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MANN, HORACE (1796-1859)

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 587 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MANN, See also:HORACE (1796-1859) , See also:American educationist, was See also:born in See also:Franklin, See also:Massachusetts, on the 4th of May 1796. His childhood and youth were passed in poverty, and his See also:health was See also:early impaired by hard See also:manual labour. His only means for gratifying his eager See also:desire for books was the small library founded in his. native See also:town by See also:Benjamin Franklin and consisting principally of histories and See also:treatises on See also:theology. At the See also:age of twenty he was fitted, in six months, for See also:college, and in 1819, graduated with highest honours, from the See also:Brown University at See also:Providence, Rhode See also:Island, having devoted himself so unremittingly to his studies as to weaken further his naturally feeble constitution. He then studied See also:law for a See also:short See also:time at Wrentham, Massachusetts; was See also:tutor in Latin and See also:Greek (182o-1822) and librarian (1821-1823) at Brown University; studied during 182I-1823 in the famous law school conducted by See also:Judge See also:James See also:Gould at See also:Litchfield, See also:Connecticut; and in 1823 was admitted to the See also:Norfolk (See also:Mass.) See also:bar. For fourteen years, first at See also:Dedham, Massachusetts, and after 1833 at See also:Boston, he devoted himself, with See also:great success, to his profession. Meanwhile he served, with conspicuous ailbity, in the Massachusetts See also:House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833 and in the Massachusetts See also:Senate See also:MANNA 587 from 1833 to 1837 , for the last two years as See also:president. It was not until he became secretary (1837) of the newly created See also:board of See also:education of Massachusetts, that be began the See also:work which was soon to See also:place him in the foremost See also:rank of American educationists. He held this position till 1848, and worked with a remarkable intensity—holding teachers' conventions, delivering numerous lectures and addresses, carrying on an extensive See also:correspondence, introducing numerous reforms, planning and inaugurating the Massachusetts normal school See also:system, See also:founding and editing The See also:Common School See also:Journal (1838), and preparing a See also:series of See also:Annual Reports, which had a wide circulation and are still considered as being " among the best expositions, if, indeed, they are not the very best ones, of the See also:practical benefits of a common school education both to the individual and to the See also:state " (Hinsdale). The practical result of his work ,was the virtual revolutionizing of the common school system of Massachusetts, and indirectly of the common school systems of other states. In carrying out his work he met with See also:bitter opposition, being attacked particularly by certain school-masters of Boston who strongly disapproved of his pedagogical theories and innovations, and by various religious sectaries, who contended against the exclusion of all sectarian instruction from the See also:schools. He answered these attacks in See also:kind, sometimes perhaps with unnecessary vehemence and rancour, but he never faltered in his work, and, an optimist by nature, a See also:disciple of his friend See also:George See also:Combe (q.v.), and a believer in the indefinite improvability of mankind, he was sustained throughout by his conviction that nothing could so much benefit the See also:race, morally, intellectually and materially, as education.

Resigning the secretaryship in 1848, he was elected to the See also:

national House of Representatives as an See also:anti-See also:slavery Whig to succeed See also:John See also:Quincy See also:Adams, and was re-elected in 1849, and, as an See also:independent See also:candidate, in 185o, serving until See also:March 1853. In 1852 he was the candidate of the See also:Free-soilers for the governorship of Massachusetts, but was defeated. In See also:Congress he was one of the ablest opponents of slavery, contending particularly against the See also:Compromise See also:Measures of 185o, but he was never technically an Abolitionist and he disapproved of the Radicalism of See also:Garrison and his followers. From 1853 until his See also:death, on the second of See also:August 1859, he was president of the newly established See also:Antioch College at Yellow Springs, See also:Ohio, where he taught See also:political See also:economy, intellectual and moral See also:philosophy, and natural theology. The college received insufficient See also:financial support and suffered from the attacks of religious sectaries—he himself was charged with insincerity because, previously a Unitarian, he joined the See also:Christian Connexion, by which the college was founded—but he earned the love of his students, and by his many addresses exerted a beneficial See also:influence upon education in the See also:Middle See also:West. A collected edition of Mann's writings, together with a memoir (I vol.) by his second wife, See also:Mary See also:Peabody Mann, a See also:sister of See also:Miss E. P. Peabody, was published (in 5 vols. at Boston in 1867-1891) as the See also:Life and See also:Works of Horace Mann. Of subsequent See also:biographies the best is probably See also:Burke A. Hinsdale's Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the See also:United States (New See also:York, 1898), in " The Great Educators " series. Among other biographies O. H.

See also:

Lang's Horace Mann, his Life and Work (New York, 1893), See also:Albert E. Winship's Horace Mann, the Educator (Boston, 1896), and George A. Hubbell's Life of Horace Mann, Educator, Patriot and Reformer (See also:Philadelphia, 191o), may be mentioned. In vol. I. of the See also:Report for 1895-1896 of the United States See also:commissioner of education There is a detailed " Bibliography of Horace Mann," containing more than 70o titles.

End of Article: MANN, HORACE (1796-1859)

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