Information about Horace Mann

This article is about an early leader in education; for the private school located in New York City, see Horace Mann School. For other uses of the name, see Horace Mann (disambiguation).

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Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859) was an American education reformer and abolitionist. He was also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

He was a brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne, since their wives were sisters. '''

Education and early career

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. His childhood and youth were passed in poverty, and his health was impaired early by hard, manual labor. His only means for gratifying his eager desire for books was the small library founded in his native town by Benjamin Franklin and consisting principally of histories and treatises on theology.

He graduated as valedictorian of his class from Brown University in 1819. He then studied law for a short time at Wrentham, Massachusetts; was a tutor of Latin and Greek (1820-1822) and a librarian (1821-1823) at Brown University; studied during 1821-1823 at Litchfield Law School (the famous law school conducted by Judge James Gould in Litchfield, Connecticut); and in 1823, was admitted to the Norfolk, Massachusetts, bar. For fourteen years, first at Dedham, Massachusetts, and after 1833 at Boston, he devoted himself, with great success, to his profession. While in Dedham, home of the nation's first free, tax-supported public school, he served on the school committee. ^[1] Meanwhile he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833 and in the Massachusetts Senate from 1833 to 1837, for the last two years as Senate President. ^[1]

Education reform

It was not until he was appointed head (1837) of the newly created board of education of Massachusetts that he began the work which was soon to place him in the foremost rank of American educationists. He held this position, and worked with a remarkable intensity, holding teachers' conventions, delivering numerous lectures and addresses, carrying on an extensive correspondence, introducing numerous reforms, planning and inaugurating the Massachusetts normal school system in Lexington and Bridgewater, founding and editing The Common School Journal (1838), and preparing a series of Annual Reports, which had a wide circulation and are still considered as being "among the best expositions, if, indeed, they are not the very best ones, of the practical benefits of a common school education both to the individual and to the state" (Hinsdale). Most importantly, he worked effectively for more and better equipped school houses, longer school years (until 16 years old), higher pay for teachers and a wider curriculum.

In 1852, he supported governor Edward Everett in the decision to adopt the Prussian education system in Massachusetts.

Shortly after Everett and Mann collaborated to adopt the Prussian system, the Governor of New York set up the same method in twelve different New York schools on a trial basis.

The practical result of Mann's work was a revolution in the approach used in the common school system of Massachusetts, which in turn influenced the direction of other states. In carrying out his work, Mann met with bitter opposition by some Boston schoolmasters who strongly disapproved of his pedagogy and innovations ^[3], and by various religious sectarians, who contended against the exclusion of all sectarian instruction from the schools. He is often considered "the father of American public education" ^[4].

Leadership of Antioch College

From 1853 until his death in 1859, he was president of the newly established Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, where he taught political economy, intellectual and moral philosophy, and natural theology. The college received insufficient financial support due to sectarian infighting — he himself was charged with nonadherence to sectarianism because, previously a Calvinist by upbringing, he joined the Unitarian Church. The college was founded by the Christian Connexion, who later withdrew their funding, but he earned the love of his students and by his many addresses exerted a beneficial influence upon education in the Midwest. Horace Mann also employed the first female faculty member to be paid on an equal basis with her male colleagues, Rebecca Pennell. His commencement message to the class of 1859 to "be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity" is repeated to the graduating class at each commencement. ^[5] He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence, Rhode Island.

A collected edition of Mann's writings, together with a memoir by his second wife, Mary Peabody Mann, was published as The Life and Works of Horace Mann. Of subsequent biographies the best is probably Burke A. Hinsdale's Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (New York, 1898), in the Great Educators series. Among other biographies O. H. Lang's Horace Mann, his Life and Work (New York, 1893), Albert E. Winship's Horace Mann, the Educator (Boston, 1896), and George A. Hubbell's Life of Horace Mann, Educator, Patriot and Reformer (Philadelphia, 1910), may be mentioned. In Vol. I of the Report for 1895-1896 of the United States commissioner of education there is a detailed Bibliography of Horace Mann, containing more than 700 titles.

Legacy

Antioch College continues to operate in accordance with the egalitarian and humanitarian values of Horace Mann. A monument including his statue stands in lands belonging to the college in Yellow Springs, Ohio with his quote and college motto "Be Ashamed to Die Until You Have Won Some Victory for Humanity." The Antioch University Board of Trustees voted in June of 2007 to suspend operations at Antioch College until 2012 and begin plans to demolish the campus and build a high density corporate retreat center and retirement village with a small undergraduate program. Antioch College alumni are vowing to keep the college open without interruption refashioning Mann's famous quote to "Be Ashamed to Let it Die."

Many cities and towns in Massachusetts have a school named after Mann. An elementary school in northwest Washington, D.C. is named after him. It stands near American University. The Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Boston, Massachusetts is also named after him, as well as the Horace Mann Middle School in Charleston, WV and the Horace Mann School in riverdale, NY]], an elementary school. In Marstons Mills (Cape Cod), Massachusetts there is a fifth/sixth grade school named after him, it is called Horace Mann Charter School. There is also an elementary school in Salem, Massachusetts named after him that is called Horace Mann Laboratory School. In Redmond, Washington there is an elementary school also named after him. Wisconsin has about seven schools named after him.

Additionally schools outside of Massachusetts have things dedicated to Mann. The University of Northern Colorado has a gate to their campus dedicated to him.

Further reading

• Larson, Robert W; Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, (1989). Shaping educational change : the first century of the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley. ISBN 0-87081-172-X.

Notes

External links

• Mann's work and how it related to his time and lessons for students
• Mann statue at the Massachusetts State House

Preceded by John Quincy Adams

Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's At-large congressional district April 31848-March 31853

Succeeded by Tappan Wentworth