Two Ministers from England, Rev. Hoby and Rev. Cox, visited and observed the school in action for several days.
Their fascinating account – not unlike a NEASC Visiting Committee Report – was published in an 1836 Baptist Journal (digital copy available in the NHS Archives). The two were very favorably impressed with the Female Seminary and wished England might have schools like New Hampton. Rev. Hoby and Rev. Cox recounted many details of their visit to NHS. They had particular praise for the female division and its head, noting that, “Miss Hazeltine has risen to merited distinction. The powers of her mind, her attainments, and a happy facility in teaching early marked her as likely to excel in this arduous and responsible station. Two or three able associates take their respective departments, in most efficient and harmonious cooperation with the lady president. Many Many young ladies from Boston have received their education there; and its advancing celebrity has led to the intention of erecting a new and more spacious edifice.”[1] Hoby and Cox wished the United Kingdom could begin to model such centers of learning for women, concluding that, “the great mass of females with us, grow up comparatively in ignorance of much that is taught at New Hampton.”[2]
[1] Baptists in America; A Narrative of the Deputation from the Baptist Union in England to the United States and Canada by Rev. Francis A. Cox and Rev. James Hoby. London [1836]. Pp. 389-90.
[2] Ibid, p.397.
