Hannah Lyman.

About Hannah Lyman

Hannah Willard Lyman was an American educator. She was the first woman principal of Vassar College. Lyman took an active interest in missionary operations through her whole life, maintained a constant correspondence with several distinguished Christian missionaries in foreign lands, and did much by the power of her enthusiasm to kindle and foster the missionary spirit, not only among her pupils, but in the wide circle of social influence which she filled for many years. In Montreal, she began a class for young women which quickly grew into a seminary, which she ran for 22 years. Her reputation as a successful and inspiring teacher had been so widespread that she received frequent invitations to take the superintendence of large public educational institutions, which she always declined. In 1865, however, she received an urgent request to become principal of a newly organized woman's college on a very large scale -Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York- an institution founded on a munificent bequest, with aims and resources greater than perhaps any other such institution in the world.