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 HORACE MANN, LL.D 
 
 By If E X R Y 1! A R XAR1>. 
 
 [Reprinted from Barnard's American Journal of Bilucutiun I'ur December 
 
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 HORACE MANN, LL.D 
 
 By HENRY BARNARD. 
 
 [Reprinted from Barnard's American Journal of Education for December, 1858.] 
 

 
 
a 
 
 L HOKACE MANN.* 
 
 Horace Mann, the first Secretary of the Board of Education for 
 the State of Massachusetts, and President of Antioch College, at Yel- 
 low Springs, Ohio, was born in the town of Franklin, Norfolk County, 
 Mass., May 4, 1796. His father, Mr. Thomas Mann, supported his 
 family by cultivating a small farm. He died when the subject of this 
 memoir was thirteen years of age, leaving him little besides the ex- 
 ample of an upright life, virtuous inculcations, and hereditary thirst 
 for knowledge. 
 
 The narrow circumstances of the father limited the educational 
 advantages of his children. They were taught in the district common 
 school ; and it was the misfortune of the family that it belonged to 
 the smallest district, had the poorest school-house, and employed the 
 cheapest teachers, in a town which was itself both small and poor. 
 
 His father was a man of feeble health, and died of consumption. 
 Horace inherited weak lungs, and from the age of twenty to thirty 
 years he just skirted the fatal shores of that disease on which his 
 father had been wrecked. This inherited weakness, accompanied by 
 a high nervous temperament, and aggravated by a want of judicious 
 physical training in early life, gave him a sensitiveness of organization 
 and a keenness of susceptibility, which nothing but the iron clamps 
 of habitual self-restraint could ever have controlled. 
 
 His mother, whose maiden name was Stanley, was a woman of 
 superior intellect and character. In her mind, the flash of intuition 
 superseded the slow processes of ratiocination. Results always ratified 
 her predictions. She was a true mother. On her list of duties and 
 of pleasure her children stood first, the world and herself afterward. 
 She was able to impart but little of the details of knowledge ; but she 
 did a greater work than this, by imparting the principles by which 
 all knowledge should be guided. 
 
 Mr. Mann's early life was spent in a rural district, in an obscure 
 
 county town, without the appliance of excitements or opportunity for 
 
 display. In a letter before us, written long ago to a friend, he says : — 
 
 I regard it as an irretrievable misfortune that my childhood was not a happy 
 one. By nature I was exceedingly elastic and buoyant, but the poverty of my 
 
 * This Memoir is abridged in part from an article in Livingston's "Law Journal,' which 
 also appeared in Livingston's " Eminent Americans." 
 
(312 HORA.CE MANN 
 
 parents subjected me to continual privations. I believe in the rugged nursing of 
 Toil, but she nursed me too much. In the winter time, I was employed in in-door 
 and sedentary occupations, which confined me too strictly; and in summer, when 
 I could work on the farm, the labor was too severe, and often encroached upon 
 the hours of sleep. I do not remember the time when I began to work. Even 
 my play-days, — not play-days, for I never had any, — but my play-hours were 
 earned by extra exertion, finishing tasks early to gain a little leisure for boyish 
 sports. My parents sinned ignorantly, but God affixes the same physical penal- 
 ties to the violation of His laws, whether that violation be willful or ignorant. For 
 willful violation, there is the added penalty of remorse, and that is the only differ- 
 ence. Here let me give you two pieces of advice, which shall be gratis to you, 
 though they cost me what is of more value than diamonds. Train your children 
 to work, though not too hard ; and, unless they are grossly lymphatic, let them 
 sleep as much as they will. I have derived one compensation, however, from the 
 rigor of my early lot. Industry, or diligence, became my second nature, and I 
 think it would puzzle any psychologist to tell where it joined on to the first. 
 Owing to these ingrained habits, work has always been to me what water is to a 
 fish. I have wondered a thousand times to hear people say, (i I don't like this 
 business ;" or, " I wish I could exchange for that ;" for with me, whenever I have 
 had any thing to do, I do not remember ever to have demurred, but have always 
 set about it like a fatalist ; and it was as sure to be done as the sun is to set. 
 
 What was called the love of knowledge was, in my time, necessarily cramped 
 into a love of books ; because there was no such thing as oral instruction. Books 
 designed for children were few, and their contents meager and miserable. My 
 teachers were very good people but they were very poor teachers. Looking 
 back to the school-boy days of my mates and myself, I can not adopt the line of 
 Virgil, 
 
 " O fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint." 
 
 I deny the bona. With the infinite universe around us, all ready to be daguerreo- 
 typed upon our souls, we were never placed at the right focus to receive its glori- 
 ous images. I had an intense natural love of beauty, and of its expression in 
 nature and in the fine arts. As " a poet was in Murray lost," so at least an 
 amateur poet, if not an artist, was lost in me. How often, when a boy, did I stop, 
 like Akencide's hind, to gaze at the glorious sunset; and lie down upon my back, 
 at night, on the earth, to look at the heavens. Yet with all our senses and our 
 faculties glowing and receptive, how little were we taught ; or rather, how much 
 obstruction was thrust between us and nature's teachings. Our eyes were never 
 trained to distinguish forms or colors. Our ears were strangers to music. So far 
 from being taught the art of drawing, which is a beautiful language by itself, I 
 well remember that when the impulse to express in pictures what I could not 
 express in words was so strong that, as Cowper says, it tingled down to my fingers, 
 then my knuckles were rapped with the heavy ruler of the teacher, or cut with 
 his rod, so that an artificial tingling soon drove away the natural. Such youthful 
 buoyancy as even severity could not repress was our only dancing-master. Of 
 all our faculties, the memory for words was the only one specially appealed to. 
 The most comprehensive generalizations of men were given us, instead of the facts 
 from which those generalizations were formed. All ideas outside of the book 
 were contraband articles, which the teacher confiscated, or rather flung over- 
 board. Oh, when the intense and burning activity of youthful faculties shall find 
 employment in salutary and pleasing studies or occupations, then will parents be 
 able to judge better of the alledged proneness of children to mischief. Until then, 
 children have not a fair trial before their judges. 
 
 Yet, with these obstructions, I had a love of knowledge which 'nothing could 
 repress. An inward voice raised its plaint for ever in my heart for something 
 nobler and better. And if my parents had not the means to give me knowledge, 
 they intensified the love of it. They always spoke of learning and learned men 
 with enthusiasm and a kind of reverence. I was taught to take care of the few 
 books we had, as though there was something sacred about them. I never dog's- 
 eared one in my life, nor profanely scribbled upon title pages, margin, or fly-leaf, 
 and would as soon have stuck a pin through my flesh as through the pages of a 
 book. When very young, I remember a young lady came to our house on a visit, 
 
HORACE MANN. Qi 3 
 
 who was said to have studied Latin. I looked upon lier as a sort of goddess. 
 Years after, the idea that I could ever study Latin broke upon my mind with the 
 wonder and bewilderment of a revelation. Until the age of fifteen I had never 
 been to school more than eight or ten weeks in a year. 
 
 I said we had but few books. The town, however, owned a small library. 
 When incorporated, it was named after Dr. Franklin, whose reputation was then 
 not only at its zenith, but, like the sun over Gibeon, was standing still there. As 
 an acknowledgment of the compliment, he offered them a bell for their church, 
 but afterward, saying that, from what he had learned of the character of the people, 
 he thought they would prefer sense to sound, he changed the gift into a library. 
 Though this library consisted of old histories and theologies, suited perhaps to the 
 " conscript fathers " of the town, but miserably adapted to the " prescript " children, 
 yet I wasted my youthful ardor upon its martial pages, and learned to glory in 
 war, which both reason and conscience have since taught me to consider almost 
 universally a crime. Oh, when will men learn to redeem that childhood in their 
 offspring which was lost to themselves ! We watch for the seed-time for our 
 fields and improve it, but neglect the mind until midsummer or even autumn 
 comes, when all the actinism of the vernal sun of youth is gone. I have endeav- 
 ored to do something to remedy this criminal defect. Had I the power, I would 
 scatter libraries over the whole land, as the sower sows his wheat field. 
 
 More than by toil, or by the privation of any natural taste, was the inward joy 
 of my youth blighted by theological inculcations. The pastor of the .church in 
 Franklin was the somewhat celebrated Dr. Emmons, who not only preached to 
 his people, but ruled them for more than fifty years. lie was an extra or hyper- 
 Calvinist — a man of pure intellect, whose logic was never softened in its severity 
 by the infusion of any kindliness of sentiment. He expounded all the doctrines 
 of total depravity, election, and reprobation, and not only the eternity but the 
 extremity of hell torments, unflinchingly and in their most terrible significance, 
 while he rarely if ever descanted upon the joys of heaven, and never, to my recol- 
 lection, upon the essential and necessary happiness of a virtuous life. Going to 
 church on Sunday was a sort of religious ordinance in our family, and during all 
 my boyhood I hardly ever remember of staying at home. 
 
 As to my early habits, whatever may have been my shortcomings, I can still 
 say that I have always been exempt from what may be called common vices. I 
 was never intoxicated in my life — unless, perchance, with joy or anger. I never 
 swore — indeed profanity was always most disgusting and repulsive to me. And 
 (I consider it always a climax,) I never used the " vile weed " in any form. I 
 early formed the resolution to be a slave to no habit. For the rest, my public 
 life is almost as well known to others as to myself; and, as it commonly happens 
 to public men, others know my motives a great deal better than I do. 
 
 Mr. Mann's father having died when he was thirteen years of age, 
 he remained with his mother on the homestead until he was twenty. 
 But an irrepressible yearning for knowledge still held possession of 
 him. "I know not how it was," said he to a friend in after life, "its 
 motive never took the form of wealth or fame. It was rather an 
 instinct which impelled toward knowledge, as that of migratory birds 
 impels them northward in spring time. All my boyish castles in the 
 air had reference to do something for the benefit of mankind. The 
 early precepts of benevolence, inculcated upon me by my parents, 
 flowed out in this direction ; and I had a conviction that knowledge 
 was my needed instrument." 
 
 A fortunate accident gave opportunity and development to this 
 passion. An itinerant schoolmaster, named Samuel Barrett, came 
 into his neighborhood and opened a school. This man was eccentric 
 and abnormal, both in appetites and faculties. He would teach a 
 
614 HORACE MANN. 
 
 school for six months, tasting nothing stronger than tea, though in 
 this Dr. Johnson was a model of temperance compared with him, and 
 then for another six months, more or less, he would travel the country 
 in a state of beastly drunkenness, begging cider, or any thing 
 that would intoxicate, from house to house, and sleeping in barns 
 and styes, until the paroxysm had passed by. Then he would 
 be found clothed, and sitting in his right mind, and obtain another 
 school. 
 
 Mr. Barrett's speciality was English grammar, and Greek, and Latin. 
 In the dead languages, as far as he pretended to know any thing, he 
 seemed to know every thing. All his knowledge, too, was committed 
 to memory. In hearing recitations from Virgil, Cicero, the Greek 
 Testament, and other classical works, then usually studied as a pre- 
 paration for college, he never took a book into his hand. Not the 
 sentiments only, but the sentences, in the transposed order of their 
 words, were as familiar to him as his A, B, C, and he would as soon 
 have missed a letter out of the alphabet, as article or particle out of 
 the lesson. This learned Mr. Barrett was learned in languages alone. 
 In arithmetic he was an idiot. He never could commit the multipli- 
 cation table to memory, and did not know enough to date a letter or 
 tell the time of day by the clock. 
 
 In this chance school Mr. Mann first saw a Latin grammar ; but it 
 was the veni, vidi, vici of Csesar. Having obtained a reluctant con- 
 sent from his guardian to prepare for college, with six months of 
 schooling he learned his grammar, read Corderius, ^Esop's Fables, the 
 JEneid, with parts of the Georgics and Bucolics, Cicero's Select Ora- 
 tions, the Four Gospels, and part of the Epistles in Greek, part of the 
 Grseca Majora and Minora, and entered the Sophomore class of Brown 
 University, Providence, in September, 1816. 
 
 Illness compelled him to leave his class for a short period ; and 
 again he was absent in the winter to keep school as a resource for 
 paying college bills. Yet, when his class graduated in 1819, the first 
 part or "Honor" in the comencement exercises was awarded to him, 
 with the unanimous approval of Faculty and classmates. The theme 
 of his oration on graduating foreshadowed the history of his life. It 
 was on the Progressive Character of the Human Race. With youth- 
 ful enthusiasm, he portrayed that higher condition of human society 
 when education shall develop the people into loftier proportions of 
 wisdom and virtue, when philanthropy shall succor the wants and re- 
 lieve the woes of the race, and when free institutions shall abolish 
 that oppression and war which have hitherto debarred nations from 
 ascending into realms of grandeur and happiness. 
 
HORACE MANN. 615 
 
 Immediately after commencement (indeed some six weeks before, 
 and immediately after the final examination of his class, so that no 
 time might be lost ; for the law then required three years' reading in 
 a lawyer's office, or rather three years to be spent in a lawyer's office 
 without any reference to reading,) he entered his name in the office 
 of the Hon. J. J. Fiske, of Wrentham, as a student at law. He had 
 spent here, however, only a few months when he was invited back to 
 college as a tutor in Latin and Greek. This proposal he was induced 
 to accept for two reasons : first, it would lighten his burden of indebt- 
 edness (for he was living on borrowed money ;) and, second, it would 
 afford the opportunity he so much desired of revising and extending 
 his classical studies. 
 
 He now devoted himself most assiduously to Latin and Greek, and 
 the instructions given to his class were characterized by two peculiari- 
 ties, whose value all will admit, though so few have realized. In 
 addition to rendering the sense of the author, and a knowledge of 
 syntactical rules, he always demanded a translation in the most ele- 
 gant, choice, and euphonious language. He taught his Latin classes 
 to look through the whole list of synonyms given in the Latin-Eng- 
 lish dictionary, and to select from among them all the one which 
 would convey the author's idea, in the most expressive, graphic, and 
 elegant manner ; rendering military terms by military terms, nautical 
 by nautical, the language of rulers in language of majesty and com- 
 mand, of suppliants by words of entreaty, and so forth. This method 
 improves diction surprisingly. The student can almost feel his organ 
 of language grow under its training ; at any rate, he can see from 
 month to month that it has grown. The other particular referred to, 
 consisted in elucidating the text by geographical, biographical, and 
 historical references ; thus opening the mind of the student to a vast 
 fund of collateral knowledge, and making use of the great mental 
 law, that it is easier to remember two or even ten associated ideas 
 than either of them alone. 
 
 Though liberal in granting indulgences to his class, yet he was in- 
 exorable in demanding correct recitations. However much priva- 
 tion or pain the getting of the lesson might cost, yet it was generally 
 got as the lesser evil. One day a student asked the steward of the 
 college what he was going to do with some medicinal preparation he 
 had. " Mr. So and So," said the steward, " has a violent attack of 
 fever, and I am going to give him a sweat." "If you want to give 
 him a sweat," said the inquirer, "send him into our recitation room 
 without his lesson." 
 
 While in college, Mr. Mann had excelled in scientific studies. He 
 
QIQ HORACE MANN. 
 
 now had an opportunity to improve himself in classical culture. A 
 comparison of the two convinced him how infinitely inferior in value, 
 not only as an attainment, but as a means of mental discipline, is 
 heathen mythology to modern science ; the former consisting of the 
 imaginations of man, the latter of the handiwork of God. 
 
 In the latter part of 1821, having resigned his tutorship, he entered 
 the law school at Litchfield, Connecticut, then at the zenith of its 
 reputation, under the late Judge Gould. Here he remained rather 
 more than a year, devoting himself with great assiduity to the study 
 of the law under that distinguished jurist. Leaving Litchfield, he 
 entered the office of the Hon. James Richardson, of Dedham, was ad- 
 mitted a member of the Norfolk bar, in December, 1823, and imme- 
 diately opened an office in Dedham. 
 
 We believe the records of the courts will show that, during the 
 fourteen years of his forensic practice, he gained at least four out of 
 five of all the contested cases in which he was engaged. The inflexi- 
 ble rule of his professional life was, never to undertake a case that he 
 did not believe to be right. He held that an advocate loses his high- 
 est power when he loses the ever-conscious conviction that he is con- 
 tending for the truth ; that though the fees or fame may be a stimu- 
 lus, yet that a conviction of being right is itself creative of power, and 
 renders its possessor more than a match for antagonists otherwise 
 greatly his superior. 
 
 In 1827, Mr. Mann was elected to the Massachusetts House of 
 Representatives, for the town of Dedham, and continued to be returned 
 until the year 1833, when he removed to Boston, and entered into a 
 partnership with Edward G. Loring. At the first election after his 
 becoming a citizen of Boston, he was chosen to the State Senate for 
 the county of Suffolk, which post he was returned to for the four 
 succeeding elections. In 1836 that body elected him its president, 
 and again in 1837, in which year he retired from political life to 
 enter upon the duties of Secretary of the Board of Education. Dur- 
 ing his legislative course Mr. Mann took an active part in the discus- 
 sion of all important questions, especially of such as pertained to 
 railroads, public charities, religious liberty, suppression of traffic in 
 lottery tickets, and spirituous liquors, and to education. 
 
 He advocated laws for improving the system of common schools. 
 He, more than any other man, was the means of procuring the enact- 
 ment of what was called the " Fifteen Gallon Law," for the suppression 
 of intemperance in Massachusetts. He was a member of the com- 
 mittee who reported the resolves which subsequently resulted in the 
 codification of the statute laws of Massachusetts. He took a leading 
 
HORACE MANN. 617 
 
 part in preparing and carrying through the law whose stringent pro- 
 visions for a long time, and almost effectually, broke up the traffic in 
 lottery tickets. 
 
 But the act by which Mr. Mann most signalized his legislative life 
 in the House of Representatives was the establishment of the State 
 Lunatic Hospital of Worcester. This benevolent enterprise was con- 
 ceived, sustained, and carried through the House by him alone, against 
 the apathy and indifference of many, and the direct opposition of 
 some prominent men. He moved the appointment of the original 
 committee of inquiry, and made its report, drew up and reported the 
 resolve for erecting the hospital, and his was the only speech made in 
 its favor. After the law was passed, he was appointed chairman of 
 the Board of Commissioners to contract for and superintend the erec- 
 tion of the Hospital. When the buildings were completed, in 1833, 
 he was appointed chairman of the Board of Trustees for administering 
 the institution, and remained on the Board until rotated out of office 
 by the provisions of the law which governed it. 
 
 We subjoin a sketch of Mr. Mann's speech in behalf of the resolve 
 for establishing the Hospital : — 
 
 Mr. Mann, of Dedham, requested the attention of the House to the numbers, 
 condition, and necessities of the insane within this commonwealth, and to the 
 consideration of the means by which their sufferings might be altogether prevented, 
 or at least assuaged. On reviewing our legislation upon this subject, he could 
 not claim for it the praise either of policy or humanity. In 1816 it was made the 
 duty of the Supreme Court, when a grand jury had refused to indict, or the jury 
 of trials to convict such person, by reason of his insanity or mental derangement, 
 to commit any person to prison, there to be kept until his enlargement should be 
 deemed compatible with the safety of the citizens, or until some friend should 
 procure his release by becoming responsible for all damages which, in his insanity, 
 he might commit. 
 
