Horace Mann US Congressperson
- Gender: Male
- Citizenship: United States
- Born: May 4, 1796
- Died: Aug 2, 1859
Horace Mann was an American politician and educational reformer. A Whig devoted to promoting speedy modernization, he served in the Massachusetts State Legislature. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Historian Ellwood P. Cubberley asserts:
No one did more than he to establish in the minds of the American people the conception that education should be universal, non-sectarian, free, and that its aims should be social efficiency, civic virtue, and character, rather than mere learning or the advancement of sectarian ends.
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".
The teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
teacher
To pity distress is but human to relieve it is Godlike.
fear
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering on cold iron.
teacher
Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.
knowledge & power
Seek not greatness, but seek truth and you will find both.
truth
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
truth
Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.
education
Education alone can conduct us to that enjoyment which is, at once, best in quality and infinite in quantity.
alone, best & education
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.
money
A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.
education
Scientific truth is marvelous, but moral truth is divine and whoever breathes its air and walks by its light has found the lost paradise.
truth