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Horace Mann
Southworth and Hawes - Horace Mann (Zeno Fotografie) (cropped).jpg
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Massachusetts's 8th district
In office
April 3, 1848 – March 3, 1853
Preceded by John Quincy Adams
Succeeded by Tappan Wentworth
Personal details
Born (1796-05-04)May 4, 1796
Franklin, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died August 2, 1859(1859-08-02) (aged 63)
Yellow Springs, Ohio, U.S.
Resting place North Burial Ground,
Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Political party Whig
Spouses Charlotte Messer Mann (d. 1832)
Mary Peabody Mann
Children 3
Alma mater Brown University
Litchfield Law School
Occupation Lawyer
Educator
College president
Signature

Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 – August 2, 1859) was an American educational reformer, slavery abolitionist and Whig politician. He promoted public education.

Early life and education

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts. His father was a farmer without much money. From ten years of age to twenty, he had no more than six weeks' schooling during any year, but he made use of the Franklin Public Library, the first public library in America.

At the age of twenty, he enrolled at Brown University and graduated in three years as valedictorian (1819).

He then studied law for a short time in Wrentham, Massachusetts and was a tutor of Latin and Greek (1820–1822) and a librarian (1821–1823) at Brown. During 1822, he also studied at Litchfield Law School and, in 1823, was admitted to the bar in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Career

Mann was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1827. In that role he was interested in education, public charities, and laws for the suppression of alcoholic drinks and lotteries. He established an asylum in Worcester, and in 1833 was chairman of its board of trustees. Mann continued to be returned to the legislature as a representative from Dedham until his removal to Boston in 1833.

He was elected to the Massachusetts State Senate from Boston in 1835 and was its president in 1836–1837. As a member of the Senate, he spent time as the majority leader, and foced on funding the construction of railroads and canals.

In 1848, after public service as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, Mann was elected to the United States House of Representatives (1848–1853).

From September 1852 to his death, he served as President of Antioch College. There he taught economics, philosophy, and theology; he was popular with students and with lay audiences across the Midwest who attended his lectures promoting public schools.

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

Education reform

It was not until he was appointed Secretary in 1837 of the newly created Massachusetts Board of Education that he began the work which was to make him one of America's most influential educational reformers. Upon starting his duties, he withdrew from all other professional or business engagements as well as politics.

As Secretary of Education, Mann held teachers' conventions, delivered numerous lectures and addresses, carried on an extensive correspondence, and introduced numerous reforms.

He advocated for taking on more female teaching stuff as he believed that women were better suited for teaching. He also created a program to train professinal teachers (the normal schools). The normal schools trained mostly women, giving them new career opportunities as teachers.

He also spoke for establishing tax-funded elementary public schools and opposed the use of corporal punishment in schools. Mann traveled to every School in the state so he could physically examine each school ground.

In 1838, he founded and edited The Common School Journal. In this journal, Mann targeted the public school and its problems. His six main principles were:

  1. the public should no longer remain ignorant;
  2. that such education should be paid for, controlled, and sustained by an interested public;
  3. that this education will be best provided in schools that embrace children from a variety of backgrounds;
  4. that this education must be non-sectarian;
  5. that this education must be taught using the tenets of a free society; and
  6. that education should be provided by well-trained, professional teachers.

At his own expense, he went to Europe in 1843 to visit schools, especially in Prussia and publish a report based on his experience.

Mann hoped that by bringing all children of all classes together, they could have a common learning experience. This would also allow the less fortunate to advance in the social scale. Mann also suggested that being at school would help those students who did not have appropriate discipline in the home, as he believed that building a person's character was just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mann also believed that education should be separated from the church.

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.

Approach to reading

Mann condemned the alphabet method. He believed that "children's earliest books should teach whole words, skipping the alphabet and the sounds of the letters", though he may have been confused between "the alphabet method of learning letters through words and a word method, now called the look-and-say method, or learning to read through saying the word as a whole".

Mann's endorsement of "word method" for reading instruction made a lasting impression on other reformers of the period, and "by 1890 the alphabet method had virtually died out". Francis Parker and John Dewey used the "word method" as one of the features of the "Progressive" system of education.

The backlash against "word method" culminated in a 1955 book Why Johnny Can't Read by Rudolf Flesch, in which he condemned this method for "treating children as if they were dogs" and recommended returning to teaching phonics. Nevertheless, the "ill-informed, ineffective reading instruction" remains the norm in American colleges of education and, accordingly, in American elementary schools.

Abolitionism

In the spring of 1848 he was elected to the United States Congress as a Whig to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams. Mann was a staunch opponent of slavery as a member of Congress.

Personal life

In 1830, Mann married Charlotte Messer, who was the daughter of the president of Brown University. She died two years later on August 1, 1832, and he never fully recovered from the intense grief and shock that accompanied her death.

In 1843, he married Mary Tyler Peabody. Afterward, the couple accompanied Samuel Gridley Howe and Julia Ward Howe on a dual honeymoon to Europe. They then purchased a home in West Newton, Massachusetts at the corner of Chestnut and Highland Streets. Horace and Mary had three sons: Horace Mann Jr., George Combe Mann, and Benjamin Pickman Mann.

Mann was the great-grandson of Samuel Man.

Death

He died in the summer of 1859 from typhoid fever. 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.)

Interesting facts about Horace Mann

  • Mann learned Greek and Latin from Samuel Barrett, who later became a famous Unitarian minister.
  • Most U.S. states adopted a version of the system Mann established in Massachusetts, especially the program for normal schools to train professional teachers.
  • Educational historians credit Horace Mann, along with Henry Barnard and Catherine Beecher as one of the major advocates of the Common School Movement.
  • President of Antioch College, Mann employed the first female faculty member to be paid on an equal basis with her male colleagues, Rebecca Pennell, his niece.

Horace Mann quotes

  • “A house without books is like a room without windows.”
  • “Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves.”
  • “Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.”
  • “Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge.”
  • “Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.”

Commemoration

Horace Mann2 1940 Issue-1c
Mann on a 1940 stamp from the Famous Americans series

Many places around the world are named after Mann. Among them are more than 50 public schools in the United States.

Horace Mann by Emma Stebbins - Boston, MA - DSC05471
Statue of Horace Mann (1863) by Emma Stebbins

Horace Mann's statue stands in front of the Massachusetts State House along with that of Daniel Webster.

At Antioch College, a monument carries his quote, which has been recently adopted as the college motto: "Be Ashamed to Die Until You Have Won Some Victory for Humanity."

The University of Northern Colorado named the gates to their campus in his dedication, a gift of the Class of 1910.

The Springfield, Illinois-based Illinois Education Association Mutual Insurance Company, was renamed in honor of Mann in 1950 as the Horace Mann Educators Corporation.

Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, has a building named Horace Mann School. It currently houses the Student Welcoming Center.

In Massachusetts, public charter schools that are authorized by local school districts are known as Horace Mann charters.

Horace Mann School Main Entrance February 2012
Horace Mann School, the Bronx, New York City

Schools

Horace Mann House, Brown University
Horace Mann House at Brown University, Mann's alma mater

College and University Buildings

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Horace Mann Sr. para niños

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