 Had the human mind been tasked to devise a mode of aggravating to the ut- 
 most the calamities of the insane, a more apt expedient could scarcely have been 
 suggested ; or, had the earth been searched, places more inauspicious to their 
 recovery could scarcely have been found. 
 
 He cast no reflection upon the keepers of our jails, houses of correction, and 
 poor houses, as humane men, when he said that, as a class, they were eminently 
 disqualified to have the supervision and management of the insane. The superin- 
 tendent of the insane should not only be a humane man, but a man of science ; 
 he should not only be a physician, but a mental philosopher. An alienated mind 
 should be touched only by a skillful hand. Great experience and knowledge were 
 necessary to trace the causes that first sent it devious into the wilds of insanity, 
 to counteract the disturbing forces, to restore it again to harmonious action. None 
 of all these requisites could we command under the present system. 
 
 But the place-was no less unsuitable than the management. In a prison little 
 attention could be bestowed upon the bodily comforts and less upon the mental condi- 
 tion of the insane. They are shut out from the cheering and healing influences of 
 the external world. They are cut off from the kind regard of society and friends. 
 The construction of their cells often debars them from light and air. With fire 
 they can not be trusted. Madness strips them of their clothing. If there be any 
 recuperative energies of mind, suffering suspends or destroys them, and recovery 
 is placed almost beyond the reach of hope. He affirmed that he was not giving 
 an exaggerated account of this wretched class of beings, between whom and 
 humanity there seemed to be a gulf, which no one had as yet crossed to carry them 
 
618 HORACE MANN. 
 
 relief. He held in his hand the evidence which would sustain all that he had 
 said. * * 
 
 From several facts and considerations, he inferred that the whole number of 
 insane persons in the State could not be less than 500. Whether 500 of our 
 fellow-beings, suffering under the bereavement of reason, should be longer sub- 
 jected to the cruel operation of our laws, was a question which no man could 
 answer in the affirmative, who was not himself a sufferer under the bereavement 
 of all generous and humane emotions. But he would for a moment consider it as 
 a mere question of saving and expenditure. He would argue it as if human 
 nature knew no sympathies, as if duty imposed no obligations. And, in teaching 
 Avarice a lesson of humanity, he would teach it a lesson of economy also. 
 
 Of the 298 persons returned, 161 are in confinement. Of these, the duration 
 of the confinement of 150 is ascertained. It exceeds in the aggregate a thousand 
 years ; — a thousand years, during which the mind had been sequestered from the 
 ways of knowledge and usefulness, and the heart in all its sufferings inaccessible 
 to the consolations of religion. * * 
 
 The average expense, Mr. Mann said, of keeping those persons in confinement 
 could not be less than $2.50 per week, or if friends had furnished cheaper support, 
 it must have been from some motive besides cupidity. Such a length of time, at 
 such a price, would amount to $130,000. And if 150 who were in confinement 
 exhibit an aggregate of more than a thousand years of insanity, the 148 at large 
 might be safely set down at half that sum, or 500 years. Allowing for these an 
 average expense of $1 per week, the sum is $52,000, which added to $130,000 
 as above, makes $182,000. Should we add to this $1 per week for all, as the 
 sum they might have earned had they been in health, the result is $234,000 lost 
 to the State by the infliction of this malady alone ; and this estimate is predicated 
 only of 298 persons, returned from less than half the population of the State. 
 
 Taking results then, derived from so large an experience, it was not too much 
 to say, that more than one-half of the cases of insanity were susceptible of cure, 
 and that at least one-half of the expense now sustained by the State might be 
 saved by the adoption of a different system of treatment. One fact ought not to 
 be omitted, that those who suffer under the most sudden and violent access of in- 
 sanity were most easily restored. But such individuals, under our system, are 
 immediately subject to all the rigors of confinement, and thus an impassable barrier 
 is placed between them and hope. This malady, too, is confined to adults almost 
 exclusively. It is then, after all the expense of early education and rearing has 
 been incurred, that their usefulness is terminated. But it had pained him to 
 dwell so long on these pecuniary details. On this subject he was willing that his 
 feelings should dictate to his judgment and control his interest. There are ques- 
 tions, said he, upon which the heart is a better counselor than the head, — where 
 its plain expositions of right encounter and dispel the sophistries of the intellect. 
 There are sufferers amongst us whom we are able to relieve. If, with our abund- 
 ant means, we hesitate to succor their distress, we may well envy them their 
 incapacity to commit crime. * * 
 
 But let us reflect, that while we delay they suffer. Another year not only gives 
 an accession to their numbers, but removes, perhaps to a returnless distance, the 
 chance of their recovery. Whatever they endure, which we can prevent, is 
 virtually inflicted by our own hands. Let us restore them to the enjoyment of 
 the exalted capacities of intellect and virtue. Let us draw aside the dark curtain 
 which hides from their eyes the wisdom and beauty of the universe. The appro- 
 priation proposed was small — it was for such a charity insignificant. Who is there, 
 he demanded, that, beholding all this remediable misery on one hand, and looking, 
 on the other, to that paltry sum which would constitute his proportion of the ex- 
 pense, could pocket the money, and leave the victims to their sufferings? How 
 many thousands do we devote annually to the cultivation of mind in our schools 
 and colleges; and shall we do nothing to reclaim that mind when it has been lost 
 to all its noblest prerogatives? Could the victims of insanity themselves come up 
 before us, and find a language to reveal their history, who could hear them un- 
 moved ? But to me, said Mr. Mann, the appeal is stronger, because they are 
 unable to make it. Over his feelings, their imbecility assumed the form of irre- 
 sistible power. No eloquence could persuade like their heedless silence. It is 
 now, said he, in the power of the members of this House to exercise their highest 
 
HORACE MANN. 
 
 G19 
 
 privileges as men, their most enviable functions as legislators ; to become protectors 
 to the wretched, and benefactors to the miserable." 
 
 The execution of this great work illustrated those characteristics of 
 the subject of this memoir which have signalized his life. The novelty 
 and costliness of the enterprise demanded boldness. Its motive 
 sprung from his benevolence. Its completion without loss or failure 
 illustrated his foresight. It was arranged that no ardent spirits should 
 ever be used on the work, and the whole edifice was completed with- 
 out accident or injury to any workman. The expenditure of so large 
 a sum as fifty thousand dollars without overrunning appropriations 
 proved his recognition of accountability. The selection of so remark- 
 able a man as Dr. Woodward for the superintendent, showed his 
 knowledge of character. And the success which, after twenty years 
 of experience, has finally crowned the work, denotes that highest kind 
 of statesmanship, which holds the succor of human wants and the 
 alleviation of human woes to be an integral and indispensable, as it is 
 a most economical part of the duties of a paternal government. That 
 Hospital has served as a model for many similar institutions in other 
 states and countries, which, through the benevolent influence of its 
 widely-known success, have been erected because that was erected. 
 
 In 1835, Mr. Mann was a member, on the part of the Senate, of a 
 legislative committee to whom was intrusted the codification of the 
 statute law of Massachusetts, and after its adoption he was associated 
 with Judge Metcalf in editing the same for the press. 
 
 On the organization of the Board of Education for Massachusetts, 
 on the 29th of June, 183V, Mr. Mann was elected its secretary, and 
 entered forthwith on a new and more congenial sphere of labor. 
 From the earliest day when his actions became publicly noticeable, 
 universal education, through the instrumentality of free public schools, 
 was commended by his word, and promoted by his acts. Its advocacy 
 was a golden thread woven into all the texture of his writings and 
 his life. One of his earliest addresses was a discourse before a county 
 association of teachers. As soon as eligible, he was chosen a member 
 of the Superintending School Committee of Dedham, and continued 
 to fill the office until he left the place. In the General Court his 
 voice and his vote were always on the side of schools. 
 
 Mr. Mann withdrew from all other professional and business engage- 
 ments whatever, that no vocation but the new one might burden his 
 hands or obtrude upon his contemplations. He transferred his law 
 business then pending, declined re-election to the Senate, and — the 
 only thing that caused him a regret — resigned his offices and his act- 
 ive connection with the different temperance organizations. He 
 
620 HORACE MANN. 
 
 abstracted himself entirely from political parties, and for twelve years 
 never attended a political caucus or convention of any kind. He 
 resolved to be seen and known only as an educationist. Though 
 sympathizing as much as ever with the reforms of the day, he knew 
 how fatally obnoxious they were to whole classes of people whom he 
 wished to influence for good ; and as he could not do all things at once, 
 he sought to do the best things, and those which lay in the immediate 
 path of his duty, first. Men's minds, too, at that time were so fired 
 with partisan zeal on various subjects, that great jealousy existed lest 
 the interest of some other cause should be subserved under the guise 
 of a regard for education. Nor could vulgar and bigoted persons 
 comprehend why a man should drop from an honorable and exalted 
 station into comparative obscurity, and from a handsome income to a 
 mere subsistence, unless actuated by some vulgar and bigoted motive 
 like their own.* Subsequent events proved the wisdom of his course. 
 The Board was soon assailed with violence by political partisans, by 
 anti-temperance demagogues, and other bigots after their kind, and 
 nothing but the impossibility of fastening any purpose upon its secre- 
 tary save absolute devotion to his duty saved it from wreck. During 
 a twelve years' period of service, no opponent of the cause, or of Mr. 
 Mann's views in conducting it, was ever able to specify a single in- 
 stance in which he had prostituted or perverted the influence of his 
 office for any personal, partisan, or collateral end whatever. 
 
 It is obvious, on a moment's reflection, that few works ever under- 
 taken by man had relations so numerous, or touched society at so 
 many points, and those so sensitive, as that in which Mr. Mann was 
 now engaged. The various religious denominations were all turned 
 into eyes, each to watch against encroachments upon itself, or favorit- 
 ism toward others. Sordid men anticipated the expenditures incident 
 
 * Dr. William E. Charming was the only man, among his friends and acquaintances, who 
 did not dissuade him from accepting the office. He wrote to him as follows : — 
 
 My Dear Sir : — I understand that you have given yourself to the cause of education in our 
 commonwealth. I rejoice in it. Nothing could give me greater pleasure. 1 have lone; desired 
 that some one uniting all your qualifications should devote himself to this work. You could 
 not find a nobler station. Government has no nobler one to give. You must allow me to 
 labor under you according to my opportunities. If at any time I can aid you, you must let 
 me know, and I shall be glad to converse with you always about your operations. When 
 will the low. degrading party quarrels of the country cease, and the better minds come to 
 think what can be done toward a substantial, generous improvement of the community'? 
 "My ear is pained, my very soul is sick " with the monotonous yet furious clamors about 
 currency, banks, <fcc, when the spiritual interests of the community seem hardly to be recog- 
 nized as having any reality. 
 
 If we can but turn the wonderful energy of this people into a right channel, what a new 
 heaven and earth must be realized among us I And I do not despair. Your willingness to 
 consecrate yourself to the work is a happy omen. You do not stand alone, or form a rare 
 exception to the times. There must be many to be touched by the same truths which are 
 stirring vou. 
 
 My hope is that the pursuit will give you new vigor and health. If you can keep strong 
 outwardly, I have no fear about the efficiency of the spirit. I write in haste, for I am not 
 very strong, and any effort exhausts me. but I wanted to express my sympathy, and to wish 
 you God speed on your way. 
 
 Your sincere friend, Wm. E. Channing. 
 
HORACE MANN. goj 
 
 to improvement. Many teachers of private schools foresaw that any 
 change for the better in the public schools would withdraw patronage 
 from their own ; though to their honor it must be said that the cause 
 of public education had no better friends than many private teachers 
 proved themselves to be. But hundreds and hundreds of wretchedly 
 poor aud incompetent teachers knew full well that the daylight of 
 educational intelligence would be to them what the morning dawn is 
 to night-birds. Bookmakers and booksellers were jealous of inter- 
 ference in behalf of rivals ; and where there were twenty competitors 
 of a kind, Hope was but a fraction of one-twentieth, while Fear was 
 a unit. Mr. Mann for many years bad filled important political offices ; 
 and, if political opponents could not find any thing wrong in what he 
 was doing, it was the easiest of all things to foresee something wrong 
 that he would do. Many persons who have some conscience in their 
 statements about the past, have none in their predictions about the 
 future. And however different and contradictory might be the mo- 
 tives of opposition, all opponents would coalesce ; while the friends 
 of the enterprise, though animated by a common desire for its ad- 
 vancement, were often alienated from each other through disagree- 
 ment as to methods. There was also the spirit of conservatism to be 
 overcome ; and, more formidable by far than this, the spirit of pride 
 on the part of some in the then existing condition of the schools,— a 
 pride which had been fostered for a century among the people, not 
 because their school system was as good as it should and might be, 
 but because it was so much better than that of neighboring communi- 
 ties. And, besides all this, it was impossible to excite any such en- 
 thusiasm, for a cause whose highest rewards lie in the remote future, 
 as for one where the investment of means or effort is to be refunded, 
 with heavy usury, at the next anniversary or quarter-day. Then 
 questions respecting the education of a whole people touched the 
 whole people. Politics, commerce, manufactures, agriculture, are 
 class interests. Each one is but a segment of the great social circle. 
 While the few engaged in a single pursuit may be intensely excited, 
 the great majority around may be in a state of quiescence or indiffer- 
 ence. But, so far as education is regarded at all, it is a problem 
 which every body undertakes to solve ; and hence ten thousand censors 
 rise up in a day. It is an object not too low to be noticed by the 
 highest, nor to high to be adjudicated upon by the lowest. Do not 
 these considerations show the multifarious relations of the cause to 
 the community at large, and to the interests and hopes of each of its 
 classes ? And now consider the things indispensable to be done, to 
 superinduce a vigorous system upon a decrepit one, — changes in the 
 
622 HORACE MANN. 
 
 law, new organizations of territory into districts, the building of school- 
 houses, classification of scholars, supervision of schools, improvements 
 in books, in methods of teaching, and in the motives and ways of 
 discipline, qualifications of teachers, the collection of statistics, the 
 necessary exposure of defects and of mal-administration, &c, &c, — and 
 we can form a more adequate idea of the wide circuit of the work under- 
 taken, and of the vast variety of the details which it comprehends. 
 
 Mr. Mann, in entering on his work, availed himself of three modes 
 of influencing the public. 1. By lectures addressed to conventions 
 of teachers and friends of education, which were held at first annually 
 in each county of the state. It was made his duty, as secretary, to 
 attend these conventions, both for the purpose of obtaining informa- 
 tion in regard to the condition of the schools, and of explaining to the 
 public what were supposed to be the leading motives and objects of 
 the legislature in creating the Board. His addresses, prepared for 
 these occasions, and for teachers' associations, lyceums, &c, were 
 designed for popular and promiscuous audiences, and were admirably 
 adapted to awaken a lively interest, and enlist parental, patriotic, and 
 religious motives in behalf of the cause. 2. In the Report which 
 he was required annually to make to the Board of his own do- 
 ings, and the condition and improvement of the public schools, he 
 presented more didactic expositions of the wants of the great cause 
 of Education, and the relations which that cause holds to the interests 
 of civilization and human progress. 3. In the '■'■Common School 
 Journal,'''' which he conducted on his own responsibility, he gave 
 more detailed and specific views, in regard to modes and processes 
 of instruction and training, and the general management of schools. 
 
 Of his numerous lectures, seven were published in a volume,* pre- 
 pared for the press, by a special request of the Board, in 1840. These 
 lectures alone would establish for him a permanent reputation as an 
 eloquent writer, and profound thinker, in this dej)artment of literature. 
 But his twelve Annual Reports constitute an enduring monument of 
 well-directed zeal in the public service, and of large, comprehensive, 
 and practical views of educational improvement, and of his power as 
 a master of the English language. We shall, in justice to Mr. Mann, 
 and for the valuable suggestions which even an imperfect analysis of 
 these remarkable documents must impart, pass them in rapid review. 
 
 * Lectures on Education, by Horace Mann, pp. 338. Contents. — Lecture I. Means and Ob- 
 jects of Common School Education. II. Special Preparation, a prerequisite to Teaching, 
 III. The Necessity of Education in a Republican Government. IV. What God does, and 
 what He leaves for Man to do, in the work of Education. V. An Historical View of Educa- 
 tion ; showing its dignity and its Degradation. VI. On District School Libraries. VII. On 
 School Punishments. 
 
HORACE MANN. 
 
 623 
 
 Analysis of Mr. Mann's Reports as Secretary of the Massachusetts Board 
 of Education. 
 
 In his first report, submitted less than five months after his acceptance of the 
 post of Secretary of the Board of Education, Mr. Mann presented a comprehen- 
 sive survey of the condition of the public schools of the state, under four heads; 
 viz., I. The situation, construction, condition, and number of the school-houses ; 
 to which he devoted a supplementary report, with a free exposition of his 
 views in regard to ventilation and warming, size, desks, seats, location of school* 
 houses, light, windows, yards or playgrounds, and the duty of instructors in re- 
 gard to these structures. These were accompanied with two plans of the interior 
 of school-houses. II. The manner in which the school committees performed 
 their duties. Under this head he specified their neglect in regard to the time of 
 examining teachers, the character of the examinations, the hesitation in rejecting 
 incompetent candidates ; their neglect of the law requiring them to secure uni- 
 formity of school books, and furnishing them to the scholars at the expense of the 
 town, when the parents neglected to furnish them — their negligence in not en- 
 forcing attendance, regularity, and punctuality, and in not visiting the schools as the 
 law demanded. The causes of this neglect, want of compensation, and conse- 
 quently of penalty for non-performance of duties, the hostility often induced by a 
 faithful performance of duty, and the ingratitude with which their services were 
 treated, thus preventing the best men from accepting the office. Remedies for 
 these evils were also suggested ; viz., compensation for services, penalties for neg- 
 lect, and an annual report by each committee. III. Apathy onthepartof the com- 
 munity in relation to schools. This is of two kinds. The apathy of those in- 
 different to all education, which, in the influx of an ignorant and degraded popu- 
 lation, would naturally increase ; and apathy toward the public or free schools, 
 on the part of those who considered them as not supplying the education needed, 
 and hence sought to procure that education for their children, in academies and 
 private schools. Under this head, he propounded the true theory of public 
 schools, the measures necessary to secure their efficiency, and the objections to 
 private schools as means of popular education. IV. Competency of Teachers. 
 The obstacles to this competency were considered ; viz., low compensation, pre- 
 venting its being followed as a profession ; the low standard of attainment re- 
 quired ; and the ulterior objects of those who engaged in it temporarily. With 
 a few remarks concerning the necessity of school registers, apparatus, &c, and 
 the best time for the election of school officers, the report closed. 
 
