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).

Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859) was an American education reformer, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Republican) from 1848 to 1853. He was a brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne, their wives being sisters.

Education and early career

Horace Mann was born on May 4, 1796,^[1] in Franklin, Massachusetts. As a child, he made use of a town library founded by Benjamin Franklin. He enrolled at Brown University at the age of 20, and graduated after three years^[2] as valedictorian of his class 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. He also studied during 1821-1823 at Litchfield Law School (the law school conducted by Judge Tapping Reeve in Litchfield, Connecticut), and in 1823, was admitted to the Norfolk, Massachusetts, bar. In 1830, Mann married Charlotte Messer, though she died only two years later on August 1, 1832. His grief over her death never fully subsided.^[3]

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.^[4] 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.^[4]

Education reform

It was not until he was appointed secretary (1837) of the newly created board of education of Massachusetts that he began the work which was 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, and introducing numerous reforms. He planned and inaugurated the Massachusetts normal school system in Lexington and Bridgewater, founded and edited The Common School Journal (1838), and began 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).

Mann's reforms included the establishment of a single school system throughout the state instead of separate local school districts.^[5] He urged separate classrooms for students at different levels of learning, and discouraged learning by rote and flogging as punishment.^[5] 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 innovative pedagogical ideas ^[6], 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".^[7]

Leadership of Antioch College and last years

Original daguerreotype of Rep. Mann (Mass.) from Mathew Brady's studio, c. 1849.

He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence, Rhode Island, next to his first wife, Charlotte Messer Mann. (Charlotte Messer Mann was the daughter of Asa Messer, an early president of Brown University.)

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."

There are a number of schools in the U.S. named for Mann, including ones in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Iowa City, Iowa, Lakewood, Ohio; Indiana, Pennsylvania; Arkansas; Washington, D.C.; Bakersfield, California; San Jose, California; Charleston, West Virginia; Marstons Mills, Massachusetts; Salem, Massachusetts; Wichita, Kansas; Redmond, Washington; Fargo, North Dakota; St. Louis, Missouri; Chicago, Illinois; Mt. Vernon, Illinois; Binghamton, New York ; Brandon, Florida; North Bergen, New Jersey; Colorado Springs, Colorado, Ottumwa, Iowa, and the Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York; Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, Massachusetts; Horace Mann High School, North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, Horace Mann Middle School in Wausau, Wisconsin, Escuela de la Comunidad Horace Mann in Cataņo, Puerto Rico and a now-closed school in Gary, Indiana. The University of Northern Colorado named the gates to their campus in his dedication, a gift of the Class of 1910.^[9]

Further reading

• Mann, Horace. The Life and Works of Horace Mann, with introduction by his second wife, Mary Peabody Mann.
• Hinsdale, Burke A. Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (New York, 1898), in the Great Educators series
• Hubbell, George A. Life of Horace Mann, Educator, Patriot and Reformer (Philadelphia, 1910)
• Lang, O. H. Horace Mann, his Life and Work (New York, 1893)
• 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.
• Messerli, Jonathan. Horace Mann; a biography (New York, 1972)
• Winship, Albert E. Horace Mann, the Educator (Boston, 1896)

Notes

External links

• Mann on education and national welfare
• Mann's contribution's to education
• Mary Peabody Mann

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