Horace Mann
1796 – 1859 American educator, reformer, politician
American reformer known as the father of the common school for building tax funded public education.
- Religion
- Unitarian.
- Affiliations
- First secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education; leader of the common school movement.
As the first secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education from 1837, Horace Mann led the common school movement for free, universal, nonsectarian public education. He pushed for trained teachers, longer school terms, and state normal schools to prepare them. His widely read annual reports spread these ideas across the United States and abroad.
Connections
- associate of Henry Barnard — Fellow leader of the common school movement who shared his goals.
- associate of Henry Barnard — Worked in parallel to build tax funded common schools.
- rival of John Taylor Gatto — Gatto argued that Mann's Prussian-inspired common school helped build a system of enforced conformity; this is his critique, not a settled reading of Mann.
In the timeline
- 1837 Horace Mann leads the common school movement central figure
- 1837 Horace Mann launches the American common school central figure
- 1840 Massachusetts School Committee holds secret schooling discussions mentioned
- 1840 Orestes Brownson publishes 'The Laboring Classes' mentioned
- 1843 Horace Mann's Seventh Report praises Prussian schooling central figure
- 1843 Children make up half of American coal miners mentioned
- 1844 Horace Mann's European tour and Seventh Report central figure
- 1859 Horace Mann's Antioch College commencement address central figure