 Mr. Mann's second report, after briefly reviewing the evidences of progress 
 in Nantucket, and some other large towns, during the previous year, and the de- 
 linquencies of others, is mainly occupied with the discussion of the importance of 
 better instruction in language, in the public schools, and the best methods of 
 effecting it. The existing methods of instruction in spelling and reading are de- 
 scribed, their defects noted, and the measures proposed for remedying them men- 
 tioned. The teaching of the young child words before letters (a plan previously 
 advocated by Dr. Gallaudet,) is strongly recommended, and cogent reasons given 
 for its adoption. The faulty character of the selections in school reading-books, 
 are noticed, their want of connection and interest to the pupil, the utter unintel- 
 ligibility of many of them ; spellers and definers discarded as suitable means of 
 giving children ideas of the meaning of words ; dictionaries for study, regarded 
 
(324 HORACE MANN. 
 
 as better, but still exceptional — the preparation of readers, detailing in simple 
 and interesting style, events of home life — popular treatises on natural science — 
 voyages and travels and, as the vocabulary of the pupil increases, and his percep- 
 tions of matters of argument and reason increases, the advance to the discussion 
 of higher topics may be encouraged. Compositions, translations, and paraphrases, 
 should be required early, and generally should be of a descriptive rather than a 
 didactic character. The effects of this method of instruction are portrayed in 
 the vivid language of the secretary — its elevation of the taste, refinement of the 
 manners, and the preparation which it would give the community for the enjoy- 
 ment of a higher and purer literature. With a brief discussion of the question 
 whether the Board of Education should recommend a series of school books, and 
 some incidental allusions to matters of detail, the report closes. 
 
 Mr. Mann commences his third report with congratulations to the Board of 
 Education, on the evidences of progress and improvement evinced by the school 
 returns, and other facts which he lays before them ; and, after stating briefly the 
 efforts made for the instruction of children on the lines of railroad then in course 
 of construction, and the number and character of the violations of the laws rela- 
 tive to the employment of children in manufactories, without giving them oppor- 
 tunities of education, he proceeds to discuss, in all its bearings, the necessity of 
 libraries in school districts. He gives at length, statistics, carefully collected, rela- 
 tive to the number, character, and accessibility of the existing libraries in the 
 state, showing that there were in the state, including college, society, theological, 
 and other public libraries, some 300,000 volumes ; that the use of them was con- 
 fined to not over 100,000 persons, while 600,000 had no access to them — that one 
 hundred towns of the state had no public libraries of any description ; that of the 
 books in the libraries, very few, not over one-twentieth, were adapted to the use 
 of children, or young persons ; that many of them were out of date, old, and in- 
 correct ; that the greater part of those in circulation were works of fiction, and 
 many of them of injurious or immoral tendency, while a few were composed 
 mainly of historical and scientific works. Other facts are stated, showing the 
 prevalent tendency in the popular mind, to read only, or mainly, works of fiction 
 and amusement. The mental and moral influence of various descriptions of 
 reading, is next fully discussed. The effect of reading, in the formation and 
 development of character illustrated. Statistics are next given of the lyceum and 
 other lectures, maintained in the state, their advantages and disadvantages are 
 shown, and the impossibility of their acting as substitutes for libraries, in the work 
 of public instruction, fully demonstrated. The reasons why school district libra- 
 ries should be established, and at the expense of the state, in part, are forcibly sta- 
 ted — the density of the population, the necessity for high education to sustain 
 such a population — the advantages of the subdivision of districts, in carrying 
 libraries to every man's neighborhood — the inability of the small districts to com- 
 pete, unaided, with the larger, in supplying themselves with libraries, yet their 
 greater need of them, from the brevity of their period of school sessions, are all 
 urged. The character of the books necessary for such libraries, is then dwelt 
 upon ; natural science, biography, well-written history, agricultural and popular 
 scientific works — works on physiology and hygiene, on morals and their applica- 
 tions — and, when practicable, biographical dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other 
 works of a similar character, as reference books, are specified. The general de- 
 mand for libraries, throughout the state, is noticed in conclusion. 
 
HORACE MANN. g25 
 
 In Lis fourth keport, Mr. Mann, after a brief general review of the gratifying 
 progress of the state, in educational matters, in the three years preceding, and a 
 portrayal of the material advantages which would ensue from the publication and 
 circulation of the abstracts of the school reports, enters upon a full discussion of 
 the topics suggested by these reports, prefacing it by a brief account of the prin- 
 ciples on which schools have been supported since 1647, in Massachusetts. 
 
 The topics treated are the following : school districts — the evils of their minute 
 subdivision — the remedies suggested are the reunion of small districts, the plac- 
 ing the whole management of the schools, where it was placed originally, in the 
 hands of the towns, and the organization of union schools for the older scholars. 
 The last measure is urged on the grounds of the economy of the plan, and the 
 advantage gained in management and discipline; the condition and repair of 
 school-houses is next considered, and a tax suggested, once in three or five years, 
 to furnish means to the committee to keep the school-house in good repair. The 
 inefficiency and unproductiveness of expenditure for public instruction, is next 
 dwelt upon — the statistics of private school expenditure for instruction, in the 
 branches taught in the public schools, given ; its wastefulness shown ; the greater 
 advantages which would result from the expenditure of the same sum on the 
 public schools, demonstrated ; and the moral evils which the present course causes, 
 exhibited. The suggestions of the reports in regard to teachers, are then con- 
 sidered. The advantage of increasing the number of female teachers, discussed ; 
 the deficiencies in the qualifications of those examined, commented upon •, and the 
 necessity of their possessing a thorough knowledge of common school studies, 
 aptness to teach, ability in management and discipline, good manners, and unex- 
 ceptionable morals, urged. The necessity of strict uniformity in school books, is 
 demonstrated ; the advantages arising from the introduction of school apparatus 
 and school libraries, mentioned ; constancy and punctuality of attendance urged, 
 on the grounds of the monstrous loss and waste of time and money which are 
 involved in irregularity and absence ; and the fearful deprivation of the best 
 hours of life to the young, a loss not to be repaired. The enforcement of regular 
 and punctual attendance is advised, by the efforts of the teachers to attach chil- 
 dren to the school, by the use of the register, the notification of parents, the exam- 
 ple of the teacher, and appeals to parents and guardians to encourage it. The 
 duties of superintending or town committees, and of prudential committees, are 
 briefly considered ; manifestation of parental interest in the schools, the evils 
 of forcible breaking up the schools, and of absences from final examinations, re- 
 ferred to ; and the report closes with a general retrospect. 
 
 In his fifth report, Mr. Mann, after his usual resume of the results attained 
 the previous year, and a few remarks on the advantage of increasing the number 
 of meetings, and multiplying the points at which conventions of the friends of 
 education should assemble, and some passing notice of the improvement in school 
 districts, school -houses, appropriations of money by the towns, amount and regu- 
 larity of attendance, length of schools, and uniformity of school books, discusses 
 at length the best methods of ascertaining the qualifications of teachers for their 
 work, a duty devolving, by law, on the town or superintending committees. Un- 
 der the head of moral character, he recommends, where the candidate is not pre- 
 viously known to the committee, strict scrutiny of his credentials, and a registry 
 of the names of those who recommend them, and denounces, in the strongest 
 terms, those who would be guilty of furnishing recommendations to persons 
 40 
 
626 HORACE MANN. 
 
 morally disqualified for the high calling of teachers of youth. Passing over the mat- 
 ter of the scholarship of the teacher, which can generally be ascertained without 
 much difficulty, he next considers the best method of ascertaining the ability of 
 the teacher to impart knowledge, and his capacity for managing and governing a 
 school — points of great importance, but which many of the school committees 
 had declared impossible to be ascertained. In regard to the first, he recommends 
 that the candidate should be questioned on his method of using the blackboard, 
 his mode of teaching reading, whether he requires the children to understand 
 the meaning of the words, and the sense of the passage read, his instruction in 
 pronunciation, his time and method of teaching the arithmetical signs, his mode 
 of instructing in geography, grammar, and arithmetic, his practice in regard to 
 reviews, alternations of studies, &c. In relation to his ability to manage and govern 
 a school, he suggests inquiries into his methods of preserving order and quiet in his 
 school ; his views relative to the necessity and frequency of corporeal punishment ; 
 his practice in exciting emulation by prizes, &c. He also suggests that inquiry 
 should be made in regard to the special preparation made by the candidate for 
 teaching, what instruction he has received on the art of teaching, either in nor- 
 mal schools, or from books or teachers' periodicals. Some further suggestions are 
 thus made relative to the details of the examination of teachers. 
 
 The two Shaker societies had the previous year refused to allow their teachers 
 to be examined, or their schools visited. The secretary shows, with great force, the 
 absurdity of their course, and then passes to illustrate, by means of statistics and 
 otherwise, the inequality in the means of education in different towns in the state. 
 The facts being stated, he demonstrates by irrefragible arguments, and by the testi- 
 mony of several of the largest employers of labor in the commonwealth, the dif- 
 ference which this inequality of education makes in the productive value of the 
 labor of the educated and uneducated. He thus shows, conclusively, that the 
 state and individuals would be very greatly the gainers, in a pecuniary sense, by 
 the universal diffusion of education. That a person with a good common school 
 education will, in the same business, ordinarily earn fifty per cent, more than one 
 without education — and this with less injury or expense of tools or machinery ; 
 and that such persons usually live better, and are better members of society. The 
 argument is an admirable one. 
 
 In his sixth REroRT, Mr. Mann passes in review the progress of the preceding 
 year, in the school appropriations, the attendance, vacations in the annual schools, 
 employment of female teachers, compensation of teachers, reports of school 
 committees, breaking up of schools, qualifications of teachers, dismission of in- 
 competent teachers, school registers, and school district libraries ; and proceeds, 
 under the head of selection of studies, to urge the importance of the introduc- 
 tion of the study of physiology into the schools. To do this effectually, he goes 
 at considerable length into a statement and illustration of the laws of life and 
 health, and the daily and hourly violations of them by the masses. He also sub- 
 mits the opinions of eminent physicians in regard to the importance of the study 
 of physiology and hygiene to the young, and enforces these opinions by further 
 argument and illustration. This portion of the report furnishes, in itself, an ad- 
 mirable essay on physiology and hygiene, and is well worthy of perusal and 
 study. 
 
 Mr. Mann, in his seventh report, after his customary review of the condition 
 of the schools of the state, proceeds to give an account of the observations made 
 
HORACE MANN. 627 
 
 in his European tour of the preceding year, in which he had visited 
 a large number of schools in England, Ireland, Scotland, Prussia, Germany, 
 Holland, Belgium, and France. He visited not only the public schools of these 
 countries, but their institutions for the blind, deaf mutes, orphans, vagrants, and 
 juvenile offenders, also. Leaving these topics, however, Mr. Mann comes again 
 upon his own appropriate ground, and considers the fearful evils of a partial sys- 
 tem of education, as exhibited in England, giving numerous facts demonstrating 
 the great inequality of the opportunities of education, the disproportion in the sala- 
 ries of teachers, the vile and often degrading and obscene books used in the lowest 
 class of schools, and the necessity of a general supervisory power on the subject of 
 education. The school-houses, with the exception of some of the palaces devoted to 
 private or endowed schools in England, he regarded as decidedly inferior to those 
 of Massachusetts, in convenience and in ventilation. The reading-books, espe- 
 cially in Germany, were better than ours, as being more practical in their charac- 
 ter. There was but little more apparatus there than here. The blackboard was 
 universally used, and for more purposes than here. In some schools he found 
 the standard weights and measures of the country — a valuable aid to the under- 
 standing of the comparative quantities contained in them. In some of the 
 schools, as in Holland, there were cards containing fac-similes of the coins of the 
 realm ; reading boards or frames (since introduced here,) were also found there. 
 Models of implements of utility, collections of shells, minerals, seeds, woods, &c, 
 and occasionally paintings of considerable value ; and, in nearly all, tasteful though 
 cheap engravings and maps adorned the walls. The Lancasterian schools he found 
 upon the wane, a " more excellent way " having been substituted for them. He 
 was much pleased with the mental activity displayed in the Scotch schools, and 
 with the thoroughness of their training in reading, and in exercises in language, 
 but thought there was too much harshness, and too strong appeals to emulation in 
 their management. 
 
 But the Prussian schools were, in his view, superior to any others he saw in 
 Europe. After reviewing briefly the orphan and vagrant schools of Potsdam, 
 Halle, and Horn, giving to the apostolic Wichern his due meed of praise, he 
 proceeds to treat of the classification of the Prussian schools, the method of teach- 
 ing in the primary classes ; and here he urges with great force the advantage of 
 the system adopted there of teaching words before letters. He also suggests that 
 the phonic or lavtir method of spelling, which he found in use in Prussia, might 
 with advantage be adopted here. After a brief reference to the way in which 
 reading is taught in the higher classes, he proceeds to speak of their methods of 
 instruction in arithmetic and mathematics, in grammar and composition. In 
 writing and drawing, in geography, by the sketching of outlines on the black- 
 board 5 in thinking exercises, knowledge of nature, the world, and society ; allud- 
 ing, under these heads, to the careful and thorough preparation of the teachers 
 for their work of instruction, and the entire absence of text-books, in instruction 
 in Bible history and music, which he found universally taught in Prussia. He 
 next gives an account of the seminaries for teachers, the preliminary course in 
 which their eligibility to become members of the seminaries for teachers was de- 
 cided, the course of instruction, its extreme thoroughness, and the high moral 
 and religious tone of the instruction. In reviewing the period spent in Prussia 
 and Saxony, he states these facts, viz., that he never saw a teacher hearing a 
 lesson with a book in his hand ; he never saw a teacher sitting ; and he never saw 
 
628 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
 a child either arraigned for punishment, undergoing it, or having recently been 
 punished. He does not intend to imply, by the last remark, that corporeal pun- 
 ishment was entirely discarded, but that it was very seldom necessary to resort to 
 it. The earnestness and interest of the teachers in their work, their evidently 
 strong affection for their pupils, and the reciprocal affection engendered by this, 
 were generally sufficient to produce obedience. Educational journals he found 
 abundant, and well sustained. The school inspectors were men of high attain- 
 ments, and qualified to fill the highest stations. School attendance was made 
 compulsory by law, the parent being imprisoned if he neglected to send his child, 
 after repeated warnings — but so well were the parents convinced of its advant- 
 ages, that it was seldom necessary to appeal to the law. Mr. Mann next gives a 
 brief account of the higher schools (the real and burger schools,) of Prussia and 
 Saxony ; and assigns the reasons why, though the young are thus educated, yet 
 the nation is in a condition of such apathy. 
 
 He then proceeds to review some points, in the schools of other countries which 
 he visited. Corporeal punishment was not used in Holland. In Scotland and 
 England, on the contrary, it was in full force ; and, in some of the proprietary and 
 endowed schools of England, solitary confinement still prevailed. In France, he 
 found the system of surveillance in force in the boarding-schools and colleges — 
 the watching being as close as in a prison. Emulation is an incentive in the Eng- 
 lish and Scotch schools, of all grades ; and is allowed, though not extensively 
 practiced, in the Prussian and Saxon schools. Its application to religious instruc- 
 tion and attainment, Mr. Mann thinks highly objectionable. The religious instruc- 
 tion, both in Great Britain and on the continent, is for the most part sectarian — 
 a measure fraught with many and great evils, not the least of which are its polit- 
 ical results. Mr. Mann closes with some eloquent reflections on the reasons we 
 have for thankfulness that our lot was not cast among the effete, worn-out na- 
 tions of Europe •, but that here civilization could have new opportunities of trial, 
 unembarrassed by prescriptive rights, hereditary nobility, an absolute govern- 
 ment, feudalism, or pauperism ; and sums up with this great truth, that " In a 
 republic, ignorance is a crime ; and that private immorality is not less an op- 
 probrium to the state than it is guilt in the perpetrator." 
 
 In his eighth report, after giving his usual statistics of the advance in the 
 cause of education in the state, and a few remarks on the increasing employment 
 of female teachers, the enlarged amount of town appropriations, the gratifying in- 
 crease in the number of school libraries, and the painful necessity of breaking up 
 schools from the incompetency of teachers, he advocates, at some length, the or- 
 ganization of teachers' institutes (which had already been established in New 
 York,) and recommends an appropriation for the purpose ; he also notices, with 
 approbation, the organization of county and town teachers' associations, suggests 
 that school registers should hereafter be provided, in book form ; specifies the re- 
 sults of an inquiry into the number of towns in which the Bible is not used in 
 the schools ; and notices the causes which led to the removal of one of the state 
 normal schools from Lexington to West Newton. He then proceeds to discuss 
 the question of the distribution of the school moneys among the districts, giving 
 statistics of the methods heretofore adopted, which were exceedingly various; and, 
 without entering into details, urging the view that the distribution should be 
 made in such a way as to give equal advantages to each district. This does not 
 necessarily require an equal expenditure in each ; for one school may be large 
 
HORACE MANN. 629 
 
 and require one or more assistants, another may be small and require but one 
 teacher ; one may be composed mostly of large scholars and require a male 
 teacher, another of small scholars and be benefited by having a good female 
 teacher. Connected with this subject is the question of the power of the towns 
 to raise money for school purposes, beyond the minimum required by the statute. 
 Mr. Mann defends the liberal construction of the statute ; not only from motives of 
 humanity and philanthropy, but from the evident design of the law-makers, as 
 demonstrated from other enactments bearing upon the question. Another point 
 considered in the report, is the teaching vocal music in the schools. He states 
 that about five hundred, or nearly one-sixth of the schools in the commonwealth 
 have already adopted the practice of singing in school; and urges the importance 
 of its universal adoption, from the natural taste for it in all classes, from its refin- 
 ing, softening, and purifying power, from the excellent results which it has pro- 
 duced in other countries, and in our own wherever it has been introduced, for its 
 promotion of health, as furnishing the means of intellectual exercises, and for its 
 social and moral influence. He quotes also the opinions of Dr. Chalmers, and of 
 Napoleon, in regard to the power of music in controlling men. Having thus de- 
 monstrated the desirableness of this addition to school instruction, he proceeds to 
 consider the means of accomplishing the obj ect. He suggests that the ability to sing 
 should, as far as possible, be made one of the qualifications of the teacher ; and 
 that, where this is impracticable, in the larger towns, a teacher should be hired, 
 and in the smaller towns, benevolent persons, accomplished in the art, should 
 volunteer to bestow instruction. 
 
