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Horace Mann Whig, Unitarian, “Father of American Education” Born May 4th 1796, Died August 2nd 1859

As a young boy Horace Mann received little education, but graduated and studied law at Brown University. Mann served in the Massachusetts state legislature and was on the board of education. He later went on to serve in the House of Representatives in the late 1840’s. Horace was a strong education reformer who believed that there should be universal education and many public schools available.

For his main goal, Mann pushed for public schools and the education of everyone as well as neutral religious based schools meaning no schools for certain religions. He wanted everyone to be educated and be treated fairly. He also enforced that schools should have all of the tools they need to educate people, higher-payed and educated teachers and a longer and more extensive curriculum. Horace was so passionate and serious about his cause that is it said that he went to every school in Massachusetts and evaluated them to see what they could improve on. This shows that he was completely devoted to better education in America. By bringing all of the kids and teachers together in a learning environment, Mann thought this would be a great experience for them and a great opportunity for the less fortunate people. In these schools, discipline was used when necessary and children learned to be obedient and well behaved. Mann was all for education in America.

In 1838, Mann edited the Common School Journal which criticized the public schools and the problems they presented. The six main problems Mann saw in schools were; the public needs to receive an education, the public should pay for the education of the children or in other words taxes, ethnic diversity will be the best environment for kids to learn in, schools cannot have sectarianism or focus on teaching one religion, a free society must be the driving force behind the education and the teachers should be very skilled and educated themselves. All of these things were problems Horace Mann saw in the small schools there were and these were his ideas on how to make them better. Finally, Horace believed that the children were the future and they had to be educated at a young age if we wanted the future generations of America to prosper.

As a result of Mann's persistence, Massachusetts, soon to be followed by some other states, developed more public schools and strived to better the education industry. Mann got want he wanted in there being more schools and great opportunities for all to learn. With a monetary support from the government and the support of the people, public education would continue to grow and prosper in the United States. Horace Mann was truly an inspirational figure in the development of better education through his strong opinions in the Massachusetts legislature and educational board. Mann was without a doubt the true Founder of American Education.

References

Daniel Webster - Webster was also a lawyer from Massachusetts and had very strong nationalist ideas. The two worked together in Congress. Ohioan William H. McGuffey - His book he published called McGuffey's Readers on morality, patriotism and idealism was very popular in the classrooms were Mann taught. Other women like Susan B. Anthony and Emma Willard helped women gain rights to be educated.

Works Cited

"Horace Mann : Tenth Annual Report to the Secretaryof the Massachusetts State Board of Education." Web. 4 Oct. 2011. [].

"Horace Mann." //Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia//. Web. 04 Oct. 2011. [].

“Horace Mann: Biography from Answers.com." //Answers.com: Wiki Q&A Combined with Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Encyclopedias//. Web. 04 Oct. 2011. [].

"Horace Mann." //University of Notre Dame//. Web. 04 Oct. 2011. .