He visited Massachusetts schools to determine their needs and went to Europe in 1843 to research educational institutions there.
Lemay horae mann professional#
A national spokesman for education reform, he wrote numerous books and founded and edited The Common School Journal, a periodical that successful spread the message that public schools should be more open and nurturing, with a wider curriculum delivered by professional teachers. Mann’s ideas reached far beyond the borders of the Bay State. The orthodox Congregationalists of New England opposed many of Mann’s reforms. Such openness merely reflected the liberal theology of his Unitarianism. Children were to be exposed to the words and moral teachings of the Bible but would not be indoctrinated to any specific denomination. Like his friend Howe, Mann was a Unitarian, and his inclusion of the Bible in school curriculum was based on Unitarian doctrine. The common school would mitigate class conflict, circumvent anarchy, enhance civic engagement, and perhaps most importantly inculcate moral habits, all by molding society’s most malleable members. From that pulpit, to which he was appointed in 1837, Mann would spread the gospel of education as social redemption. The most influential post he occupied, however, was that of Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Mann held numerous political offices in Massachusetts state government in 1820s and 1830s, and he represented Massachusetts as an anti-slavery Whig in the House of Representatives from 1848 to 1853, taking the seat vacated by the death of John Quincy Adams. The reform movement he led sought to create the virtuous republican citizenry needed to sustain American political institutions, the educated workforce required to expand the American economy, and the disciplined generation necessary to forestall the social disorders so common in American cities in the decades before the Civil War.īrother-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne and close friend of Samuel Gridley Howe, Mann was well connected to the cultural and political elite of New England. An ardent member of the Whig Party, Mann argued that the common school, a free, universal, non-sectarian, and public institution, was the best means of achieving the moral and socioeconomic uplift of all Americans. Horace Mann (1796-1859), “The Father of the Common School Movement,” was the foremost proponent of education reform in antebellum America. Horace Mann And The Creation Of The Common School
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