 The ninth report commences with some statistics of great interest; one table, 
 showing that there were but twenty-two towns in the commonwealth which had 
 not availed themselves of the state provision for school libraries ; another show- 
 ing the progress of the school fund for ten years; a third giving the amount 
 raised by the towns for school purposes, showing that the expenditure for schools, 
 per annum, was more than one dollar for every inhabitant. The usual statistics 
 in regard to length of schools, attendance, &c, are given ; and the necessity of 
 enforcing a more full and punctual attendance, urged with great earnestness and 
 eloquence. The compensation of teachers is next considered, and the secretary 
 urges the necessity of increased compensation, and a higher standard of qualifica- 
 tion, especially for female teachers ; on the ground of the severity and responsi- 
 bility of their duties, the cost of training, and the fact that the best talent is now 
 drawn away to private schools and seminaries, in other states, by the higher 
 compensation offered them. The advantages of the new school register are pointed 
 out ; the cases in which schools were broken up through the incompetency of 
 the teacher, or other causes, which had largely increased under the new law of 
 the previous year, are next analyzed ; the number of new teachers, and the com- 
 paratively small number who make teaclrng a profession, are noticed ; an inter- 
 esting narrative is given of the holding of the first teachers' institutes, whose or- 
 ganization was due to the liberality of Hon. Edmund Dwight; a retrospect of the 
 year, its progress, and its signs of promise, are recorded ; and Mr. Mann pro- 
 ceeds to discuss the duties of the state for the future, in the cause of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 In connection with this subject, he speaks at considerable length of school-mo- 
 tives, and of some means for avoiding and extirpating school vices. Under these 
 heads, he considers, first, the character, duties, and qualifications of the school 
 
630 HORACE MANN. 
 
 committees, urging the importance of their placing moral improvement, in their 
 examinations of the school, in at least equal rank with intellectual progress, 
 and that they should discountenance the effort on the part of teachers to en- 
 courage intellectual progress, at the expense of moral culture, or the development 
 of the evil passions of our nature. He next passes to the motives that should 
 actuate the teacher. He must not he a hireling. He must love children and 
 love his work. The contemplation of his work, in its ever-changing character, 
 and its beneficence should constantly excite him to new zeal, and exhilarate his 
 spirits ; if it do not, he is unfit for his work. He should enter the school-room as 
 the friend and benefactor of his scholars ; should aim to secure their good-will ; 
 should lead, not drive. Order must be maintained, but it should be maintained 
 from reverence and regard for the teacher, and not from fear. No code of laws 
 should be enacted, but every act should be submitted to the conscience of the 
 school. Is it right ? not Is it written ? should be the question to be propounded 
 by each scholar to his own conscience. It would be well for the teacher to speak 
 of the duties to be done, of the reasons and rewards appertaining to them, rather 
 than of offenses and their punishments. The moral instruction given by the 
 teacher should have reference to their duties in school and at home ; the duty of 
 cultivating the spirit of honor and kindness to each other ; the desire of aiding 
 each other's improvement ; the cowardice and meanness of attributing to others 
 our own faults and offenses ; the despicable character of falsehood and decep- 
 tion, &c, &c. 
 
 The government of the school is next considered ; the influence of the fear of 
 punishment, and of the restraint of higher motives, is compared; and, though 
 corporeal punishment may be necessary in extreme cases, it should be abandoned 
 when higher motives can be brought to bear upon the pupil. Fear is neither 
 curative nor restorative ; it is, at some times and in some cases, preventive, and 
 hence should not be proscribed from the teacher's list of motives, but when both 
 teacher and pupil reach that higher plane of action, for which, we are striving, 
 we may hope to substitute love and duty for it. In this connection, Mr. Mann ex- 
 presses himself decidedly opposed to the practice of expelling refractory and dis- 
 obedient children from the school ; they should be retained and subdued. In the 
 exercises of the school-room, every true teacher will consider the train of feeling, 
 not less than the train of thought, which is evolved ; and the importance of being 
 alive to the bearing and influence of them upon the character of his pupils 
 can not be overrated. 
 
 Imperfect recitations, and their penalties, may exert an unhappy influence. 
 The teacher should not induce them by giving too long lessons, and he should not 
 suffer any scholar habitually to break down in recitation ; and, above all, a class 
 should not be allowed to do so, from the loss of the sense of shame, contempt for 
 the study, and recklessness, which wouM follow. The other temptations in regard 
 to lessons are next considered, and the means of obviating and overcoming them 
 stated. The slurring or shirking lessons, the acted falsehood of procuring others 
 to do the work, and then presenting it as the pupil's own, the prompting others 
 at recitation, and the relying on others to prompt one, and the evils which follow 
 from them, and the best means of preventing them, are fully stated. The use of 
 keys, or answers, in mathematical studies, is also condemned, not more 
 for the ignorance of the principles of mathematics which it exhibits, than 
 for the deception and falsehood which it inevitably occasions ; and the teacher 
 
HORACE MANN. 631 
 
 is recommended to give out original questions and problems, to thwart the 
 practice. 
 
 The prevention of whispering, and other forms of communication, is the next 
 topic considered, and the various methods taken to prevent it are discussed, and 
 the moral danger attendant upon some of them noticed. The intense occupa- 
 tion of the pupils, and the elevation of the moral standard to such a tone as shall 
 array the moral force of the pupils against whispering, and in favor of self-denial, 
 are commended as the most effectual preventive. 
 
 Truancy is another school-vice to be overcome. This can be done by rendering 
 the school attractive, by careful and accurate registration, and by frequent confer- 
 ence with parents. The motives to be brought to bear on children are numerous. 
 The objects of knowledge should be made attractive, both by their order of pre- 
 sentation and the manner of exhibiting them ; this requires high powers and 
 attainments on the part of the teacher. Fear, ambition, emulation, if used as 
 motives, must be used sparingly, and with a full consciousness of the evils which 
 would result from their excessive application. The relative rank which is as- 
 signed to mental and moral qualities in the teacher's mind, will determine the 
 propriety or impropriety of using emulation as an incentive. With some appro- 
 priate remarks on the preparation for school examinations, showing the necessity 
 of their being only the measure of the actual progress of the pupils in knowledge, 
 and some admirable suggestions on the possibility of inculcating moral lessons 
 through intellectual exercises, and a contrast of the inductive with the dogmatic 
 method of instruction, this able report closes. 
 
 Mr. Mann's tenth report commences with the announcement of some cheer- 
 ing facts relative to the advancement of the cause of education in the state. The 
 amount appropriated by the towns for the support of schools, had risen from 
 $400,000, in 1837, to $620,000, in 1845. The number of female teachers em- 
 ployed had increased from 3591 to 4997, while the number of male teachers was 
 only 215 more than nine years previous. More than $1,200,000 had been ex- 
 pended during the same period for the erection and repair of school-houses ; the 
 amount of apparatus had increased a hundred fold ; the methods of instruction, 
 through the influence of normal schools and teachers' institutes, and the greater 
 strictness of examinations, had been greatly improved. Examinations both of 
 teachers and schools had been conducted, in many instances, by written or 
 printed questions. The government and discipline of the schools had been much 
 improved ; induced by a higher degree of competency on the parts of the teach- 
 ers, more careful examination of the teachers, and visitation of the schools, and 
 deeper interest on the part of parents ; five hundred schools, almost one-sixth of 
 the entire number, had been taught, and well taught, without a resort to corporeal 
 pun'shment. The aggregate attendance had been a little advanced, though too 
 little ; and the average length of the schools had increased, since 1837, fifteen per 
 cent. The circulation of the school abstracts had accomplished a vast amount of 
 good, and the teachers' institutes and normal schools, were well attended, and 
 were qualifying a better class of teachers for the state. 
 
 Having stated these encouraging facts, Mr. Mann next proceeds to give some 
 account of the Massachusetts school system, commencing with the history of its 
 origin and the arguments for a system of free schools. He specifies, first, the ar- 
 gument adduced for it, by its early founders, — the necessity of universal education 
 for the promotion of the Protestant faith, — an insufficient argument, because on 
 
632 HORACE MANN. 
 
 that ground the Romanist should oppose it ; next, the argument that it was 
 necessary for the preservation and perpetuity of republican institutions ; this, too, 
 an untenable ground, as a monarchist should, in that case, be opposed to it; the 
 argument of the political economist, and of the moralist, who extends the 
 positions of the economist, are next stated ; and Mr. Mann proceeds to defend 
 free schools, by an argument resting on higher grounds than either. Laying 
 down the postulate that every child of the human family has the same right to au 
 education that he has to inhale the air which keeps him in life, or to enjoy the 
 light of the sun, or to receive that shelter, protection, and nourishment, which are 
 necessary to the continuance of his bodily existence, he proceeds to defend this 
 postulate by the following argument. Property, whether real or personal, has for 
 its main, primary, and natural elements and ingredients, the riches of the soil, the 
 treasures of the sea, the light and warmth of the sun, fertilizing clouds, streams, 
 and dews, the wind, and the chemical and vegetative agencies of nature. But 
 these are the gifts of God, not to individuals, but to the race ; hence the individual 
 can have but a life tenure, and is bound to transmit the property thus acquired, 
 not only unimpaired, but improved, to the next generation. Again, of that por- 
 tion of property which may be said to be the direct result of human toil, how very 
 small a portion is there, for which the present generation is not indebted to those 
 which have preceded it ; our government, laws, institutions, our houses, roads, 
 churches, the arts, sciences, discoveries, and inventions, by which we are enabled 
 to apply labor profitably, were all, or most of them, handed down to us by those 
 who have preceded us ; and we are but the trustees of the accumulations of the 
 ages to those who shall come after us. It follows from these premises that the next 
 generation have a claim on that which we hold as property, such as the ward has 
 upon the guardian, and hence there is an obligation on us to qualify those yet in 
 their minority, for their future inheritance, and they have a right to the use of so 
 much of their future inheritance as may be pecessary thus to qualify them, be- 
 fore they come into full possession. Mr. Mann illustrated this also in other ways, 
 as by the case of several proprietors of land on the same stream, where those 
 above cannot corrupt, or injure the quality, or diminish the quantity, of water to 
 which those below are entitled, and thus the occupant below has some claim upon 
 the waters above, before they reach his land ; or, in the case of persons occupying 
 the same vicinity, one can not injure or vitiate the quality of the atmosphere, 
 which the others are to breathe. He sums up the argument as follows : " The 
 successive generations of men, taken collectively, constitute one great common- 
 wealth." 
 
 The property of this commonwealth is pledged for the education of all its 
 youth, up to such a point as will save them from poverty and vice, and prepare 
 them for the adequate performance of their social and civil duties. 
 
 The successive holders of this property are trustees, bound to the faithful exe- 
 cution of their trust by the most sacred obligations ; because embezzlement and 
 pillage from children and descendants, are as criminal as the same offenses, when 
 perpetrated against contemporaries. Having thus laid his foundations broad and 
 deep, he proceeds to show how the free school system of Massachusetts is reared 
 upon them ; giving first the constitutional provision relative to free schools, 
 and then, under the following heads, in popular language, the substance of the 
 legal enactment, and decisions bearing on the subject. Territorial organization of 
 the state, duty of towns to maintain schools (giving under this head the decision 
 
HORACE MANN. (333 
 
 of the supreme court in the case of Cushing vs. Inhabitants of Newburyport,) 
 school districts, prudential committees, district school-houses, school district taxes, 
 contiguous school districts, in adjoining towns, union school districts, school com- 
 mittees, duty of the town committee to provide a school when the prudential 
 committee fails to do so, duty of the town committee in regard to schools kept for 
 the benefit of all the inhabitants of the town, visitation of schools, school-books, 
 religious liberty, teachers, Board of Education, school registers, inquiries and re- 
 turns, committees' reports, school abstracts, reports of the Board of Education, ap- 
 paratus, district school libraries, state normal schools, teachers' institutes, penal- 
 ties for not providing and for withholding the means of education, aids and en- 
 couragements to education, provision for answering the requests of other states 
 and countries. 
 
 With an eloquent peroration on the results which have already been realized 
 from this general diffusion of education in the state, Mr. Mann closes this long 
 and able report, occupying in all nearly 300 pages. 
 
 The eleventh REroRT announces an advance of more than $50,000 over the 
 preceding year in the appropriations for the support of schools, an increase of 
 241 in the number of female teachers employed, and an advance in the monthly 
 stipend paid to both male and female teachers; which, however, especially in the 
 case of females, it still pronounces far below what it should be, and urges a decided 
 increase. The schools were held an average period of eight months, and the attend- 
 ance was also increasing. The tables in the school abstracts had been prepared 
 by the secretary, and an important one added, arranging the towns in the state 
 in the order of their merit or delinquency in regard to attendance of scholars ; 
 thus demonstrating an important fact, that the attendance was much better in the 
 scattered rural districts than in the cities and large towns. In this connection he 
 suggests the importance of a change in the apportionment of the income of the 
 school fund, bestowing it according to the actual attendance upon the schools, and 
 urges some potent reasons for such a measure ; he refers to an error in the act 
 of 1847, relative to the forwarding reports and returns by the school com- 
 mittees, suggests some improvements in regard to holding teachers' institutes, and 
 to the condition of the state normal schools, &C, and then proceeds to discuss a 
 topic which he deems of vital interest to the state, viz., The power of common 
 schools, if under proper management and control, and attended hy all the chil- 
 dren of the state, to redeem the state from social vices and crimes. During the 
 preceding year, Mr. Mann had addressed a circular to John Griscom, Esq., an 
 eminent teacher and reformer, David P. Page, Esq., of the New York State Nor- 
 mal School, Solomon Adams, Esq., Rev. Jacob Abbott, F. A. Adams, Esq., E. A. 
 Andrews, Esq., Roger S. Howard, Esq., and Miss Catherine E. Beecher, all dis- 
 tinguished and experienced teachers, in which, after stating that he regarded high 
 moral qualifications as an essential to successful teaching, he had propounded the 
 following queries : — 
 
 1. "How many years have you been engaged in school-keeping ; and whether 
 in the country, or populous towns, or cities ? " 
 
 2. " About how many children have you had under your care ; of which sex, 
 and between what ages?" 
 
 3. " Should all our schools be kept by teachers of high intellectual and moral 
 qualifications, and should all the children in the community be brought within 
 these schools for ten months in a year, from the age of four to that of sixteen 
 years; then what proportion, — what per centage, — of such children as you have 
 
634 HORACE MANN. 
 
 had under your care, could, in your opinion, be so educated and trained, that their 
 existence, on going out into the world, would be a benefit and not a detriment, an 
 honor and not a shame, to society ? Or, to state the question in a general form, if 
 all children were brought within the salutary and auspicious influences I have 
 here supposed, what per centage of them should you pronounce to be irreclaim- 
 able and hopeless ? Of course, I do not speak of imbeciles or idiots, but only of 
 rational and accountable beings." 
 
 The persons to whom these inquiries were addressed, were all believers in the 
 Calvinistic doctrine of total depravity, and a transmitted sinful nature, so that no 
 theory of the innate goodness, or perfectibility of human nature, could have in- 
 fluenced their opinion, yet there is a wonderful unanimity in the views they ex- 
 pressed. Mr. Griscom, a cautious, careful member of the Society of Friends, a 
 teacher for forty-two or forty-three years, replied : " My belief is that, under the 
 conditions mentioned in the question, not more than two per cent, would be irre- 
 claimable nuisances to society, and that ninety-five per cent, would be supporters 
 of the moral welfare of the community in which they resided. ***** 
 Finally, in the predicament last stated in the circular, and supposing the teachers 
 to be imbued with the gospel spirit, I believe there would not be more than one 
 half of one per cent, of the children educated, on whom a wise judge would be 
 compelled to pronounce the doom of hopelessness and irreelaimability." 
 
 Mr. Page says, under the circumstances stated, " I should scarcely expect, after 
 the first generation of children submitted to the experiment, to fail, in a single 
 case, to secure the results you have named." 
 
 Mr. S. Adams says : " So far as my own experience goes, so far as my knowl- 
 edge of the experience of others extends, so far as the statistics of crime throw 
 any light on the subject, I should confidently expect that ninety-nine in a hun- 
 dred, and I think even more, with such means of education as you have sup- 
 posed, and with such divine favor as we are authorized to expect, would become 
 good members of society, the supporters of order and law, and truth and justice, 
 and all righteousness." 
 
 Rev. Jacob Abbott replies : " If all our schools were under the charge of teach- 
 ers possessing what I regard as the right intellectual and moral qualifications, and 
 if all the children in the community were brought under the influence of these 
 schools, for ten months in the year, I think the work of training up the whole 
 community to intelligence and virtue, would soon be accomplished, as completely 
 as any human end can be obtained by human means." 
 
 Mr. F. A. Adams had met with but two boys, out of nearly four hundred, who 
 had been under his care, of whose correct conduct, under the circumstances 
 supposed, he would have any doubt ; and even them he could not regard as ut- 
 terly irreclaimable. 
 
 Mr. E. A. Andrews replies : "On these conditions, and under these circum- 
 stances, I do not hesitate to express the opinion that the failures need not be, — 
 would not be, — one per cent." 
 
 Miss Beecher says : " Let it be so arranged that all these children shall remain 
 till sixteen, under their teachers, and also that they shall spend their lives in this 
 city (i. e. the city where they had been taught,) and I have no hesitation in say- 
 ing, I do not believe that one, no, not a single one, would fail of proving a re- 
 spectable and prosperous member of society ; nay, more, I believe every one 
 would, at the close of life, find admission into the world of peace and love." 
 
HORACE MANN. 535 
 
 Having obtained such weighty evidence in favor of the plan suggested, Mr. 
 Mann proceeds to consider what is necessary to carry it out, and states, as the 
 prerequisites, the advancement of all the teachers of the state to the physi- 
 cal, intellectual, and moral qualifications of those who now occupy the high- 
 est rank ; and, second, the power of enforcing the attendance of all the children 
 of the state in school ten months in the year, during the period between the 
 ages of four and sixteen. Can these prerequisites be attained ? He believes 
 they can, and urges the following considerations. The talent and ability for a 
 supply of such teachers as are required, sufficient for this demand, exists in the state, 
 as is evident from the large number who, entering at first on the teacher's pro- 
 fession, forsake it for those more lucrative, and considered more honorable, and 
 who attain in these high distinction. If the standard of requirements was raised, 
 and the compensation put as high as the average of other professions, the num- 
 ber would soon be sufficient ; that the state could afford to do this, is demonstra- 
 ted from the fact that the expense would not exceed three times what it is now, and 
 the saving effected in the diminution of crime and vice, as is easily proved, would 
 amount to tenfold the cost. 
 
 In regard to attendance, he shows that the previous legislation of Massachu- 
 setts, and other states, settles the question of the power of enforcing attendance ; 
 that in most cases it would be a benefit to the parent, and in all to the child ; that 
 in the case of the vicious and indolent parent, who now lives on his child's labor, 
 it is but justice; and in the case of the honest and virtuous poor, to whom it 
 might be a hardship, the state could and should compensate for the loss of serv- 
 ice. In regard to the loss of service to the public, he demonstrates that the 
 number employed is comparatively few, and that, in these cases, the mote intelli- 
 gent labor of the educated child, over sixteen years of age, would be sufficiently 
 profitable to compensate for any loss which might otherwise ensue. He then 
 urges, in a most eloquent appeal to the Board, the importance of taking this bold 
 step forward, and securing to the rising generation Universality of Education. 
 
