Fidelia Heard

[3] Together, she and her husband were the first to observe the remote island, and she provided the first written description of it:[1][5][6][7][8]"At 10 o'clock the Captain was walking on deck and saw what he supposed to be an immense iceberg.

[1][4] Transcripts of her journal and the log book of the Oriental were donated by her grandson, Joseph Jay Heard, and Hubert Wilkins to the American Geographical Society in the early 1930s.

[15] Although Elizabeth Peabody, who lectured and wrote extensively on early childhood education, is usually credited with opening the first kindergarten in Boston, the Boston Evening Transcript, in an article published soon after Mrs. Heard's death in 1895, acknowledged her as the "pioneer" of the kindergarten movement:[16] Although never claiming recognition for herself, and happy in her own memories of the early history of the establishment of this system in America, and glad to have others win honors and fame for their share in this great work, yet her name is inseparably connected with this movement, and must be spoken with tender reverence as the pioneer in this great revolution in the methods in the training of young children and in the establishment of the kindergarten here.

In 1860, thirty-five years ago, in the midst of a sad bereavement in which she was forced to provide for her children, she made known to a few friends her plans, which had been slowly maturing, for the opening of a school in Boston, in which she had wrought out the germs of the system which has now taken its place as the true method in all primary education.

With great enthusiasm she provided herself with the English translations of his text books, mastered them, and, through the interest and sympathy of Dr. Hale, a school was started, the first kindergarten in America.