She is known for her work educating young women and for advancing a moral philosophy that advocated living a virtuous life, rather than one based on rules and punishment.

[3] As a child she disagreed with the imposition of religious practices and was greatly affected by the French Revolution of 1848, which happened when she was thirteen years old.

Frèrejean, this Protestant school emphasized the personal will and good mental habits over strict punishment or rigid oversight.

In the preface of one of his books, he said of her, "Her name ought to be beside mine on all the works to which over the last four years she has so faithfully contributed and for which I found, in her mind and heart, the surest guide.

[6] In 1881, Jules Ferry, the French Minister of National Education, named Velten Favre director of the Ècole Normale Supérieure de Sèvres.

[1] As an educator, Velten Favre frequently pulled excerpts from classical and modern philosophers such as Aristotle, the Stoics, Plato, Socrates, Molière and Ralph Waldo Emerson for her students to read and discuss.