Lesley University

and unique, a focus that remains today at Lesley University.
Edith Lesley, after having lived in Panama and Maine and studied in Freiburg, Germany, moved to Boston and became involved with public school teaching. She completed kindergarten training, took courses at Radcliffe College, and then began to plan her own kindergarten training school. She wanted a school that would "consider the individual of basic importance; to inculcate the idea of gracious living; and to foster the tradition of American democracy." [quote from "A Century of Innovation," Brown and Forinash, eds.] Now married, Lesley and her husband expanded the school by constructing an addition at the rear of their home, which today is known as Livingston Stebbins Hall.
Around 1913, the Lesley School began training for elementary teachers. In 1941, the Lesley School reorganized under a board of trustees; in 1944, it received authority to award baccalaureate degrees and became known as Lesley College. In 1954, the college began to award graduate degrees; …