Three matching bound volumes, commercially-printed journals, with each volume covering one year and each page printed to hold two dated entries. The diaries were Christmas gifts from Marian's father, who in the first year checked to see whether Marian was doing her "journal work." The 1886 diary documents the spring semester of Marian's senior year after being out with typhoid fever and a fall and winter of preparing for college with Anna Phillips, a Wellesley graduate, as a private tutor in mathematics, Latin, and Greek. Entries describe schoolwork and classes, family participation at the Baptist church, food, dresses, and social activities. The 1887 diary continues the account of Marian's preparation for college with Anna Phillips and describes her first semester at Wellesley, including classwork, lectures and sermons given by notable visitors, social activities, and Christmas back in Titusville. The end flyleaf for the 1887 diary contains a list of books, mostly novels, read during the first part of the year, with brief opinions noted. As the 1889 diary opens, Marian travels to Wellesley from the Perrin family's new home in Rochester, N.Y.; the spring semester of her sophomore year is cut short when she is called home because her father is ill, but she returns in the fall for her junior year. Many of the summer and fall entries in the 1889 journal are simply quotations, but December's entries are largely taken up with her preparation for a debate in which she would defend the resolution, "That the courses of study adapted to the needs of men's colleges are equally well adapted to the needs of women's colleges." Small ink drawings occasionally accompany entries, especially in the 1887 journal. Occasional notes in blue ballpoint pen were added when Marian re-read her diaries in 1953 at the age of 83 (see entry for March 23, 1889).
