Horace Mann

Horace Mann , 1796-1859, American educator, b. Franklin, Mass. He received a sparse preliminary schooling, but succeeded in entering Brown in the sophomore class and graduated with honors in 1819. He studied law, was admitted (1823) to the Massachusetts bar, and practiced in Dedham, Mass., and in Boston. He entered the state legislature in 1827, became speaker of the senate (1835), and was made secretary of the newly created (1837) state board of education at a time when the public school system was in very bad condition. Within his 12-year period of service, public interest was aroused, a movement for better teaching and better-paid teachers was instigated, school problems and statistics were brought to light and discussed, training schools for teachers were established, and schoolhouses and equipment were immeasurably improved. In 1843, Mann studied educational conditions abroad, and in 1848 he was elected to Congress as an antislavery Whig. He ran unsuccessfully for governor of Massachusetts in 1852. In 1853 he became the first president of Antioch College, where he also taught philosophy and theology. He died there, having achieved considerable success in demonstrating the practicality of coeducation and in raising the academic standards of the college. His second wife was Mary T. Peabody, sister of Elizabeth Peabody .

Bibliography: See M. T. P. Mann et al., ed., The Life and Works of Horace Mann (5 vol., 1891); biographies by J. Messerli (1972) and R. B. Downs (1974); B. A. Hinsdale, Horace Mann and the Common School Revival in the United States (1937); Selective and Critical Bibliography of Horace Mann (comp. by the Federal Writers' Project of Massachusetts, 1937).

Mann, Horace (1796–1859),secretary of the Massachusetts state board of education (1837–48), raised the standards and improved the equipment of the free schools of the state. His influence was widespread, and he was instrumental in improving common school education throughout the U.S. In 1852 he founded and became the first president of Antioch College, a progressive institution. He was also identified with such liberal movements as the Free‐Soil party, temperance agitation, and efforts to establish state insane asylums. His Lectures on Education was published in 1845.

Mary Tyler Peabody Mann (1806–87), his wife, a sister of Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, aided him in his educational and philanthropic work and published the self‐effacing Life and Works of Horace Mann (3 vols., 1865–68).