Porter, Sarah (1813–1900)

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Porter, Sarah (1813–1900)

American educator and founder of Miss Porter's School for Girls. Born Sarah Porter on August 16, 1813, in Farmington, Connecticut; died on February 17, 1900, in Farmington; daughter of Noah Porter (a pastor) and Mehetabel Meigs Porter; sister of Noah Porter (1811–1892, a Congregational cleric and president of Yale) and Samuel Porter (a teacher of the deaf); educated at Farmington Academy, and under the informal tutelage of several Yale professors in New Haven, Connecticut; never married; no children.

Taught at schools in Springfield, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, and Buffalo, New York, in the first decade after completing her studies in New Haven; founded Miss Porter's School (1843) and remained active there as a teacher and administrator until her death (1900).

Sarah Porter was born on August 16, 1813, in Farmington, Connecticut, a town that had been settled by her paternal ancestor Robert Porter in the mid-17th century. She was the first daughter among seven children of Mehetabel Meigs Porter and Noah Porter, a graduate of Yale who was the pastor of Farmington Congregational Church. Fairly enlightened for their time about the importance of education, the Porters encouraged all of their children to do everything they could to develop intellectually. To that end, Sarah's father managed to enroll her in the Farmington Academy, which previously had been open only to boys. She excelled in her studies there and at age 16 she was asked to become an assistant teacher.

Sarah Porter was especially close with her older brother Noah (later the 11th president of Yale), and at age 19 she moved to New Haven to be nearer to him. There she lived in the home of a Yale professor and studied for about a year with lexicographer Ethan Allen Andrews and other Yale professors who instructed women in the classics "after hours." Armed with her unofficial "Yale education," Porter spent the next decade teaching in schools throughout the northeastern United States, including ones in Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Springfield, Massachusetts. Her first attempt to set up a school of her own came in 1841, when she returned to Farmington and took on 15 students. This venture encountered some philosophical and financial obstacles, however, and the school was soon dissolved.

In 1843, at age 30, Porter once again returned to Farmington to try to resurrect her dream of operating her own school, encouraged to do so by a number of families in town who were anxious to see their daughters educated. She opened a day school on the upper level of what she described as an "old stone store." Shortly thereafter, the school expanded, adding living quarters for some of its students when Porter rented a few rooms in a private home in Farmington. Thus was established Miss Porter's School for Girls, which in time grew into one of the most famous girls' boarding schools in the world. Wealthy, well-connected families from throughout the United States and abroad sent their daughters to Miss Porter's to be educated. The school's first class consisted of 25 students, nine of whom were boarders.

The school's curriculum included physics, chemistry, geometry, political science, French, German, Latin, history, logic, art, music, and literature. Extracurricular activities included mandatory Bible study on Sundays and lectures by prominent speakers. The students' physical activities included tennis, horseback riding, and rowing. Porter organized frequent outdoor excursions, such as picnics and nature hikes, to acquaint students with her beloved Farmington and the surrounding countryside. In 1849, Porter rented a schoolhouse on Mountain Road that was large enough to accommodate 25 students, and over the next several decades the school's facilities were expanded to encompass more than 30 buildings in the heart of Farmington.

Porter was not a proponent of women's suffrage. She was, however, a strong supporter of the need to reform divorce and property laws, which she believed had severely disadvantaged many women. She also founded the Farmington Lodge Society to offer a summer vacation in Farmington to "tired and overworked" young women from New York City.

Students at Miss Porter's School needed only to look to Porter herself for an example of tireless intellectual pursuit. Throughout her life, she expressed a keen interest in questions of philosophy, and she particularly enjoyed reading and discussing German literature. While already at an advanced age, she began learning Greek and Hebrew. Academics from near and far made pilgrimages to Farmington to exchange views with Porter, who remained the central figure in the school's operation until shortly before her death. When she was not teaching in the classroom or managing the affairs of the school as a whole, she might well be found in the student dining room expounding on whatever academic subject struck her fancy. She prided herself on her accessibility to the school's students and their parents. Perhaps reflecting the ethos of the New England Congregational community in which she was raised, Porter expected that most of her pupils would marry and spend their lives as homemakers rather than moving into careers in the outside world. During her lifetime, the school could best be described as a finishing school with the highest of academic standards, but never was it intended that the school groom its students for college. Nevertheless, so important to Porter was the quality of the education offered at her school that she went to great lengths to find the finest teachers available. She obtained the services of a French native to assist in the teaching of modern languages and hired a trained science teacher shortly after the introduction of science into American college curricula. Among the school's graduates in the late 19th century were Alice Hamilton and her sister Edith Hamilton, Eleanor Medill Patterson, Ruth Hanna McCormick , and Theodate Pope Riddle . (Nearly half a century later, Jacqueline Kennedy became a graduate.)

Sarah Porter died in 1900, age 86, in Farmington and was buried at Riverside Cemetery. Following her death, the direction of the school she had founded was turned over to her nephew, Robert Porter Keep, Sr., and later to his widow, Elizabeth Vashti Hale Keep . When Elizabeth Keep succumbed to influenza during the pandemic of 1917, her son and daughter-in-law took over the direction of the school. Porter family control ended with their retirement in 1943, at which time the school was incorporated. Miss Porter's School continues to thrive as a highly regarded (and highly expensive) boarding and day school for girls, with some 300 students at the beginning of the 21st century.