 Some months prior to the presentation of his twelfth and last report, Mr. 
 Mann had resigned his office as secretary of the Board of Education, in conse- 
 quence of his election to Congress. This report was prepared at the request of 
 the Board, as his farewell address to those with whom, and for whom, he had, for 
 almost twelve years, so faithfully labored. 
 
 In this report he reviews his past labors, contrasting the condition of the public 
 schools of the commonwealth, at the time he accepted office, with their present 
 state, enumerating, with a justifiable pride, the doubling of the appropriations for 
 schools, the expenditure of $2,200,000 on school-houses during the period, the 
 rapid increase of female teachers, as indicating the high intellectual culture of the 
 sex, the increase in attendance, the organization and successful operation of the 
 state normal schools and teachers' institutes, the district school libraries, which, in 
 some seven or eight years, had risen from nothing, to an aggregate of more than 
 91,000 volumes, and the beneficent legislation of the past two years, by which the 
 sphere of the teachers' institutes was enlarged, power given to take land on ap- 
 praisal for the location of school-houses, the inmates of jails and houses of cor- 
 rection provided with instruction, the idiot and imbecile brought under humanizing 
 and enlightening influences, and the juvenile offender reformed, instead of being 
 brutalized by the associations of a prison. Having thus laid before the Board 
 the existing condition of education in the state, he proceeds, as in his former 
 reports, to discuss a particular topic, or class of topics more at length. 
 
636 HORACE MANN. 
 
 Announcing, as his general subject, " The capacities of our present school sys- 
 tem to improve the pecuniary condition, and to elevate the intellectual and moral 
 character of the commonwealth," he proceeds to show the comparative insignifi- 
 cance of Massachusetts with most of the other states in territorial extent ; its 
 paucity of mineral resources, and of natural facilities for internal intercourse ; its 
 rock-bound and sterile soil, and its political inferiority in the number of its repre- 
 sentatives in the national councils ; and then, in a passage of rare eloquence and 
 beauty, a regal gem, even among his profusion of brilliant passages, he urges that 
 her very diminutiveness should be a stimulus to higher achievements ; and that 
 " the narrow strip of half-cultivated land, that lies between her eastern and 
 western boundaries, is not Massachusetts ; but her noble and incorruptible men, 
 her pure and exalted women, the children in all her schools, whose daily lessons 
 are the preludes and rehearsals of the great duties of life, and the prophecies of 
 future eminence, — these are the state." Developing and applying this idea, he 
 proceeds to consider the common school as the most effective and benignant of all the 
 forces of civilization and progress, and to show how the true business of the school- 
 room connects itself and becomes identical with the great interests of society. 
 He considers, first, the influence of correct views of physical education, such as 
 might be disseminated from the school-room. By means of this, life might be 
 prolonged, sickness, insanity, and pain prevented, weakness replaced by vigor, 
 the appetites controlled, and the vices of excess subdued, and the body, God's 
 earthly temple, made fit and seemly for the abode of an indwelling divinity. 
 
 Considering next the beneficial effects of a universal diffusion of intellectual 
 education on the community, and especially a community situated like Massachu- 
 setts, he shows, by numerous illustrations, that the only efficient preventive of the 
 division of society into a wealthy aristocracy and a poor and dependent laboring 
 class, is that intellectual culture, which shall make the poor in money the equal 
 of the rich, in intellectual power, in inventive genius, and in that skill and crea- 
 tive energy which, whatever may be their employment, will prevent them from 
 remaining in the ranks of the poor. He passes next to the consideration of polit- 
 ical education, and its influence in the promotion of wise action, in all that apper- 
 tains to the government of the state or the nation ; in the prevention of arbitrary 
 exactions, of monopolies, of lotteries, and of licenses for the commission of crime 5 
 the too frequent administration of the oath, under circumstances inviting perjury; 
 the preservation of the sanctity of the ballot-box ; and the inculcation of those 
 great principles of political science, which lie at the basis of all our institutions. 
 
 But far higher in importance is moral education. It is a primal necessity of 
 social existence. Educated intellect, uncontrolled by moral principle, would be but 
 the minister of evil. In all the history of man, intellect, unrestrained by con- 
 science, has subverted right, and turned good into evil, until, spite of the restric- 
 tions of law, the arguments of the moralist, and the warnings and appeals of the 
 minister of Christianity, it has attained a status so formidable, that some have 
 been ready to give up the world as a total loss, utterly gone to wreck. The at- 
 tempt to give to all the children of a community a careful moral training has not 
 yet, however, been made ; and, till this fails, we need not despair. We have in 
 its favor the strongest testimony of experienced teachers, and, more than this, the 
 declaration of holy writ : " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he 
 is old he will not depart from it." But to the full consummation of so glorious a 
 result, more is needed than mere training, in morals. Religious education is 
 
HORACE MANN. (337 
 
 requisite. By this is meant, not sectarian education, not the teaching after and 
 of this or that denomination, but those great truths of revelation in which all can 
 agree, and which will cause men to know and reverence God, and love their 
 fellow-men. The question how this religious education shall be conveyed to the 
 young, is an important one. It must not be a religion established by government, 
 with its formulas and creeds, for all history shows that this uniformly shelters and 
 encourages the vilest hypocrisy and irreligion. It may not be done by permitting 
 to one sect or another the control of all religious instruction. It can only, in our 
 common schools, be accomplished by putting the Bible, the eternal rule of right, 
 into the hands of the pupils, and causing the teacher, by precept, and above all by 
 example, to enforce and illustrate its blessed teachings. 
 
 In this connection, Mr. Mann vindicates, at some length, the Board of Educa- 
 tion, and himself, from the charge of encouraging or favoring irreligion, and, as it 
 was charged, with advocating "godless schools." He shows, conclusively, that 
 both the Board and its secretary advocated and urged the use of the scriptures in 
 all the schools, from some of which they had been rejected when he came into 
 office, but were restored at his instance ; that he and the Board opposed the 
 teaching of denominational catechisms and sectarian instruction, as being incon- 
 sistent with the laws, and deleterious to the best interests, of the schools ; and he 
 demonstrates, conclusively, that any other course would have proved ruinous to 
 the schools, of great and lasting injury to the community, and of no benefit even 
 to the parties who urged it. 
 
 With a thrilling appeal to the citizens of Massachusetts to act worthy of their 
 fathers, and of the noble destiny which the future has in reserve for them, Mr. 
 Mann closes his report. 
 
 In a brief supplementary report, with his usual thoughtfulness for the welfare 
 of others, he suggests to the Board, that his successor will need an office (which 
 he had never had,) a clerk, and some compensation for his traveling expenses ; 
 and incidentally, though with great modesty, he unveils a part of his own arduous 
 labors. He had averaged fifteen hours labor per diem, from the time of taking 
 the office, had never had a day of relaxation, and, we may add, what he did not, 
 had expended more than the half of his salary for the cause of education. 
 
 The foregoing brief synopsis of Mr. Mann's twelve annual reports 
 to the Board of Education, will give the reader, who is not familiar 
 with the documents themselves, only a faint idea of the fullness and 
 ability with which the vast details of school organization, administra- 
 tio;i, instruction, and discipline, are discussed. To be appn dated 
 they must be read; and we know of no series of educational reports, 
 by one mind, in any language, so readable, or so instructive. We 
 hope the author will consent to their republication — or, what will be 
 bitter, will himself recast the whole into a complete treatise on the 
 public schools of Massachusetts. 
 
 N 0TE —The original eilition of these reports was long ago exhausted, but all except the 
 10th. llth, and 12th, were republished in the ''Common SchoolJournal," sets of which can 
 still be had. To bring the many valuable suggestions, eloquently expressed, of Mr Mann to 
 the knowledge of our readers, we shall enrich several of the subsequent numbers of our 
 Journal with copious extracts from his publications, arranged under appropriate headings. 
 
638 HORACE MANN. 
 
 In addition to his annual and occasional lectures before county con- 
 ventions, educational associations, teachers' 1 institutes, and lyceums ; and 
 to his annual reports, as secretary, Mr. Mann himself contributed 
 largely to the pages, and superintended the monthly publication, of the 
 "Common School Journal" making ten octavo volumes, with which 
 every public library of the country should be supplied, as a valuable 
 part of our educational literature. 
 
 No inconsiderable portion of each year was given to the prepara- 
 tion of the Abstracts of the reports and returns of the school com- 
 mittees of the several towns of the Commonwealth — a labor, before 
 his appointment, and since his retirement, performed by a clerk — but 
 which was added to his other duties, and which was cheerfully per- 
 formed, because of the intrinsic value of the documents thus prepared 
 and published. The real progress and strength of the common 
 school movement, can nowhere be better traced and felt, than in the 
 statistical tables and reports of committees to the several towns, in 
 these abstracts. 
 
 Added to all these labors was a correspondence with school officers, 
 teachers, and active friends of educational improvement, both in and 
 out of the state, which, in itself, was sufficient to employ a clerk dur- 
 ing regular office hours, but which was performed by Mr. Mann, at 
 such intervals, in any part of the day or night, as he could command, 
 not otherwise appropriated. 
 
 To all these labors of the voice and pen — of brain and muscle — at 
 home and abroad — must be added the "wear and tear " of spirits, 
 as well as the physical labor of writing in defense of himself and the 
 board, from numerous attacks which were made, from time to time, 
 upon his and their measures and publications. 
 
 The most memorable of these attacks, as connected with the edu- 
 cational policy of the state, was the attempt made in the legislature 
 of 1840, for the abolition of the Board of Education, the discontinu- 
 ance of the normal schools, the payment back to Edmund Dwight 
 of the money which he had given to aid in the advancement of these 
 schools, and generally for setting things back to the point from which 
 they had started three years before. A majority of the committee 
 on education, sprang a bill upon the House for accomplishing these 
 purposes, without the knowledge of the minority of the committee, 
 who were favorable to the board, until a few hours before the report 
 was submitted. No opportunity was allowed, either by the commit- 
 tee, or the house, for a counter report, but an attempt was made to 
 drive the bill through, without delay and without debate. Delay was 
 secured, a counter report was made by the minority, a debate was 
 
HORACE MANN. 
 
 639 
 
 had, and the wise policy of former legislatures in establishing the 
 board, and in inaugurating the system of special institutions, and 
 courses of training for the professional training of teachers was ably 
 vindicated, and, contrary to all expectation, on the part of the best 
 friends of the board, and the secretary, the measure was defeated, and 
 so thoroughly, that no attempt was afterward made to discontinue 
 this department of the government. The friends of public schools, 
 and of special institutions, for the qualification and improvement of 
 teachers, and of state supervision of the great interest of education, 
 in every state, owe a large debt of gratitude to those men who 
 achieved a triumph for the Board of Education, the normal schools, 
 and Mr. Mann, in the legislature of Massachusetts, in 1840.* Defeat 
 there and then, added to the disastrous policy in Pennsylvania, Ohio, 
 and Connecticut, about the same time, in reference to common schools, 
 would have changed the whole condition of public instruction in this 
 country, for a half century, if not forever. 
 
 In the winter of 1844, the fundamental principle of the common 
 school system of Massachusetts, its requiring of all teachers to incul- 
 cate the principles of piety, justice, universal benevolence, and other 
 Christian virtues, and its prohibition of those things "which are cal- 
 culated to favor the tenets of any particular sect" — the sole basis of 
 common schools can be maintained among differing and discordant 
 religious denominations — was assailed by violent attacks on the board 
 and their secretary, on the ground that they, and particularly Mr. 
 Mann, had, for the first time, asserted this principle, in such form and 
 to such extent as to exclude all religious men and all distinctive re- 
 ligious instruction from the public schools, and their administration. 
 To these grave charges, variously reiterated, Mr. Mann replied in 
 "Three Letters,'' 1 which were afterward republished in a pamphlet, 
 entitled "The Common School Controversy.' 1 '' In these letters Mr. 
 Mann vindicates, in a masterly manner, both the policy of the consti- 
 tution and school laws of Massachusetts, in this regard, but showed, 
 undeniably, that the charges made against the board — as to the ques- 
 tionable religious character of a majority of the members who had 
 composed it, from time to time, and of the documents which the 
 board or secretary had published, and as to the influence and results 
 of their actions, and of their publication, so far as the same could be 
 
 * The majority and minority reports, together with letters from George B. Emerson, Sam- 
 nel G. Howe, and remarks in the house of representatives, by Hon. John A. Shaw, of Bridge- 
 water, afterward superintendent of public schools in New Orleans, will be found in the 
 'Common School Journal." for August, 1S40, Vol. II. pp 225-46. Mr. Mann's own graphic 
 account of the matter, will be found in an address, made by him, at the dedication of the new 
 buil ling erected for the State Normal School, at Bridgewater, in 1946, and which we shall 
 append to this memoir. 
 
£40 HORACE MANN. 
 
 measured and ascertained — were without the substance or semblance 
 of truth. These letters, in their newspaper as well as their pamphlet 
 form, attracted much attention, were widely commented upon in. the 
 religious as well as the secular press, and did much to disabuse the 
 public mind of the prejudices which had been fostered against the 
 board among many excellent people. The argument of these letters 
 was again ably presented, in a more formal and elaborate manner, by 
 Mr. Mann, in his twelfth annual report, and meets now with general, 
 if not universal, acceptance. 
 
 But the document which had at once the widest circulation, and 
 involved the author in the most varied, voluminous, and prolonged 
 controversy, was his Seventh Annual Report, giving the results of his 
 observations in the schools of Europe, in the summer of 1843. The 
 attacks made from various quarters, as to Mr. Mann's statement of 
 facts, or his speculations, as to modes of instructing deaf-mutes, of 
 managing juvenile delinquents, and methods of instruction and dis- 
 cipline in public schools generally, and particularly in those of Prus- 
 sia, with Mr. Mann's replies and explanations, did a vast amount of 
 good, by attracting the attention of educated men, and of teachers, all 
 over the country, to the condition of our own schools, both public and 
 private, and to the adoption, very widely, of the methods described. 
 The personal animosities which this controversy engendered, we trust, 
 are allayed or forgotten ; and we have no disposition to revive or 
 perpetuate them by any further notice, except to remark that, in its 
 progress, this controversy absorbed much time, and occasioned much 
 wear and tear of spirits — but did not diminish the amount or variety 
 of Mr. Mann's official labors. We are not sure but a good, sharp 
 controversy is necessary to get the largest amount of work out of all 
 the faculties of a mind constituted like that .of Mr. Mann. 
 
 In retiring from his post, as secretary of the Board of Education, 
 in the autumn of 1848, Mr. Mann can justly claim that his labors, 
 during the twelve years he held the office, had more than realized all 
 the promises of good to the common schools which their friends 
 ever made, to induce the legislature to establish the policy of state 
 supervision. If we turn to the "Memorial of the Directors of the 
 American Institute of Instruction"* praying for the appointment of a 
 superintendent of common schools, drawn up by Mr. George B. Em- 
 erson, and presented to the legislature of Massachusetts, in 1836, we 
 find that, in every way in which it was claimed an officer might act 
 for the good of the schools, Mr. Mann did act with wonderful effi- 
 ciency, and the largest results. 
 
 " We append this Memorial. 
 
HORACE MANN. 
 
 641 
 
 Of Mr. Mann's political career, this Journal is not the place to 
 speak in detail. On the 23d of February, John Quincy Adams, who 
 was the representative from the congressional district in which Mr. 
 Mann resided, died in the United States House of Representatives, at 
 Washington, and Mr. Mann had the great honor of being selected for 
 two terms, by his constituents, as the most suitable person to succeed 
 him. But great as was the urgency, and powerful as were the mo- 
 tives which led Mr. Mann to accept the nomination, and, on his elec- 
 tion, to enter again the arena of political life, we, in common with 
 many other personal and educational friends, regretted then, and re- 
 gret now, his decision. It took him from a field purely beneficent, in 
 which he was more widely known, and more highly appreciated, than 
 any man living, and where he was every day gaining the willing attention 
 of a larger audience, from all creeds and parties in every part of the 
 country. By throwing himself, with his usual earnestness, and uni- 
 versally acknowledged ability, into the discussion of questions on 
 which the country was already bitterly and widely divided, he cut 
 himself off from the sympathy of a large portion of the people, even 
 on questions which involve no party issues ; and he soon became im- 
 mersed in personal controversy, which exhausts the energies of the 
 best minds, without accomplishing large and permanent results in the 
 way of beneficent legislation. Whoever wishes to exert a powerful 
 and permanent influence in the great field of school and educational 
 improvement, must be able to command the attention and sympathy 
 of large portions of all the great political parties into which the 
 country, and every section of the country, is divided and sub-divided. 
 Whatever hopes Mr. Mann, or his friends, entertained, as to his ability 
 to induce the general government to aid, directly or indirectly, the es- 
 tablishment of an educational bureau, in connection with one of the 
 departments at Washington, or with the Smithsonian Institution, 
 were disappointed; and, after an experience of five years, during which 
 time Mr. Mann was a candidate for the office of governor of Massa- 
 chusetts, he returned again to the educational field, by accepting the 
 presidency of Antioch College, at Yellow Springs, Ohio. 
 
 Antioch College was established under the auspices, and by the pat- 
 ronage, of a religious body, designated by themselves "Christians," be- 
 cause the " disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." Mr. Mann, 
 since his residence at Yellow Springs, has united himself in ecclesi- 
 astical fellowship with this denomination, officiates for them on the 
 Sabbath, and acts with them in the associations or conventions of 
 their churches and congregations. In the administration and instruc- 
 tion of the college, Mr. Mann claims to stand on an unsectarian, al- 
 41 
 
(342 HORACE MANN. 
 
 though christian, platform ; but this claim has not shielded him, or the 
 institution, from the assaults of other denominations — not even from 
 the sect, whose charity in founding the college was not broad enough 
 to tolerate such teaching in ethics and morals only, as would satisfy 
 all professed believers in the New Testament. 
 
 The college was founded mainly on the "scholarship" principle — and 
 as all the funds collected on this basis, and many thousand dollars more, 
 were converted, not into a permanent fund to pay professors, and meet 
 the annual expenses of the institution, but into buildings which yield 
 no pecuniary income, it was soon ascertained that the larger the num- 
 ber of students sent up on scholarship certificates, the sooner would 
 come the utter bankruptcy of the enterprise. Hence it has come to 
 pass that, between the assaults of sectarian enemies — enemies from 
 within and without the "Christian'' church — and the importunate 
 claims of creditors, Mr. Mann has been again involved in unprofitable 
 controversy, and has been compelled to expend energies, needed to 
 realize his large educational plans, in saving the college, as a literary 
 institution, from the wreck of its financial policy. 
 
 In the original organization, and through Mr. Mann's entire man- 
 agement of Antioch College, thus far, he has aimed to secure three 
 points, beyond the ordinary scope of American college discipline. 
 
