Porter, Sarah

▪ American educator

born Aug. 16, 1813, Farmington, Conn., U.S.

died Feb. 17, 1900, Farmington

      American educator and founder of Miss Porter's School, still one of the leading preparatory schools for girls in the United States.

      Porter was a younger sister of Noah Porter, later president of Yale College. She was educated at the Farmington Academy, where she was the only girl student, and at age 16 she became an assistant teacher in the school. She studied privately under a Yale Latin professor (1832–33) and for several years studied on her own while teaching in schools in New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania.

      In 1843 Porter opened her own school in Farmington. For many years she was the only teacher at Miss Porter's School, but her intellectual curiosity had fitted her to teach Latin, French, German, chemistry, natural science, mathematics, history, geography, and music, in addition to the basic subjects. The school thus had a reputation for academic excellence almost unique among girls' schools of the day. Porter also encouraged healthful exercise, and she was deeply concerned with the character development of all her charges.

      As the school grew rapidly, Porter acquired new facilities to keep pace, although she took care to limit the student body to about 100. In later years she hired additional teachers, but she continued to teach her chosen subjects until just a few years before her death in 1900.

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