Jane Bancroft Robinson

While in Fort Edward, she took private lessons in advanced studies, and in the fall of 1876 entered Syracuse University as a member of the senior class, and was graduated from that institution in 1877.

She was also received as a student in the École pratique des hautes études, being the first woman to hear lectures in the literary department of that school.

Visiting London before her return to the United States, she became deeply interested in the deaconess work as illustrated in different institutions there and studied it carefully.

She returned to the United States, convinced that that social and religious movement might prove a great agency in the uplifting of the poor and the degraded of her native land.

Her wide information and executive ability were at once pressed into service for developing deaconess work in the United States, where it had already gained a foothold.

[1] At the invitation of its officers, in 1888 she took full charge of the department of deaconess work in the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

She visited most of the large cities of the United States, speaking in behalf of the deaconess cause, and interesting the women of different Protestant churches by means of parlor meetings and public lectures.

[1] [2] In 1889 she published her most important work, entitled "Deaconesses in Europe and their Lessons for America," which was the leading authority in the United States upon the subject.