 1. To secure for the female sex equal opportunities of education 
 with the male, and to extend those opportunities in the same studies, 
 and classes, and by the same instructors, after the manner of many 
 academic institutions in different parts of the country. 
 
 2. To confer the college degrees only upon persons who have not 
 only sustained the requisite literary and scientific character, but who, 
 during their college course, have not been addicted to low and mean 
 associations, nor branded with the stigma of any flagrant vice. 
 
 3. To establish, within the walls of the college, a common law, 
 which shall abrogate and banish the now recognized "Code of Honor" 
 and exhibit the true relation of students and Faculty to be that of 
 a large family, in which each member regards the honor of others, and 
 of the whole, as sacredly as his own, and does not withhold from the 
 Faculty any knowledge of the transactions of students, which the 
 best good of each student, and of the college, require to be known. 
 
 It is too early yet to speak of the success or failure of these plans, 
 so far as they are new, and so far as they challenge comparison with 
 older colleges. If they fail, it will not be from the want of ability, 
 earnestness, and industry, on the part of Horace Mann. 
 
 We should have mentioned that Mr. Mann received the degree of 
 LL. D., from Harvard College, and from Brown University. 
 
HORACE MANN. (343 
 
 It is not the aim of this Journal, in its record of the activity and 
 services of living teachers, and promoters of education, to pronounce 
 a final judgment on the character of the subject of each memoir, or 
 the comparative value of the services rendered. In this instance we 
 copy from the "American Phrenological Journal" the following analy- 
 sis of Mr. Mann's character and life, as dictated from a cast of his 
 head, by a manipulator in the office of Messrs. Fowler, in New York. 
 As Mr. Mann is a believer in the philosophy of Phrenology, he can 
 not object that the record which nature has written " to be read of 
 all men" is transcribed for the edification of our readers. 
 
 He has, naturally, great physical and mental activity, and a kind of wiryness 
 of body without sufficient vital force to give the sustaining power necessary fir 
 long-continued physical or mental action. His body is slim and slight, yet very 
 well proportioned in its parts. His lungs are not large, the digestive system is 
 moderately developed, and the muscles are proportioned to the lack of vitality ; 
 hence he has riot a high order of physical power, nor sufficient vitality to sustain 
 such power did he possess it. His chief care in regard to the body should be to 
 combine with his rigid temperance in gustatory matters, an equal amount of tem- 
 perance in regard to labor, exposure of body, and labor of mind. He has, doubt- 
 less, already learned by experience, that physical activity and labor, within due 
 bounds, are essential to clearness and strength of mind, as well as to health of 
 body. He can not, at his age, by muscular labor in the open air, give hardness 
 and great power to his physical system, yet he can in this way accumulate an ap- 
 parent surplus of physical energy for a given mental effort that may tax the sys- 
 tem to an unusual degree. 
 
 His brain is large for his body, and although the head in circumference is only 
 of full size, the hight of it is unusually great. The head may be denominated 
 a " three-story one," which gives elevation to his character, and an aspiring dispo- 
 sition. His power is moral and intellectual, rather than physical. We seldom 
 find so large a brain in the tophead, in the region of the organs of reason, im- 
 agination, sympathy, dignity, perseverance, wit, and moral sentiment, joined with 
 so little basilar brain in the region of the animal and selfish organs. 
 
 There are several peculiarities of development which deserve notice. The 
 higher portion of the organ of combativeness is much larger than the lower ; the 
 latter being small, giving a disinclination for physical combat and a lack of ani- 
 mal courage, while the former being rather large, gives a tendency to intellectual 
 conflict and moral courage. His destructiveness never leads to the infliction of 
 unnecessary physical pain, — he dreads it, even upon an oyster, yet the anterior 
 and upper part of the organ appears to be sharp and fully developed, which gives 
 efficiency and severity of an intellectual and moral cast, as in criticism and re- 
 views of opinions, character, and conduct, and imparts general thoroughness of 
 disposition. 
 
 Secretivencss is insufficient to produce more than ordinary policy and cunning, 
 but the anterior part of the organ, which works with intellect and the elements 
 of taste, imparts an elevated and intellectual policy, which acts in the adjustment 
 of thoughts in such a way that they sting error without offending delicacy. His 
 cautiousness is large in the anterior part, which leads to watchfulness, and that 
 care and painstaking which plans for prospective dangers and emergencies, and 
 guards against accidents, while the posterior part of the organ is not large enough 
 to produce timidity ; hence he frequently appears more courageous and brave than 
 the development of the organs of combativeness and destructiveness could inspire 
 him to be. Having planned a course of action, he proceeds among dangers with 
 a full consciousness of their position and character, and, to an observer, seems 
 reckless of them ; as a pilot, who knows well where the rocks and bars lie about 
 the channel, steers among them under full sail, to the terror of those who know 
 there are rocks, but are not certain that the pilot knows their locality. 
 
 His constructiveness is largely developed, especially in its upper portion, giving 
 
(544 HORACE MANN. 
 
 planning talent and engineering ability, and greatly aids him in the construction 
 of a subject and arrangement of thoughts, so as to produce the desired effect with 
 the least friction. The lower, or tool-using part of the organ, is sufficiently de- 
 veloped to give fair practical mechanical talent, but his power in respect to mech- 
 anism is less as an executor than as a designer. Were he to devote himself to 
 mechanism, his tendency would be upward toward the artistic, as in fine cutlery, 
 mathematical instruments, and the like. 
 
 Ideality is large, which gives not only good taste in respect to the beauties of 
 nature and art, but acts with the moral sentiments and intellect to give polish, re- 
 finement, and elevation to thought, sentiment, and expression. Whatever is rude, 
 unbalanced, and imperfect, displeases him ; hence he seeks to refine and polish 
 whatever he says and does. 
 
 His sublimity is large, and, in conjunction with veneration and firmness, gives a 
 passion for mountain scenery, and whatever is grand in the machinery of the uni- 
 verse ; hence ho would pursue astronomy with passionate fondness as a field for 
 the range of sentiment, as well as for mathematical study. 
 
 If he has any one moral sentiment that overmasters all the rest, and in any 
 sense warps his judgment, it is benevolence, and he will more frequently be called 
 radical and infatuated when following its instincts than from any other cause. It 
 stimulates his conscientiousness, fortifies bis pride and ambition, strengthens per- 
 severance, arouses energy, invokes logic, and awakens wit to do its bidding and 
 minister to its ends, and it may therefore be called the " team " of his mind, the 
 central mental element of his nature. 
 
 He has a remarkable development of firmness. That organ is both very large 
 and sharp, indicating that it has been unusually stimulated to activity by circum- 
 stances, as if his course of life had been a pioneering one, — breaking new ground, 
 enforcing new modes of thought, and running counter to opposition, and the opin- 
 ions and customs of ages. 
 
 In respect to self-esteem, he has more of that portion of it that gives dignity 
 and manliness than of that which imparts a dictatorial, domineering spirit. In 
 early life he was inclined to defer to others, to shrink from responsibility, to 
 feel that others could do more and better than he ; at the same time he had no 
 lack of personal self-respect. That part of self-esteem that produces the dictating 
 spirit, and the disposition to take responsibility, has been developed along with 
 firmness, and doubtless from the same cause and course of life. 
 
 His conscientiousness is very large, and particularly so in the outer part of it, 
 joining cautiousness, which gives him moral circumspection, carefulness to do 
 right, as well as to entertain just principles; hence he feels its binding force just 
 as much in the details of life, in the practical duties of the day, as in respect to 
 fundamental moral principles ; hence the law of expediency, as such, when brought 
 in conflict with the law of right, becomes nugatory. 
 
 His hope stretches forward prophetically, — he works for the future. He hopes 
 for little in the present, except that which he, by dint of care and effort, can bring 
 to pass; and he is less inclined to trust his business or interests in other hands 
 than most men. He feels that he must be in his affairs personally, and have an 
 eye over and a hand in the matter, or it will in some way go wrong. His hope 
 inspires to effort, but not to expect success from luck, chance, or fortune, without 
 labor and vigilance. He is not a man to lie quietly on the sunny side of present 
 prosperity, expecting that " to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abund- 
 ant," but to plow and sow, in the storm if need be ; yet he looks confidently for 
 the harvest, however remote it may be. This is as true of him in morals as in 
 business. 
 
 He has not a high degree of credulity. That part of the organ of marvelous- 
 ness or spirituality which most influences his character, is the inner or higher 
 part of it, which gives spiritual or religious faith, reliance upon truth and first 
 principles; and, although he is radical and progressive, he is by no means credu- 
 lous. His mind is very critical, and rather skeptical, so much so that he takes 
 little upon trust, and feels impelled to a thorough, rigid examination of whatever 
 may be presented for his adoption ; nor is his large causality satisfied with any 
 thing short of this, for it leads him to seek " a base line " for every thing in busi- 
 ness, in propositions, or in morals, as well as in mathematics. 
 
 Imitation and agreeableness are large, which give him the power of mental 
 
HORACE MANN. (545 
 
 assimulation and harmony. He can reconcile apparently discordant things, or 
 meet those who think differently from himself, without making manifest, in a high 
 degree, the real difference that may exist between them, and he will so far con- 
 form to an opponent as not to seem in opposition, until, by asking questions and 
 quoting particulars, he can show good reasons for a counter belief thus, and lead 
 his adversary into his own mode of thought. 
 
 He has the organ called human nature large, which leads him instinctively to 
 the study of mind, whether appertaining to men, to childhood, or to animals 
 He sees at a glance the general drift of a man's intellect and character ; is strongly 
 impressed with the truth of those inferences, and acts upon them, and generally 
 with safety. If he takes a dislike to, or forms a favorable opinion of, a stranger 
 at first sight, subsequent acquaintance generally corroborates the judgment thus 
 formed ; hence, as a teacher, as a lawyer, or as a trader, he would, as it were, 
 recognize a man's mental sphere, and know what to say to impress a sentiment 
 or exert a given influence upon his mind. This faculty, joined with agreeable- 
 ness or suavitiveness, enables him to make palatable, and accepted without hesi- 
 tation, truths which, uttered harshly and in disregard of the tone of mind of the 
 one addressed, would be at once rejected. 
 
 Intellectually, he has some peculiarities. His reasoning organs are greatly 
 superior to his perceptives and memory. He has a remarkably critical and logic- 
 al cast of mind. He has the power to sift, dissect, and essay propositions and 
 principles with great celerity and exactitude, while his large causality enables him 
 to see the propriety and logical congruity of facts and propositions, and to present 
 those views to others in a clear, concise, and forcible manner. In juxtaposition 
 with causality he has very large mirthfulness, which gives him equal facility to 
 recognize and show up whatever is incongruous, ridiculous, or witty, in such con- 
 tract with truth and propriety as not only to amuse the mind of the hearer, but 
 to brand error and immortalize truth. 
 
 His faculties of memory and perception are doubtless active, appertaining as 
 they do to such an active temperament, and because his seutiments and his rea- 
 soning intellect urge them to effort, to furnish data on which the higher mental 
 forces may act. He finds it necessary to trust to memoranda for facts and sta- 
 tistics, but when thus obtained, he knows well how to work them up into argu- 
 ments. His mind has much more to do with principles and elements than with 
 facts, hence he is much more a philosopher than a historian. 
 
 His language, instead of being copious, has this peculiar quality, viz., precision, 
 nice distinction, and ready appreciation of synonyms; and, in speaking or writ- 
 ing, his faculty of tune, in connection with language and ideality, leads him to 
 seek euphony of expression, and a smooth, mellifluent style ; and in this combina- 
 tion, with mirthfulness, ideality, and agreeableness added, consists his power of 
 expressing stern, cutting truth, in a poetical and pleasing manner. 
 
 It requires more effort for him than for most men to individualize his ideas, and 
 to concentrate his powers on a given mental effort. He wants time and quiet, 
 and a convenient opportunity. He can never bring out his full power of thought 
 on a subject instantaneously. He must survey the whole ground, and converge 
 his mind upon it logically ; hence, in off-hand, extemporaneous speaking, he rarely 
 does himself or his subject full justice. 
 
 In moral and social dispositions he is strongly developed, and bears the marks of 
 special resemblance to his mother. He has large adhesiveness, which makes him 
 eminently friendly. The upper part of philoprogenitiveness is large, which leads 
 him to regard the moral and intellectual good of children much more than to look 
 upon them as mere pets and playthings ; and he rarely plays with children with- 
 out holding virtue, intelligence, and morality up to them as the goal of their hopes 
 and efforts ; hence he seldom flatters them, or ministers to their animal gratifica- 
 tion. His love for female society is strong, yet delicate, and he is much more in- 
 terested in woman as relates to her refinement, and elevation, and purity of char- 
 acter, than passional ly. 
 
 The home, the family, and its elevated endearments, is the scene of his highest 
 hopes and fondest attachments. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 AT THE DEDICATION OF THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL-HOUSE 
 AT BEIDGEWATER. 
 
 August 19, 1846. 
 
 The completion of a new edifice to accommodate the State Normal 
 School at Bridgewater was signalized by appropriate exercises, on the 19th 
 of August, 1846. Addresses were made during the day by His Excellency, 
 Governor Briggs, Hon. William G. Bates, of Westfield, Amasa Walker, Esq., 
 of Brookfield, at the church, and in the new school-room. After these 
 addresses the company partook of a collation in the Town Hall, on which 
 occasion the health of the Secretary of the Board of Education was given 
 by the president of the day, and received by the company with enthusiastic 
 applause. To this sentiment Mr. Mann responded as follows, as reported 
 in the Boston Mercantile Journal. 
 
 Mr. President : Among all the lights and shadows that have ever crossed my 
 path, this day's radiance is the brightest. Two years ago, I would have been 
 willing to compromise for ten years' work, as hard as any I had ever performed, 
 to have been insured that, at the end of that period, I should see what our eyes 
 this day behold. We now witness the completion of a new and beautiful Nor- 
 mal School-house for the State Normal School at Bridgewater. One fortnight 
 from to-morrow, another house, as beautiful as this, is to be dedicated at West- 
 field, for the State Normal School at that place. West Newton was already 
 provided for by private munificence. Each Normal School then will occupy a 
 house, neat, commodious, and well adapted to its wants; and the Principals of 
 the schools will be relieved from the annoyance of keeping a Normal School in 
 an «6-Normal house. 
 
 I shall not even advert to the painful causes which have hastened this most 
 desirable consummation, — since what was meant for evil has resulted in so much 
 good. Let me, however, say to you, as the moral of this result, that it strengthens 
 in my own mind what I have always felt ; and I hope it will strengthen, or cre- 
 ate, in all your minds, a repugnance to that sickly and cowardly sentiment of the 
 poet, Avhich made him long 
 
 " For a lodge in some vast wilderness, 
 Pome boundless contiguity of shade, 
 Where rumor of oppression and deceit, 
 Of unsuccessful or successful wars, 
 Might never reach him more." 
 
 There is oppression in the world which almost crushes the life out of humanity. 
 There is deceit, which not only ensnares the unwary, but almost abolishes the 
 security, and confidence, and delight, which rational and social beings ought to 
 enjoy in their intercourse with each other. There are wars, and the question 
 whether they are right or wrong tortures the good man a thousand times more 
 than any successes or defeats of either belligerent. But the feeling winch springs 
 up spontaneously in my mind, and which I hope springs up spontaneously in 
 your minds, my friends, in view of the errors, and calamities, and iniquities of 
 the race, is, not to flee from the world, but to remain in it ; not to hie away to 
 forest solitudes or hermit cells, but to confront selfishness, and wickedness, and 
 ignorance, at whatever personal peril, and to subdue and extirpate them, or to die 
 in the attempt. Had it not been for a feeling like this among your friends, aud 
 the friends of the sacred cause of education in which you have enlisted, you well 
 know that the Normal Schools of Massachusetts would have been put down, aud 
 that this day never would have shone to gladden our hearts and to reward our 
 
ME. MANN'S REMARKS AT BRIDGEWATER. 647 
 
 toils and sacrifices. Let no man who knows nut what has been suffered, what 
 has been borne and forborne, to bring to pass the present event, accuse me of an 
 extravagance of joy. 
 
 Mr. President, 1 consider tliis event as marking an era in the progress of edu- 
 cation, — which, as we all know, is the progress of civilization, — on this westi 1:1 
 continent and throughout the world. It is the completion of the first Normal 
 School-house ever erected in Massachusetts, — in the Union, — in this hemisphere. 
 It belongs to that class of events which may happen once, but are incapable of 
 being repeated. 
 
 I believe Normal Schools to be a new instrumentality in the advancement of 
 the race. I believe that, without them, Free Schools themselves would bu 
 shorn of their strength and their healing power, and would at length !>■ 
 mere charity schools, and thus die out in fact and in form. Neither the art 1 f 
 printing, nor the trial by jury, nor a free press, nor free suffrage, can long exist, 
 to any beneficial and salutary purpose, without schools for the training of I 
 ers; for, if the character and qualifications of teachers be allowed to degenerate, 
 the Free Schools will become pauper schools, and the pauper schools will pro- 
 duce pauper souls, and the free press will become a false and licentious press, 
 and ignorant voters will become venal voters, and through the medium and 
 guise of republican forms, an oligarchy of profligate and flagitious men will gov- 
 ern the land; nay, the universal diffusion and ultimate triumph of all-glo 
 tianity itself must await the time when knowledge shall be diffused a 
 men through the instrumentality of good schools. Coiled up in this institution, 
 as in a spring, there is a vigor whose uncoiling may wheel the spheres. 
 
 But this occasion brings to mind the past history of these school , net less than 
 it awakens our hopes and convinces our judgment respecting their future sua 
 
 I hold, sir, in my hand, a paper, which contains the origin, the sour. ■ 
 
 ' ns, of the Normal Schools of Massachusetts. [Here 2vir. Mann read 
 ■ from the Hon. Edmund Dwight, dated March 10th, 1838, authorizing him. 
 Mr. Mann, to say to tlie Legislature, that the sum of ten thousand dollars wou! I 
 be given by an individual for the preparation of teachers of Comm 
 provided the Legislature would give an equal sum. The reading v 
 with great applause.] 
 
 It will be observed, resumed Mi - . Mann, that this note refers to a conver; 
 held on the evening previous to its date. The time, the spot, die words of that 
 conversation can never be erased from my soul. This day, triumphant oi 
 past, auspicious for the future, then rose to my sight. By the auroral U< 
 hope, I saw company after company go forth from the bosom of these instil . 
 like angel ministers, to spread abroad, over waste spiritual realms, the power of 
 knowledge and the delights of virtue. Thank God, the enemies who have 
 risen up to oppose and malign us, did not cast then hideous shadows aero 
 beautiful scene. 
 
 The proposition made to the Legislaturo was accepted, almost without oppo- 
 sition, in both branches; and on the tliird day of July, 1839, the first Normal 
 School, consisting of only three pupils, was opened at Lexington, under the care 
 of a gentleman who now sits before me, — Mr. Cyrus Pierce, of Nantucket, — then 
 of island, but now of continental fame. 
 
