In 1839 Sarah Sleeper (NHS Class of 1832) advanced from “able associate” of Ms. Hazeltine’s to the second Head of the New Hampton Female Seminary. When she departed in 1847, she sailed to Bangkok to spend the remainder of her 42 years in missionary work. She wrote:
“It was my ambition when I came to Siam [Thailand] to have a school such as we had in New Hampton. This is the way it stood in my mind. New Hampton was a school for the middle class. It expended its strength on the workers. We sent teachers and ministers and useful men and women to influence society everywhere and to influence it for good… It was the spirit of the school to fire the pupils with an enthusiasm to be useful to their fellow men.”*
Again, there is little doubt that word spread far and wide about the benefits of an NHS education.
*J. C. Gowan, “Martha Hazeltine – Educational Pioneer” in Educational Horizons, Vol 34. No. 2 (Winter 1955) p.181.
