Saddened memory still is bending
O'er the heart with joy elate.
Warmer now is every feeling,

Toward those friends who share our lot,
While swift time is onward stealing,

Soon to loose the cherished knot.

3. Onward, till our toil is ended

For the cause of Truth and Right!
Till our upward path is blended
Into everlasting light.

Now the outward bonds are broken,
Now we part-and is it well?

Rest-there's yet one word unspoken,

19. Benediction.

Classmates-teachers-all farewell!

The Diploma of the institution was then given to each of the following by Hon. F. Gillette, who made a very appropriate address to

the graduating class.

The singing was under the direction of Prof. Thompson, and, like all the exercises, gave very great and general satisfaction to a large audience.

WAR'S COMPENSATIONS.

(The following eloquent extract is from the address given by the Hon. Francis Gillette, before the Literary Societies of the State Normal School.)

In glancing at the compensations which are to come from this war, it would be a great oversight, should I omit to notice the education and discipline which it must give the nation. "Crosses are ladders which lead upward," says the proverb. And again, "Adversity is a stern, but thorough

teacher." These truths are no less true of nations than of individuals. Virtue, activity, honor, manliness, achievement, are nursed into grandeur by trials, hardships, struggles, and conflicts. Power is born of adversity, just as sparks are of the flinty rock when struck by the iron hoof of the courser galloping over the hills.

It is said of many men who went from England to the Crimean War, and stood face to face with the horrid front of battle, and saw "death shots falling thick and fast" around them, and felt the earth shake from the terrific thunder of battle, that, although they went out as gay, thoughtless, vain, aimless men, they returned sobered, wiser, earnest, energetic inen, and took rank among the builders of society. Thus nations are often developed and vitalized anew. Justice, self-denial, and heroism are qualities which make a people truly great, and these qualities are strengthened by war. While the sword is a fearful lancet which sometimes bleeds a nation to death, it oftener cures than kills, by exterminating fatal maladies, and quickening the languid pulses with the thrill of a new and better life, such as Lazarus must have felt when awaking in his tomb, and triumphing over its corruptions. Thought, activity, courage, generosity, and self-denial are stimulated, magnanimity is fostered and faith winged. All persons, not only men, but women, and little children even find enough to think of, to do, and to pray for, beyond themselves. The orbit of their existence no longer contracted within their own narrow spheres, is suddenly expanded to embrace country, with all its precious freight of interests, hopes and memories at stake.

How many thousands of lazy, lounging men, who were living with no aspirations or purposes higher than themselves have been thrilled by the trumpet of war, and started up from their voluptuous dreams into heroes, their pulses, for the first time, leaping with the inspiration of a generous emotion, and the luxury of a resolute purpose! How many thousands of young men have exchanged the fopperies and frivolities of fashionable life for the camp; the club-room, the race-course, the gaming-table, and all the irksome lassi

tude of dissipation and vice, for the excitement and thrill of heroic adventures! How many thousands of other young men have forsaken father, mother, wife, children, fireside, fortune, all, at their country's call-some, before the wreath had faded on the flushed brow of the beautiful bride, and others, bending over the cradle of the first-born, and brushing with hot kisses from the fresh cheek of the unconscious little sleeper there, the tears that fell upon it in the agonizing moments of the last farewell? How many fathers have brought their willing boys to their country's altar, and hearing no heavenly voice, bidding them to spare, have laid them thereon to bleed and die! How many mothers stand, weeping around the sepulchres in which were laid the bodies of their slain sons! How many crosses has this cruel war erected all over our country, which must prove such ladders as the dreaming patriarch saw, with angels ascending and descending on errands of consolation to trusting war-stricken souls, and of salvation, we would fain believe, to the country! What wrestlings of soul, what self-sacrifices, what crucifixions of human baseness do these touching, beautiful and sublime consecrations involve! A people that should not grow into moral giant-hood under such a tuition, must be organically dwarfed. Impossible! For sixteen months, under the dark war-cloud, the angels have been wrestling with us, "to make us strong like princes, that we might have power with God, and with men, and prevail." For sixteen months the shadowy forms of our revolutionary fathers have been walking with us, to inspire our souls with courage, and gird us with their own great and invincible armor. They say to us again and again, "Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel."

For the Common School Journal.

PRACTICAL SHORT HAND.

"OF all toil done by man on this earth, literary composition is the most exhausting. This is the reason why so many preachers lose their health and their lives in a vocation which,

rightfully pursued, is most favorable to longevity. They think it is the delivery of the sermon which kills them, because their bodily weakness takes the form of sore throat. On the contrary it is the writing that does the business-the six or eight hours of daily bending over a desk. This is what reduced Edwards to a listless skeleton and that sent Channing to his account before his time. This is what fills steamers with pallid pastors, and makes clergyman and dyspeptic synonymous terms."

We quote from a (to us) unknown author, but there is a force to his convictions, that requires no signature to give them authority.

Students, teachers and lawyers, as well as ministers, have daily a burden, added to their other labors, which is sinking the best and most ambitious of them, into an early grave.

We hear of the steel pen disease, of nervous debility, &c., and though some may trace these diseases to other causes, we think they would be much less frequently mentioned, were it possible to accomplish the amount of writing that now takes three hours in one hour, leaving the remaining two hours for walking in some cool and shady grove, and communing with nature in her varied forms. And would not our literati, and our business men too, be happier, holier, and better fitted for all the duties of life, by such a relief from drudgery?

But we did not design to treat of hygiene exclusively. As a saving of labor the ability to write three times as fast as we now do, and with one-fourth the labor, would be as valuable to the strong and ambitious as to the weak.

The student could take a full report of the valuable lectures of his course, instead of preserving a meager outline,― the lawyer could write out the evidence in an important trial in the witnesses own language; but we will not specify the advantages of a more rapid system of writing. There is no walk in life—among the active-where it would not be found of service.

But here we meet a graver and more practical question. "Can the labor of writing be abridged?" or "can it be done

in such a way as to become of practical utility to literary and business men?"

Efforts have been made to effect it, for many years; and none of them have proved entirely successful. The systems. employed have been, either too imperfect to be legible, or too complex to be reduced to practice within a reasonable time.

The design of this article is to introduce another systemthe latest, fullest, simplest, and as is believed, the most practicable.

It differs entirely from any previous system, in its alphabet and fundamental principles-being as widely removed from Mr. Pitman's Phonography as his system was from Taylor's, that preceded it.

It is distinguished from other systems of short hand writing by the following characteristics.

1st. It represents the sounds of the language more accurately than any other system; consequently it is more readily, and unmistakably legible than any other; and is in this respect, not at all inferior to our common style of writing. Ministers who use written sermons, would read the system in the pulpit, with the greatest ease.

2d. It is more rapidly written than any other that has been designed for the use of literary men, being written much more rapidly than the corresponding style of phonography.

3d. It is so simple and natural as to be reduced to practice very readily. From thirty to forty hours practice will enable any one to write it correctly and readily; and then it is only necessary to employ it, in the common business of life, for a time, to give any desirable degree of skill in its use. The adept can write the simplest style at the rate of ninety to one hundred and twenty words per minute.

D. P. LINDSLEY.

HARWINTON, CONN.

DO THEY DO IT?

A PRACTICAL man once remarked to us, "I was provoked the other day. My James came home from our district