At Downer College, women who studied the four professions developed leadership in fields Catharine Beecher never heard of. Nursing evolved to a new science - Occupational Therapy. Downer O.T.'s became military officers who served in every corner of the globe. Teaching developed every kind of educator from elementary and secondary to special educators, reading specialists, administrators, and college professors. Downer writers became journalists and authors. Downer Mountebanks became award-winning stage actresses. The home economists became chemists and corporate executives for corporations like Pilsbury and Monsanto. All the physical development emphasized in the Beecher Plan, and by Ellen Sabin, helped create a professional field in Physical Education. The Downer crew shells at Lawrence are reminders of the emphasis on physical development for women.

from the ANNOUNCEMENT OF 1852…

"By these principles we have aimed to be guided, and, so far as we may be able, we shall teach sciences rather than books, and the great principles which lie at the foundation of right character rather than the details of science. For the highest discipline of the intellectual powers, we shall depend, not entirely upon the abstruse processes in Mathematics, but upon learning their application and upon studying human character and human duty as developed in History, Mental and Moral Philosophy and the Bible."