 [This called forth great cheering, and Mr. Mann said he should sit down to give Mr. Pierce an 
 opportunity to respond. Mr. Pierce arose under great embarrassment; starling a: the sound 1 
 his name, and half doubting whether the eloquent Secretary had not intended to name 
 other person. He soon recovered, however, ;md in a very happy manner extricated binis 
 the " fix" in which the Secretary had placed him. He spoke of his children, the , 
 
 first Normal School, and of the honorable competition which ought to exist between the 
 schools; and to the surprise, as well as regret, of all who heard him, he spoke of being admon- 
 ished by infirmities which he could not mistake, that it was time for him to retire from the pro- 
 fession. The audience felt as it; for once in his lite, this excellent teacher had threatened to du 
 wrong. He then told an amusing anecdote of a professor who retained his office too long, an I 
 
 was toasted by the students in the words of Dr. Watts. — "The Rev. Dr. . Hush, my babi . 
 
 lie still and slumber." And then he sat down amidst the sincere plaudits of the company, who 
 seemed to think he was not '-so plaguy old" as he wished to appear.] 
 
 I say, said Mr. Mann, on resuming, that, though the average number of Mr. 
 Pierce's school is now from sixty to eighty ; and though this school, at the pres- 
 ent term, consists of one hundred pupils, yet the tirst term of the first school 
 opened with three pupils only. The truth is, though it may seem a paradox to 
 
£48 MR - MANN'S REMARKS AT BRIDGEWATER. 
 
 say so, the Norman Schools had to come to prepare a way for themselves, and to 
 show, by practical demonstration, what they were able to accomplish. Like 
 Christianity itself, had they waited till the world at large called for them, or was 
 ready to receive them, they would never have come. 
 
 In September, 1839, two other Normal Schools Avere established : one at Barre, 
 in the county of Worcester, since removed to Westfield, in the county of Hamp- 
 den ; and the other at this place, whose only removal has been a constant mov- 
 ing onward and upward, to higher and higher degrees of prosperity and use- 
 fulness. 
 
 In tracing down the history of these schools to the present time, I prefer to 
 bring into view, rather the agencies that have helped, than the obstacles which 
 have opposed them. 
 
 I say, then, that I believe Massachusetts to have been the only State in the 
 Union where Normal Schools could have been established ; or where, if estab- 
 lished, they would have been allowed to continue. At the time they were 
 established, five or six thousand teachers were annually engaged in our Common 
 Schools ; and probably nearly as many more were, looking forward to the same 
 occupation. These incumbents and expectants, together with their families and 
 circles of relatives and acquaintances, would probably have constituted the 
 greater portion of active influence on school affairs in the State ; and had they, 
 as a body, yielded to the invidious appeals that were made to them by a few 
 agents and emissaries of evil, they might have extinguished the Normal Schools, 
 as a whirlwind puts out a taper. I honor the great body of Common School 
 teachers in Massachusetts for the magnanimity they have displayed on this sub- 
 ject. I know that many of them have said, almost in so many words, and, what 
 is nobler, they have acted as they have said : — " We are conscious of our defi- 
 ciencies ; we are grateful for any means that will supply them, — nay, we are 
 ready to retire from our places when better teachers can be found to fill them. 
 We derive, it is true, our daily bread from school-keeping, but it is better that 
 our bodies should be pinched with hunger than that the souls of children should 
 starve for want of mental nourishment ; and we should be unworthy of the husks 
 which the swine do eat, if we could prefer our own emolument or comfort to the 
 intellectual and moral culture of the rising generation. We give you our hand 
 and our heart for the glorious work of improving the schools of Massachusetts, 
 while we scorn the baseness of the men who would appeal to our love of gain, 
 or of ease, to seduce us from the path of duty." This statement does no more 
 than justice to the noble conduct of the great body of teachers in Massachusetts. 
 To be sure, there always have been some who have opposed the Normal Schools, 
 and who will, probably, continue to oppose them as long as they live, lest they 
 themselves should be superseded by a class of competent teachers. These are 
 they who would arrest education where it is ; because they cannot keep up with 
 it, or overtake it in its onward progress. But the wheels of education are rolling 
 on, and they who will not go with them must go under them. 
 
 The Normal Schools were supposed by some to stand in an antagonistic rela- 
 tion to academies and select schools ; and some teachers of academies and select 
 schools have opposed them. They declare that they can make as good teachers 
 as Normal Schools can. But, sir, academies and select schools have existed in 
 this State, in great numbers, for more than half a century. A generation of 
 school-teachers does not last, at the extent, more than three or four years ; so 
 that a dozen generations of teachers have passed through our Public Schools 
 within the last fifty years. Now, if the academies and high schools can supply 
 an adequate number of school-teachers, why have they not done it ? We have 
 waited half a century for them. Let them not complain of us, because we are 
 unwilling to wait half a century more. Academies are good in their place ; 
 colleges are good in their place. Both have done invaluable service to the cause 
 of education. The standard of intelligence is vastly higher now than it would 
 have been without their aid ; but they have not provided a sufficiency of com- 
 petent teachers ; and if they perform their appropriate duties hereafter, as they 
 have done heretofore, they cannot supply them ; and I cannot forbear, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, to express my firm conviction, that if the work is to be left in their hands, 
 we never can have a supply of competent teachers for our Common Schools, 
 without a perpetual Pentecost of miraculous endowments. 
 
MR. MANN'S REMARKS AT BRIDGEWATER. (349 
 
 But if any teacher of an academy had a right to be jealous of the Normal 
 Schools, it was a gentleman now before me, who, at the time when the Bridge- 
 water Normal School came into his town, and planted itself by the path which 
 led to his door, and offered to teach gratuitously such of the young men and 
 women attending his school, as had proposed to become teachers of Common 
 Schools, instead of opposing it, acted with a high and magnanimous regard to 
 the great interests of humanity. So far from opposing, he gave his voice, his 
 vote, and his purse, for the establishment of the school, whose benefits, you, my 
 young friends, have since enjoyed. (Great applause.) Don't applaud yet, said 
 Mr. Maun, for I have better things to tell of him than this. In the winter ses- 
 sion of the. Legislature of 1840, it is well known that a powerful attack was 
 made, in the House of Representatives, upon the Board of Education, the Nor- 
 mal Schools, and all the improvements which had then been commenced, and 
 which have since produced such beneficent and abundant fruits. It was pro- 
 posed to abolish the Board of Education, and to go back to the condition of things 
 in 1837. It was proposed to abolish the. Normal Schools, and to throw back with 
 indignity, into the hands of Mr. Dwight, the money he had given for their support. 
 
 That attack combined all the elements of opposition which selfishness and 
 intolerance bad created, — whether latent or patent. It availed itself of the 
 argument of expense. It appealed invidiously to the pride of teachers. It 
 menaced Prussian despotism as the natural consequence of imitating Prussia in 
 preparing teachers for schools. It fomented political partisanship. It invoked 
 religious bigotry. It united them all into one phalanx, animated by various 
 motives, but intent upon a single object. The gentleman to whom I have re- 
 ferred was then a member of the House of Representatives, and Chairman of the 
 Committee on Education, and he, in company with Mr. Thomas A. Greene, of 
 New Bedford, made a minority report, and during the debate which followed, 
 he defended the Board of Education so ably, and vindicated the necessity of 
 Normal Schools and other improvements so convincingly, that their adversaries 
 were foiled, and these institutions were saved. The gentleman to whom I refer 
 is the Hon. John A. Shaw, now Superintendent of schools in New Orleans. 
 
 [Prolonged cheers; — and the pause made by Mr. Mann, afforded an opportunity lo .Mr. Shaw, 
 in his modest and unpretending manner, to disclaim the active and efficient agency which he had 
 had in rescuing the Normal Schools from destruction before they had had an opportunity to 
 commend themselves to the public by their works; — hut all this only increased the animation of 
 the company, who appeared never before in have had a chance to pay off any portion of their 
 dihl of gratitude. After silence was restored, Mr. Shaw s.tid that every passing year enforced 
 upon him the lesson of the importance and value of experience in school-keeping. Long as he 
 had taught, he felt himself improved by the teachings of observation and practice; and he must 
 therefore express his joy and gratitude at the establishment and the prosperity of the school at 
 that place, whatever might he the personal consequences to himself.] 
 
 Nor, continued Mr. Mann, is this the only instance of noble and generous con- 
 duct which we are bound this day to acknowledge. I see before me a gentle- 
 man who, though occupying a station in the educational world far above any of 
 the calamities or the vicissitudes that can befall the Common Schools, — though, 
 pecuniarily considered, it is a matter of entire indifference to him whether the 
 Common Schools flourish or decline, — yet, from the beginning, and especially in 
 the crisis to which I have just adverted, came to our rescue, and gave all his 
 influence, as a citizen and as a teacher, to the promotion of our cause ; and whom 
 those who may resort hither, from year to year, so long as this building shall 
 stand, will have occasion to remember, not only with warm emotions of the 
 heart, but, during the wintry season of the year, with warm sensations of the 
 body also.* I refer to Mr. Geo. B. Emerson. 
 
 [Mr. Emerson was now warmly cheered, until he rose, and in a heartfelt address of a few mo- 
 ments, expressed his interest in the school, and in the cause of education, which he begged the 
 young teachers not to consider as limited to this imperfect stage of our being.] 
 
 These, said Mr. Mann, are some of the incidents of our early history. The late 
 events which have resulted in the generous donations of individuals, and in the 
 patronage of the Legislature, for the erection of this, and another edifice at West- 
 field, as a residence and a home for the Normal Schools, — these events, I shall 
 
 * Mr. Emerson bas furnished, at his own expense, the furnace by which the new school-house 
 is to be warmed. 
 
65 J MR. MANN'S REMARKS AT BRIDCEWATER. 
 
 consult my own feelings, and perhaps I may add, the dignity and forbearance 
 ■which belong to a day of triumph, in passing by without remark. 
 
 [This part of the history, however, was not allowed to be lost. As soon as the Secretary had 
 taken his seat, the Rev. Mr. Watei'Ston, who had been instrumental in getting up the subscrip- 
 tion to erect the two school-houses, arose, and eloquently completed the history. He stated, in 
 brief, that the idea of providing suitable buildings for the Normal Schools originated wish some 
 thirty or fortyi friends of popular education, who, without distinction of sect or party, had met, in 
 Boston, in the winter of 1844-5, to express their sympathy with Mr. Mann in the vexatious con- 
 flict which he had so successfully maintained ; and who desired, in some suitable way, to express 
 their approbation of his course in the conduct of the great and difficult work of reforming our 
 Common Schools. At this meeting, it was at first proposed to bestow upon Mr. Mann some 
 token evincive of the personal and public regard of its members; but, at a subsequent meeting, 
 it was suggested that it would be far more grateful and acceptable to him to furnish some sub- 
 stantial and efficient aid in carrying forward the great work in which he had engaged, and in 
 removing those obstacles and hinderances both to his own success and to the progress of the 
 cause, which nothing but an expenditure of money could effect. No way seemed so well 
 adapted to this purpose as the placing of the Normal Schools upon a lirm and lasting basis, by 
 furnishing them with suitable and permanent buildings; and the persons present thereupon 
 pledged themselves to furnish $5000, and to ask the Legislature to furnish a like sum for this im- 
 portant purpose. The grant was cheerfully made by the Legislature, whose good-will has since 
 been further expressed by a liberal grant, to meet the expenses of those temporary Normal 
 Schools, called Teachers' Institutes. Mr. Mann, who had not yet taken his seat, then continued 
 as follows :] 
 
 I have, my young friends, former and present pupils of the school, but a single 
 word more to say to you on this occasion. It is a word of caution and admoni- 
 tion. You have enjoyed, or are enjoying, advantages superior to most of those 
 engaged in our Common Schools. Never pride yourselves upon these advan- 
 tages. Think of them often, but always as motives to greater diligence and 
 exertion, not as points of superiority. As you go forth, after having enjoyed the 
 bounty of the State, you will probably be subjected to a rigid examination. 
 Submit to it without complaint. More will sometimes be demanded of you than 
 is reasonable. Bear it meekly, and exhaust your time and strength in perform- 
 ing your duties, rather than in vindicating your rights. Be silent, even when 
 you are misrepresented. Turn aside when opposed, rather than confront oppo- 
 sition with resistance. Bear and forbear, not defending yourselves, so much as 
 trusting to your works to defend you. Yet, in counseling you thus, I would not 
 be understood to be a total non-resistant, — a perfectly passive, non-elastic sand- 
 bag, in society ; but I would not have you resist until the blow be aimed, not so 
 much at you, as, through you, at the sacred cause of human improvement, in 
 which you are engaged, — a point at which forbearance would be allied to crime. 
 
 To the young ladies who are here — teachers and those who are preparing 
 themselves to become teachers, — I would say, that, if there be any human being 
 whom I ever envied, it is they. As I have seen them go, day after day, and 
 month after month, with inexhaustible cheerfulness and gentleness, to their ob- 
 scure, unobserved, and I might almost say, unrequited labors, I have thought 
 that I would rather fill their place, than be one in the proudest triumphal pro- 
 cession that ever received the acclamations of a city, though I myself were the 
 crowned victor of the ceremonies. May heaven forgive them for the only sin 
 which, as I hope, they ever commit, — that of tempting me to break the com- 
 mandment, by coveting the bUssfulness and purity of their quiet and secluded 
 virtues. 
 
HORACE MANN. 651 
 
 List of Publications by Horace Mann, LL. D. 
 
 The Common School Journal. 1839—1848. 10 vols., royal octavo. 
 
 Abstract of Massachusetts School Eeturns. 1839—1847. 
 
 Annual Reports (Twelve,) as Secretary op the Board of Education, 
 from 183S to 1849. 
 
 Supplementary Report on School-houses. 1838. 
 
 Massachusetts System of Common Schools; being an enlarged and re- 
 vised edition of the Tenth Annual Report. 1849. pp. 212. 
 
 Lectures on Education. 1845. pp. 338. 
 
 An Oration, delivered before the Authorities of the City of Boston. 
 July 4, 1842. pp. 86. 
 
 A few Thoughts for a Young Man; a Lecture, delivered before the Boston 
 Mercantile Library Association, on its Twenty-ninth Anniversary. 1850. pp. 
 84 
 
 A few Thoughts on the Powers of "Women. Two Lectures. 1853. pp. 
 141. 
 
 Dedication of Antioch College, and Inaugural Address of its Presi- 
 dent. 1854. pp. 144. 
 
 Baccalaureate, delivered at Antioch College. 1857. pp. 61. 
 
 Demands of the Age on Colleges. Speech delivered before the Christian 
 Convention Ohio. October 5, 1854. pp. 86. 
 
 We give below the titles of the pamphlets which we have had bound 
 together and lettered "Jftwira's Educational Controversies." 
 
 The Common School Controversy ; consisting of three Letters of the Sec- 
 retary of the Board of Education, in reply to charges preferred against the 
 Board, with extracts from the daily press, in regard to the controversy. 56 ^ 
 
 Seventh Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Educa- 
 tion. (By Horace Mann.) January 1, 1844. pp. 188. 
 
 Remarks on the Seventh Annual Report of the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary 
 of the Massachusetts Board of Education. By Thirty-one Boston Teachers. 
 
 1844. pp. 144. 
 
 Reply to the " Remarks " of Thirty-one Boston Schoolmasters, on the Seventh 
 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. By 
 Horace Mann. 1844. pp. 176. 
 
 Rejoinder to the "Reply" of the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massa- 
 chusetts Board of Education to the " Remarks " of the Association of Boston 
 Masters, upon his Seventh Annual Report. 1845. By the "Thirty-one School- 
 masters." pp. 55. 
 
 Rejoinder to the Second Section of tlie "Reply." By "Wm. A. Shepard. March, 
 
 1845. pp. 56. 
 
 Rejoinder to the Third Section of the "Reply." By S. S. Greene. March, 1845. 
 pp. 40. 
 
 Rejoinder to the Fourth Section of the "Reply." By Joseph Hale. April, 1845. 
 pp. 64. 
 
052 HORACE MANN. 
 
 Answer to the "Rejoinder" of "Twenty-nine" Boston Schoolmasters, part of 
 the " Thirty-one " who published " Remarks " on the Seventh Annual Report of 
 the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. By Horace Mann. 
 1845. pp. 124. 
 
 Penitential Tears ; or a Cry from the Dust. By " the Thirty-one," prostrated 
 and pulverized by the Hand of Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts 
 Board of Education. 1845. pp. 59. 
 
 "Penitential Tears! " By Massachusetts. 
 
 Observations on a pamphlet, entitled " Remarks on the Seventh Annual Re- 
 port of the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 
 tion." By G. B. Emerson, pp. 16. 
 
 Mr. Bumstead's Defense of his School-books, in reply to Mr. S. S. Greene. July, 
 1845. pp. 8. 
 
 Report of the Special Committee of the Primary School Board, on a portion of 
 the Remarks of the Grammar Masters. Boston: 1844. pp.13. 
 
 Report of a Committee of the Association of Masters of the Boston Public 
 Schools, on a letter from Dr. John Odin, in relation to a Report of the Special 
 Committee of the Primary School Board. Boston: 1845. pp. 18. 
 
 School Discipline. By Anti-Busby. 
 
 The Schoolmasters' Review of Mr. Mann's Report. By Luther. 
 
 Reports of the Annual Yisiting Committees, of the Public Schools 
 of the City of Boston. 1845. pp. 168. 
 
 Review of the Reports of the Annual Visiting Committees, of the Public Schools 
 of the City of Boston, 1845. By Scholiast, pp. 58. 
 
 The Scholiast Schooled. An Examination of the Review of the Reports of 
 the Annual Visiting Committees of the Public Schools of the City of Boston, 
 for 1845. by Scholiast. By A Bostonian. 1846. pp. 65. 
 
 Address to the Citizens of Boston. By S. G. Howe, "William Brigham, J. L. T. 
 Goolidge, and Theophilus Parsons. March, 1846. pp. 12. 
 
 The Bible, the Rod, and Religion, in Common Schools. The Ark of God 
 on a new cart : A Sermon, by the Rev. Matthew Hale Smith. A Review of the 
 Sermon, by Wm. B. Powle, publisher of the Massachusetts Common School 
 Journal. Strictures on the Sectarian Character of the Common School Journal, 
 by a Member of the Massachusetts Board of Education. Correspondence be- 
 tween the Hon. Horace Mann, Secretary of the Board of Education, and Rev. 
 Matthew Hale Smith. Boston: 1847. pp.59. 
 
 Sequel to the so-called Correspondence between the Rev. Matthew Hale Smith 
 and Horace Mann, surreptitiously published by Mr. Smith; containing a letter 
 from Mr. Mann, suppressed by Mr. Smith, with the reply therein promised. 
 Boston: 184V. pp. 56. 
 
 Reply to the Sequel of Hon. Horace Mann ; being a supplement to the Bible, 
 the Rod, and Religion, in Common Schools. By Matthew Hale Smith. Second 
 edition. Boston: 1847. pp. 36. 
 
