it was wrong, though it seemed a little strange. However, I should probably ^have thought nothing more of it, if several girls had not come
hairs, but when I found that Mrs. Kendrick, and Dr. Taylor, and Dr. Vincent, and several other older and wiser heads disapproved of it, I thought perhaps we weren't after all. Nobody's plans were inconvenienced by a stop being put to it, for it was near the end of the semester, and that work was not going to be given to us again.
April weather has begun, and we have had no March winds yet. The girls who went away had to start off In a pouring rain yesterday. Most of them went at noon. Ever so many girls go down on the noon train to New York, always- They have to make their plans so far ahead, and hand in in writing where they
The college authorities have been talking lately about closing up the college during the short vacations, and making the girls who stay board some where around here so as to give Mrs. Kendrick, and the rest of the officials who have to stay and work, more of a rest. But they have not yet decided to do it.