Lyon, Mary

Lyon, Mary a teacher and female philanthropist, born in Buckland, Massachusetts, February 28, 1797, is noted as the founder of the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in South Hadley, over which she presided until her death, March 5, 1849. A feature of her plan (at first much opposed) was the performance of the institution's domestic labor by teachers and pupils, intending to give them independence of servants, self-denial, health, and interest in domestic duties. She set forth her views in Tendencies of the Principles embraced and the System adopted in the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1840), and in the Missionary Offering (1843). See Hitchcock, Life and Labors of Mary Lyon (1851); Drake, Dict. of Amer. Biography, s.v.