HORACE MANN (1796-1859)

Literature.—Mrs. Mary T. Mann, Life of Horace Mann; Hinsdale, Horace Mann; Winship, Horace Mann, the Educator; Lang, Horace Mann; F. W. Parker, Article in Educational Review, Vol. XII, p. 65; Wm. T. Harris, Educational Review, Vol. XII, p. 105; Martin, Education in Massachusetts.

Colonel Parker says, "It would be difficult to find a child ten years of age in our sixty-five millions who does not know of Abraham Lincoln or George Washington; but the third, at least, in the list of the builders of the American republic is not known to millions of intelligent people. Washington and Lincoln represent the highest types of heroism, patriotism, and wisdom in great crises of republic-building; Horace Mann, the quiet inner building, the soul-development of the nation."[164]

Horace Mann was born at Franklin, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. Inured to the hard work of the farm, with but a few weeks' schooling in the winter, never blessed with very rugged health, left at the age of thirteen by the death of his father with the responsibilities of a man, it is no wonder that he "retained only painful recollections of the whole period which ought to be, with every child, a golden age to look back upon."[165]When nearly twenty years of age, through the influence of Mr. Barrett, an eccentric teacher who came to the village, he decided to go to college, and in six months he prepared for the sophomore class of Brown University. This preparation was a tremendous undertaking which broke down his health for life. He now had an opportunity to satisfy the cravings for knowledge, which the hardships of his early life had not been able to stifle. He was graduated with the highest honors of his class and decided to study law. He spent two years at Brown University as tutor, meanwhile privately studying law, and then resigned that position to enter the law school at Litchfield, Connecticut. Two years later, at the age of twenty-seven, he was admitted to the bar.

As Statesman.—He was called upon to serve his state in the legislature, and later as representative in Congress.[166]

The year 1837 marks a new epoch in the educational history of Massachusetts. "Although Massachusetts had had schools for nearly two centuries, the free school had been, to a great degree, a charity school the country over.... Horace Mann, like Thomas Jefferson, saw clearly that there could be no evolution of a free people without intelligence and morality, and looked upon the common school as the fundamental means of development of men and women who could govern themselves. He saw clearly that the whole problem of the republic which was presenting itself to intelligent educated men rested upon the idea of public education."[167]

As Educator.—Accordingly, having secured the passage of a law establishing a State Board of Education, Mr. Mann was made its secretary at a salary of one thousand dollars a year. To accept this work, he gave up a lucrative law practice, fine prospects of political preferment, and probable fortune, as well as professional fame. He entered upon an educational campaign full of discouragement, colossal in its undertaking, and sure to arouse bitterest animosities. Of this period Colonel Parker says, "The story of his early struggles in this direction has not yet been written. When it is, it will reveal a profound depth of heroism rarely equaled in the history of the world." Mr. Mann visited all parts of the state, lecturing to parents and stimulating the teachers. He was often received with coldness, sometimes with active hostility.

His Annual Reports.—But he persevered until the whole state was awakened. He continued in this work for twelve years, and presented its results in his Annual Reports, the most remarkable documents of American educational literature.[168] In the meantime, he visited Europe, studied the schools, and gave the results of his investigations in his celebrated Seventh Annual Report.

Mr. Martin summarizes the work of Horace Mann during these twelve years as follows: "In the evolution of the Massachusetts public schools during these twelve years of Mr. Mann's labors, statistics tell us that the appropriations for public schools had doubled; that more than two million dollars had been spent in providing better schoolhouses; that the wages of men as teachers had increased sixty-two per cent, of women fifty-one per cent, while the whole number of women employed as teachers had increased fifty-four per cent; one month had been added to the average length of the schools; the ratio of private school expenditures to those of the public schools had diminished from seventy-five per cent to thirty-six per cent; the compensation of school committees had been made compulsory, and their supervision was more general and more constant; three normal schools had been established, and had sent out several hundred teachers, who were making themselves felt in all parts of the state."[169]

Love for the Common Schools.—He believed most fully in the common school, declaring that, "This institution is the greatest discovery ever made by man.... In two grand characteristic attributes, it is supereminent over all others: first in its universality, for it is capacious enough to receive and cherish in its parental bosom every child that comes into the world; and second, in the timeliness of the aid it proffers,—its early, seasonable supplies of counsel and guidance making security antedate danger."

In his first Annual Report Mr. Mann asserts that, "The object of the common school system is to give to every child a free, straight, solid pathway, by which he can walk directly up from the ignorance of an infant to a knowledge of the primary duties of man." Horace Mann could hardly have anticipated the kindergarten for the infant years, and the high school at the end of the course, as they now stand in the common school systems of our country. And yet, what has already been accomplished in our educational scheme fulfills the prophecy implied in his words.

The best known and most important of Mr. Mann's written documents is his Seventh Annual Report, in which he gives an account of European schools. Concerning this Mr. Winship says, "He had made a crisis, and his Seventh Report was an immortal document; opposition to the normal schools was never more to be heard in the land, and oral instruction, the word method, and less corporal punishment were certain to come to the Boston schools."[170]

After severing his connection with the State Board of Education, Mr. Mann served in Congress from 1848 to 1853, and was defeated in his candidacy for governor of Massachusetts. At the age of fifty-six he accepted the presidency of Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, a position which he held until his death in 1859. He closed his last address to the graduating class at Antioch with these noble words: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." He himself had won many great victories for humanity,—in the improvement of the common school systems of his native country; in the establishment of free schools; in the founding of normal schools where teachers might be trained; in the adoption of milder means of discipline; in the improvement of schoolhouses; in the better support of schools; in better methods of instruction; and in the inspiration he gave to teachers for all time. Therefore he at least had no need to be "ashamed to die."

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