 Letter to the Rev. Matthew Hale Smith, in an answer to his "Reply " or "Sup- 
 plement." By Horace Mann. Boston: 1847. pp.22. 
 
 Horace Mann and Matthew Hale Smith. April 30, 1847. pp. 8. 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION. 
 
 To the Honorable the Legislature 
 
 of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 
 
 The directors of the American Institute of Instruction beg leave to present 
 their memorial, praying them to consider the expediency of appointing, for a 
 term of years, a superintendent of the common schools of the Commonwealth. 
 
 And, in presenting this memorial, the directors of the Institute beg leave to 
 state some of the circumstances and reasons which have led them to feel the 
 importance and necessity of such an officer, and which have determined them to 
 offer to the legislature the request which they now lay before them. 
 
 Of their impression of the imm-asurable value of the free schools of the 
 Commonwealth, as an instrument of good to its citizens, your memorialists hold 
 it unnecessary to speak at large. They confidently believe that upon the impor- 
 tance of an institution which, in its action, comes home to the mind and heart of 
 every child of the Commonwea'th, which does, or may do, more than any other 
 to bring out his powers, to furnish him with good knowledge, to form his charac- 
 ter, to give him noble aims, and to fit him in all ways for his duties as a citizen 
 and a man, and for his whole future existence, any statements they could make 
 would alike fill far short of the truth, and of the convictions of the wise and 
 patriotic citizens who represent the people of the state. They believe that in no 
 way can so much be done to benefit the whole population of the Commonwealth, 
 as by improving (he condition of the common schools. They believe, and have 
 long believed, that in many respects these schools need improvement. 
 
 One of the objects had in view in the formation of the American Institute of 
 Instruct on, was to reach these schools, through their teachers. If these could be 
 brought together, even once in a year, or once in a few years, it was confidently 
 hop ■ 1 that they could not fail of receiving an useful impulse. And your memori- 
 alists trust that some good has in this way been done. Their hopes have not 
 been entirely disappointed, their exertions have not been altogether unavailing. 
 
 A few, out of the great number of teachers in the Commonwealth, have 
 annually met together, and stimulated and encouraged each other, and made 
 report, and borne testimony of a gradual and partial improvement. 
 
 They have annually reported much, however, of a different complexion. 
 They have reported, with melancholy unanimity, and we fear that every member 
 of the legislature, acquainted with any considerable portion of the schools, must 
 confirm the truth of their report, that very many of the common schools, in all 
 parts of the Commonwealth, have yet felt no impulse, have made no advance- 
 ment, have undergone no change. The very schools which most need, and which 
 should most feel, the fostering care of benevolent attention, those in every county, 
 situated in the remote, and poor, and thinly-peopled districts, remain unimproved, 
 and apparently unregarded. 
 
 We believe that the buds of genius are scattered as bountifully in these remote 
 districts as elsewhere; that on the rough hills, and among the sterile fields, the 
 noblest of plants, the human soul, springs with as divine capacities, and, if kindly 
 and skillfully nurtured, will expand with as large and vigorous a growth, as in any 
 of the most favored region ; nay more, that the very absence of the softnesses and 
 luxuries of life, will give an inward vigor and sturdiness, most favorable to the 
 highest talents and the best virtues. But a kindly nurture they require. Good 
 schools they must have. How shall these schools be reached? 
 
 The Institute can not reach them, it can not visit them. We have not suffi- 
 ciently exact information in regard to their condition, to enable us to communicate 
 with them, in such manner as to be sure to benefit them. Their teachers can not 
 visit us. They do not meet with our Institute, or with any institute or associa- 
 tion, nor are they subject to any influence which shall awaken them to greater 
 zeal, or give them better knowledge in regard to education. 
 
Q54 MEMORIAL ON SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS— 1836. 
 
 They are so numerous and remote, that the whole time of one individual would 
 be no more than sufficient to obtain a knowledge of their state and wants ; and, 
 without this knowledge, nothing can be wisely suggested, or satisfactorily done to 
 improve them. 
 
 What we see ought to be done, what we want the knowledge and ability to do, 
 we come to pray the legislature to cause to be done. 
 
 We can not for a moment doubt that the legislature is entirely disposed to do 
 whatever can be done for the common schools. We dare not impute to them the 
 inconsistency of making a liberal provision for the development of the material 
 resources of the state, in its mineral and vegetable treasures, and yet remaining 
 indifferent to the infinitely greater treasures, the whole intellectual and moral 
 resources of its future population ; we are not willing to believe that the state will 
 do more to bring to light the marble and granite of its hills, than the genius of 
 its children. 
 
 There is a very general conviction that something more should be done for the 
 common schools ; and we believe that a chief reason why so little has hitherto 
 been done is, that the information essential to a wise action upon the subject 
 has not been collected and presented in a strong light to the legislature and the 
 public. 
 
 We believe that an individual, competent to this work, and faithfully devoted to 
 it, under the direction of the executive, or any other authority the legislature 
 might see fit, in its wisdom, to appoint, would be able to collect information in 
 regard to the schools, and lay it, in an annual report, before the legislature, 
 which would enable them to act with complete knowledge of the whole subject. 
 
 We, therefore, think that the condition of the schools demands the appoint- 
 ment of the superintendent. 
 
 And we beg leave further to state, particularly, some of the ways in which 
 such an officer, if appointed, could act directly for the good of the schools. 
 
 1. He could devise means for the improvement of the teachers. We hold it 
 an evident and important truth, that no school can be essentially improved, but 
 by the improvement of its teacher. All other things are, in comparison, of very 
 little consequence. Children of the best parents, in the best constructed school- 
 house, under the most favorable circumstances, will lose, and more than lose, their 
 time, if given over to the management of an incompetent teacher. This im- 
 provement is, therefore, at the bottom of every other. Now there are various 
 ways in which a superintendent could minister to this. By calling conventions 
 of teachers in the different counties, he would awaken an interest which could 
 not fail of doing good. 
 
 There are, we trust, no sections of the state, in which there are not to be 
 found excellent schools, managed by skillful and abundantly capable teachers. 
 But they are now isolated. They act little on each other, and still less on the 
 numerous schools about them. The improvements that are made by individu- 
 als, in arrangement, in discipline, in the choice of things to be taught, and in 
 the modes of teaching, are not indeed lost, for they act on the immortal minds 
 within the influence of him who makes them. But they are usually confined 
 to his immediate sphere; they go not abroad, to stimulate and enlighten his 
 fellow- workers in the same cause ; they are not recorded for the benefit of his 
 successors; they cease with their author. If what is best in each, could be 
 added to the common stock of all, all would become respectable; and such a 
 communication, long continued, would at length render all, who were capable of 
 it, excellent. But such a system can only be begun, and successfully continued, 
 by the influence of some common friend. 
 
 A superintendent, visiting all the schools, would find many instructors, of 
 good capacities, failing for want of experience, and the knowledge of various 
 methods. To such, how often would a few suggestions be of the greatest 
 advantage. 
 
 2. He could devise means for the formation of better teachers. It is well 
 known that a large portion of the schools are taught by persons who have re- 
 course to instruction for a temporary employment, in the intervals of other 
 pursuits, or while in preparation for another calling, without especial taste or 
 suitableness for the vocation. In some degree, it will probably be always so; 
 it is to be hoped, in a far less degree hereafter than at present. If the schools 
 
MEMORIAL ON SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS— 1836. 
 
 655 
 
 of the Commonwealth are ever to be what they might be, it can only happen by 
 the separation to the work of instruction of men of peculiar gifts, to be trained 
 and prepared for it by a special course, as men are now prepared for all other 
 professions and all other arts. On this subject, which we shall not trust our- 
 selves to enlarge upon, the suggestions of one intimately acquainted with all 
 the circumstances of the schools of the Commonwealth, would have peculiar 
 value. 
 
 3. He could furnish useful information upon the position, construction, and 
 furniture of school-houses. This is a matter commonly referred to committees, 
 who, however competent in other respects, have usually had little experience as 
 to buildings of this sort, and few opportunities of seeing improved modes of struc- 
 ture, and who would gladly obtain hints, to assist them in the proper discharge 
 of their commission. How valuable to such a committee would be the advice 
 and the portfolio of a man who had seen all the best school-houses, and had 
 prepared plans of them, and was familiar with the inconveniences and advantages 
 of the various models. 
 
 4. He could recommend ways and means by which the schools may be en- 
 couraged. Their prosperity will always depend, in a great measure, upon the 
 attention given to them ; and nothing can be so fatal, as neglect and indifference. 
 J>ut there is always danger, that direct encouragement to schools, by donations 
 of money, shall make their friends overconfident in regard to them, and thus 
 lead them to relax or draw off their attention. Great care must evidently be 
 necessary, so to bestow the public bounty as to increase the interest taken in 
 them, by those immediate friends on whose personal care they must still depend 
 for every tiling most vital about them. It would seem prudent, in the prospect 
 of having large sums annually to disburse for the furtherance of this dearest 
 interest of the people, that an agent should be employed by the legislature, to 
 enable them the better to judge whether the bounty of the state were or were not 
 producing the good intended. 
 
 5. He could reduce to shape and symmetry, the now disjointed materials of 
 what might be a beautiful system. Much is said of our system of schools. But 
 it is evident, there is little of system about them. They are of all grades of ex- 
 cellence, and, from their absolute independence, of every variety of form, or 
 fabric, that reason or fancy could frame. This would be of less consequence, if 
 the same teachers usually remained, for a series of years, in the same schools. 
 I hit, iu this respect, there is continual change, and a teacher, who has become 
 accustomed to a certain order of things, as to discipline, arrangement, studies, 
 and text-books, is very often condemned to waste his own time, and that of his 
 pupils, by passing to another school, of an order, in all these particulars, entirely 
 different. The want of some superintending and regulating authority is, we 
 fear, grievously felt, in the greater number of the common schools. There is 
 now no concert of action ; and, from the nature of the case, there can be none, 
 without the direct or indirect interference of the legislature, through their 
 authorized agent. 
 
 6. He could collect, and present to the legislature, the experience of other 
 states, and foreign countries, on subjects interesting to the common schools. The 
 peculiar position of the American Republic, in reference to foreign nations, at 
 once remote by its situation and near by its relations, has enabled it to avail 
 itself of the improvements in the arts and sciences of all the world ; and, in a 
 single half century, to place itself, in these respects, among the foremost of the 
 earth. It is to be hoped that Massachusetts, at least, will not be less wary to 
 take advantage of its situation, in reference to the essential interests of education. 
 
 Several of the states of Germany have, with wise policy, put into operation 
 systems for the complete education of all their inhabitants. The government of 
 France is, at this moment, earnestly engaged in the same work. No doubt, it is 
 from a conviction that the essential welfare of a state mainly depends on the edu- 
 cation of its citizens, that the government of these nations, some of them almost 
 unlimited monarchies, have adopted a course which would seem to belong espe- 
 cially to republics. They have felt that, from the great onward movement that 
 the common mind of Europe has made, in this long interval of peace, they could 
 not hold their place in the family of nations, but by putting forth all their ener- 
 gies ; and that those energies could only be brought out by the action of a system 
 
056 MEMORIAL ON SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS-1836. 
 
 of national instruction in the common schools. Their experience is now 
 before us. 
 
 7. From a knowledge of the condition and wants of the agricultural popu- 
 lation of the state, a superintendent of the common schools could do much 
 toward enabling the legislature to determine the question, whether any thing can 
 be done, better to adapt the instruction given in the common schools to those 
 wants, or whether separate institutions for that purpose may, with advantage, be 
 established. 
 
 From a similar knowledge of the manufacturing population, he could suggest 
 improvements, if any are to be made, in the schools specially intended for that 
 population. 
 
 Lastly, his knowledge of the whole system would enable him to recommend 
 improvements, where practicable, of a general nature. Can further instruction 
 in the useful aits be introduced into all the schools? Can a higher moral influ- 
 ence be exercised ; thus to do something more to prevent the crimes which it 
 now costs the state so much to punish? Can anything be done to instruct 
 youth in their rights and duties as citizens ; thus adapting, more particularly to the 
 wants of the future freemen, schools formed after the model of those intended 
 for the subjects of a monarchy? 
 
 Your memorialists trust that they have said enough, to show that the general 
 charge of the oversight of the common schools of the Commonwealth would 
 afford abundant employment to an individual of the most eminent abilities, 
 whatever energy, activity, and devotion he might bring to the office. 
 
 They believe that the schools, and, through them, the whole population of the 
 state, would be benefited by the appointment of a competent superintendent ; and, 
 moreover, that the good effected would be greater, in proportion, if he should 
 act on a system to be extended through several years, than if the experiment 
 were to be confined to a single year. 
 
 To show that they do not give undue prominence to this office, they beg leave 
 to refer to the example of Russ a, Prussia, France, and several others of the most 
 enlightened governments of Europe, in which the charge of public instruction 
 constitutes a separate department, equal, in rank and consequence, to any other 
 whatever. All these states we have long looked upon as friends. Even if they 
 were our enemies, it would still be wise in us to borrow from them an institution, 
 which promised to be as useful among us as it showed itself among them. That 
 proudest nation of antiquity, which extended its arms and its laws to the limits 
 of the known world, never disdained to adopt, from a conquered nation, whatever 
 custom or art it found superior to its own. 
 
 Moved by these considerations, your memorialists respectfully pray you to con- 
 sider the expediency of appointing, for a term of years, a superintendent of the 
 common schools of the Commonwealth. 
 » For the Directors of the American Institute of Instruction. 
 
 George B. Emerson, 
 
 S. R. Ham,, £ Committee. 
 
 E. A. Andrews. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 BARNARD'S AMERICAN J0U1 
 
 
 The American- Journal of Education, for 1859, 
 Barnard, L L. D., will Ijp published quarterly ;. viz., on the 
 December. M 021 -j 2 Q 688^ 
 
 Each Number will contain at least 25C pages, and wili-on eirroernsnea wi 
 rait, and with wood cuts illustrative of recent improvements in buildings, 
 line, designed for educational purposes. 
 
 Terms.— For a single copv, one year, (1859,) or for Numbers 16, 17, 18, and 19, 
 
 KOR A SINGLE NUMBER, 1.25 
 
 UD' All subscriptions payable in advance. 
 
 Exchange Papers and Catalogues should be directed to Barnard's American Journal of Educa 
 tion, Hartford, Connecticut. 
 
 All communications intended for, or relating to, the contents of the Journal, should be directed 
 to the editor. All business letters, to the undersigned. 
 
 Volumes I., If., III., IV., V., can be had for $2.50 per volume, in numbers, or for $3.00, bound 
 in cloth, or $12.50 per set. 
 
 A circular, containing a General Index to Volumes I., II., III.. IV., V., will be sent by mail 
 to any one making request for the same. 
 
 Postage.— To every subscriber, who will forward ($4.25,) four dollars and twenty-five cents, 
 the Journal for 1859 will be sent, FREE ok POSTAGE, 
 
 F. 15. PERKINS, Hartford, Connecticut. 
 NOTICES. 
 
 The American Journal or Education, as edited by Hon. Henry Barnard, is established lo enter 
 flu a range of discussion and investigation, much wider than that which examines simply the best 
 methods of imparting instruction to children ; and it will be the highest authority which this country 
 will have, as to systems tested abroad, or the improvements necessary at home.— North American Review. 
 Barnard's American Journal op Education for March, (1856,) presents a great variety of import- 
 ant articles, interesting not merely to professional instructors, but to all who take pleasure in studying 
 great questions of social advancement and prosperity. The Editor's name is too well known, throughout 
 this state, ami throughout the country, by his speeches, publications and incessant labors for the advance 
 meni of public education, to warrant any words of comment as to his peculiar fitness for the manage- 
 ment of such a periodical as that which he is publishing. He understands thoroughly the state "of 
 instruction throughout the country, is equally well informed in reference to colleges and universities, 
 common schools and academies, ''ragged" and industrial schools, and every other subject which "cduca- 
 iion"'in its wii' si sense can comprehend; and, moreover, by an extensive personal acquaintance, not 
 1 almost every country of Europe, he is able to collect the opinions and experience 
 
 '■■iguished educators.— New Haven, {Conn.,) Palladium. 
 i •! occupies a broader field than the local school journals Its scope is more 
 
 Us <e that has hitherto been attempted even in England, and we have no hesita 
 
 ■ •>• before us (for March) a model specimen of what a first class educational 
 d, {Mass.,) News-Letter. 
 
 .* executed with the greatest fidelity.— Vermont Christian Messenger. 
 of Education is distinguished for unusual ability, not only in the character 
 it oy the skillfulnessof the editor's management in his own productions, and 
 whole table of contents.— Wesleyan, Syracuse, N. Y. 
 We, in the Souu., have long wanted such a periodical as this.— Memphis, (Term ,) Daily News. 
 The first number of The American Journal of Education we received with unmingled pleasure, 
 save in the regret that England has as yet nothing in the same field worthy of comparison with it.— 
 Westminster Review/or January, 1856. 
 
 Seldom have we welcomed with more cordial pleasure a new publication. Aside from his long expe 
 rience, his intuitive perceptions of the wants of the age in this regard, the Editor always seemed to us to 
 possess a "gift" in the promotion of the great object in which he has labored so faithfully and so success 
 fully. — Knickerbocker. 
 
 This is a work which richly deserves a world-wide circulation.— The English Journal of Education 
 It is the most comprehensive and instructive specimen of a periodical on the subject which we have 
 ever seen.— St. Louis, Western Watchman. 
 
 Barnard's Journal of Education, it may be very, justly said, marks an era in this kind of literature 
 Previous to this, we have not had our educational review or quarterly. We have had no work to 
 which we could turn-for the able papers and lectures of the times, written upon this subject ; no repository 
 .>! general educational intelligence and statistics ; no regular contributions from some loyal master-spirit, 
 indited with the zeal attending a congenial pursuit, and evincing sound and discriminating views, based 
 upon experience. — Providence Post. 
 
 This magazine, devoted to the cause of education, in its highest and most complete significance, in 
 Hlited and published by Henry Barnard, Hartford, Conn., and, apart from the great ability and intelli 
 geuce of its accomplished editor, lays under tribute many of the richest and profoundest intellects of the 
 age. There is no educational periodical in this country, and there never has been one, to eqval or 
 approach it in point of philosophic vigor and fullness.— Louisville, (A't/.,) Journal. 
 
 It is decidedly, and in every respect, the best educational journal ever published in the United States. 
 Every man interested in the educational progress of the country should have it.— Springfield, (Mass.,) 
 
 only in this lai> 
 of a great var' 
 
 Mr. Bar.- 
 uomprehei'"' . 
 
 tion in pro in 
 periodical si i 
 
 Every thin? 
 
 The f :•;•■• 
 of the a. . 
 the arraii;. 
 
 **^*blican 
 
 \ddivs* at -113 Broadway, New York. 
 
 F. C. Brownri.l,