Horace Mann, American Education Reformer

Horace Mann, American Education Reformer

Horace Mann (May 4, 1796 - August 2, 1859) was an American education reformer. As a politician he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was elected to the US House of Representatives. Mann was a brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican citizens, Mann won widespread approval from modernizers, especially in his Whig Party, for building public schools. Most states adopted one version or another of the system he established in Massachusetts, especially the program for "normal schools" to train professional teachers. Mann has been credited by educational historians as the "Father of the Common School Movement". 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. He also employed the first woman faculty member to be paid on an equal basis with her male colleague. He died in 1859 at the age of 63.

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