Horace Mann
(1796-1859) Horace Mann
“I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
-- Horace Mann
Horace Mann's brief Biography
Horace Mann was born in Massachusetts in 1796. He was very intelligent as a child and as he grew older, he took interest in social reform and education. Mann only received 10 weeks of schooling throughout the year.He worked in the Senate and also worked in the House of Representatives. Mann wanted to reform the degrading Massachusetts education system, so he became the secretary of the nation's first board of education. His moral stance made him a good leader. He lectured about education to American citizens. Mann's reform ideas were controversial among many, but his words are still prevalent today. He was known as the father of education or of the common school movement. He created the common school journal which ultimately led to the importance or the necessity of an education system.He wanted to prove that free schools weren't only for people who were inferior in social class. He went through countless amounts of hardships to develop the public elementary school as a component in antebellum period in America.
Mann's Six PRinciples of Education
- Citizens cannot maintain both ignorance and freedom.
- This education should be paid for, controlled, and maintained by the public.
- This education should be provided in schools that embrace children from varying backgrounds.
- This education must be nonsectarian.
- This education must be taught using tenets of a free society.
- This education must be provided by well-trained, professional teachers.