Edith Lesley Wolfard began the Lesley School in September, 1909, for the professional instruction of kindergarten teachers. Those first students gathered in the living room of her family home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at a time when the kindergarten movement was an emerging idea and the preparation of women for careers outside the home a radical notion. Lesley University today is among the largest providers of teacher education in the nation through our undergraduate program and our Graduate School of Education, focusing on the educational needs not just in early education, but the preparation of quality teachers in math, science, special education and literacy.