[6][7][8][9] Eaton's popular lectures and writings inspired numerous thinkers, in particular women, whom he encouraged to attend his public talks on experimental philosophy.

He belonged to a family that traced its lineage to John Eaton, who arrived from Dover, England in 1635, settling two years later in Dedham, Massachusetts Bay Colony.

In New York, Eaton formed an association with naturalists David Hosack and Samuel L. Mitchill and under their influence, he became committed to the natural sciences, and in particular botany.

Nevertheless, Eaton pursued a legal career and arranged to study law with Elisha Williams, of Spencertown, and Josiah Ogden, of New York.

[6][14] On his release in 1815, Eaton moved to New Haven at Yale College to take up the study of botany, chemistry and mineralogy under the tuition of Benjamin Silliman and Eli Ives.

He then returned to Williams College to offer a course of lectures and volunteer classes of the students on botany, mineralogy zoology, and geology and published a botanical dictionary.

[5] Eaton immediately set about to develop a new kind of institution devoted to the application of science to life, a modern scientific prospectus, new methods of instruction and examination, recognizing women in higher education, and practical training for adults.

Eaton also often led day excursions, taking students to observe the application of science on nearby farms and in workshops, tanneries, and bleaching factories.

[15] Eaton's principal focus was the training of students to teach science and its applications to the New York farming community via experimental demonstrations, a goal in keeping with Britain's mechanics' institutes and lyceum movements on diffusing useful knowledge.

As a result, Eaton's system of instruction posed a challenge, if not a threat, to the traditional liberal-arts colleges, causing them to expand their own curricula and set up departments or schools of engineering and science.

After becoming professor of natural history at Harvard College in 1842, Asa Gray required some practical work of all of his students in botany along the lines established by Amos Eaton.

[10] Eaton was interested in education for women, he had lectured them on his tour of New England, and he was persuaded that their failure in science was caused by inferior opportunity, not "perversion of female genius."

His commitment to the cause led Eaton to enroll a class of eight young women in a special mathematics course to show that they could advance beyond "the speculative geometry and algebra as generally practiced in female seminaries."