The New International Encyclopædia/Willard, Emma C.

WILLARD, Emma C. (Hart) (1787-1870). A pioneer in the field of higher education for women, born at Berlin, Conn. In 1803 she became a teacher in the village school; three years later she received a position in an academy at Westfield, Conn., but after a few weeks became principal of an academy for girls at Middlebury, Vt. In 1809 she married Dr. John Willard. In the same year she established at Middlebury a girls' boarding-school with improved methods of teaching. Five years later she submitted to Governor Clinton of New York a manuscript entitled A Plan for Improving Female Education. The ideas she advanced met with favor, and in 1821 she was able to establish at Waterford, N. Y., a girls' seminary, partly supported by the State. Two years later she removed the school to Troy, where it acquired a wide reputation. Her husband died in 1825, but she continued to manage the institution until 1838, when she placed it in the hands of her son. In 1830 she made a tour in Europe, and three years later published Journal and Letters from France and Great Britain. The proceeds from the sale of the book she gave to a school for women that she had helped to found in Athens, Greece. In 1838 she married Dr. Christopher C. Yates, but was divorced from him in 1843. Among her other published works are: The Woodbridge and Willard Geographies and Atlases (1823); History of the United States (1828); Universal History in Perspective (1837); Treatise on the Circulation of the Blood (1846); and Last Leaves of American History (1849). In 1830 she also published a book of poems, of which the best known is Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep. Her Life was written by John Lord (New York, 1873). In recognition of her services to the cause of higher education for women a statue was unveiled in her honor at Troy in 1895.