USH - Horace Mann - Church

Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts on May 4, 1796 and died on August 2, 1859 at the age of 63. He was an American education reformer and abolitionist (he was also a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives). His childhood and youth were spent in poverty, and he was never fully healthy, the early hard, manual labor taking a toll on his small body. The only way he was able to read as he so avidly loved to do, was to borrow books from the small library in his town that consisted primarily of histories and essays on theology. He did attend Brown University at the age of 20, graduating as the valedictorian of his class after only three years. Following this, he spent time as a tutor (Latin and Greek), a librarian, and a law student.

When he was appointed the head of the newly created board of education of Massachusetts in 1837 (age 41), he then began the work that would soon “place him in the foremost rank of American educationists.” He held teachers’ conventions, delivered lectures and addresses, carried on widespread communication, and introduced numerous reforms. Mann was basically responsible for the normal school system in Massachusetts (created to train high school graduates to be teachers; most now called teachers colleges).

Mann’s reforms included establishing a single school system throughout the state, rather than many separate local school districts. He encouraged the idea of having separate classrooms depending on education level, and discouraged the use of simple memorization (rather than true learning) as a form of learning. More 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.”

The practical result of his work was a revolution in the approach used in the public school system of Massachusetts. This change then influenced the school system of other states. Although he was met with bitter opposition by those who disagreed with his theories on learning or those who “contended against the exclusion of all sectarian instruction from the schools,” he is often considered “the father of American public education.”