Wheaton College is a four-year, private liberal arts college with an approximate student body of 1,550. Wheaton's residential campus is located in Norton, Massachusetts, between Boston, Massachusetts and Providence, Rhode Island. Founded in 1834 as a female seminary, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. Wheaton became a women's college in 1912. The school began admitting men in 1988, after more than 150 years as a female-only institution. Most classes are relatively small: the student-faculty ratio is 10:1 and the average class size is between 15 and 20. In 1834, Eliza Wheaton Strong, the daughter of Judge Laban Wheaton, died at the age of thirty-nine. Eliza Baylies Chapin Wheaton, the Judge's daughter-in-law, persuaded him to memorialize his daughter by founding a female seminary. The family called upon noted women's educator Mary Lyon for assistance in establishing the seminary. Miss Lyon created the first curriculum with the goal that it be equal in quality to those of men's colleges. She also provided the first principal, Eunice Caldwell.