Horace Mann 
 
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 THE 
 MOST DISTINGUISHED EDUCATIONAL CONTEMPORARY 
 
 OF 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 
 AXD THE 
 
 MOST EMINENT LIVING EDUCATOR, THIS TRIBUTE TO 
 
 MR. MANN IS AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATED BY THE 
 
 AUTHOR. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/horacemanneducatOOwins 
 
HORACE MANN 
 
 The Educator. 
 
 By ALBERT E. WINSHIP. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 New England Publishing Co. 
 
 1896. 
 
 USU 
 
 \Z\j\- . 
 

 *v 
 
 Copyrighted 1896. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 Bostqn, Mass. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Great men are rare. Mute, inglorious Miltons may be 
 numerous, but greatness, as the world views it, must be 
 judged from the way in which emergencies are met. 
 Horace Mann was a great educator because he met a 
 great educational emergency. 
 
 With some characters greatness is linked to a single 
 event. Columbus discovered America, Wellington de- 
 feated Napoleon at Waterloo, Perry wrote, " We met the 
 enemy and they are ours." With others it is an inher- 
 ited reputation of which few have any definite estimate 
 as to the merit of the popular verdict. Walpole and 
 Pitt in England, John Hancock and Charles Sumner in 
 America are securely anchored in the public mind though 
 few can give a reason for the admiration that is in them. 
 Horace Mann's reputation is largely of the latter class. 
 His name is a household word among teachers and yet 
 few can tell aught of the man or of his work. 
 
 The one hundredth anniversary of his birth (May 4, 
 1896) should make this entire year a memorial season so 
 far as to give every teacher and every school acquaint- 
 ance with the essential features of his character and with 
 the leading characteristics of his work. 
 
 There is one great monument to this leader in the 
 " Life and Works of Horace Mann," in five volumes 
 edited by his widow and published by Lee & Shepard, 
 Boston. Without these volumes comparatively little 
 could now be written of his life. His correspondence 
 was voluminous and confidential, giving details regard- 
 ing his contests and he was one of the few men fortunate 
 enough to keep a good diary. The correspondence and 
 the diary were both available when Mrs. Mann wrote 
 this " Life," and for the service here rendered the edu- 
 cational public owes her a debt of gratitude. These vol- 
 umes also contain his reports and addresses. Unfortu- 
 nately many who would gladly know of Horace Mann 
 cannot afford to buy the five volumes, and many will re- 
 
ii PREFACE. 
 
 gret that they do not contain the great controversy with 
 the " Thirty-one Boston Masters." An inexpensive 
 book upon " Horace Mann, the Educator " should cer- 
 tainly be available. 
 
 The author would acknowledge his indebtedness to 
 the " Life and Works " by Mrs. Mann. No apology 
 is made for the absence of reference footnotes — since no 
 claim is entered to skill in " the laboratory method in his- 
 tory," nor for the absence of a literary or historical style 
 which requires the pruning and polishing of sentences; 
 nor for the unusual freedom in the expression of opinion. 
 The facts are closely verified, the winnowing has been 
 done with some care, whatever bears no relation to his 
 educational service being eliminated. Beyond that the 
 thought has been to give the author's view of the man, 
 his work and his times in a condensed and readable 
 form, with convictions rather than pretensions. 
 
CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I — A Great Educator . . ■ 
 II — At Home and at School 
 III — Law and Legislature . . ^ 
 IY — Educational Champion 
 V — As He Found It . 
 VI — The Normal Schools . 
 VII — Opposition .... 
 VIII — Mr. Mann's Reports 
 IX — The Famous Seventh Report 
 X — " Remarks " of the Masters 
 XI— " Reply " to " Remarks " . 
 XII — " Rejoinder " to the " Reply " 
 
 XIII — The " Answer " and the Crisis 
 
 XIV — The Statesman 
 XV — At Antioch College 
 
 XVI — A-B-C in the Controversy . 
 
 PAGE 
 1 
 4 
 9 
 14 
 21 
 28 
 37 
 41 
 50 
 55 
 62 
 68 
 72 
 77 
 79 
 82 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 A GREAT EDUCATOR. 
 
 By universal consent Horace Mann is the edu- 
 cator of the century. His is the name to conjure 
 with in the forests of Michigan or the everglades 
 of Florida, in the council of London or with the 
 ministry of Prussia. People in school and out 
 know that Washington is the father of his coun- 
 try, Lincoln the savior of the Union, Franklin the 
 revealer of electricity, Webster the orator, and 
 Horace Mann the educator. But, alas, they do 
 not know much about this educator or his work. 
 The most prominent statue in Boston, placed by 
 the Commonwealth in front of the state house is 
 an imposing bronze figure of Horace Mann. His 
 twelve reports to the State Board of Education are 
 the rarest and most valuable educational works 
 in our language. 
 
 Hon. Anson P. Burlingame was a visitor at a 
 session of the London city council when an edu- 
 cational appropriation was voted down by a de- 
 cided majority. Then a member arose and read 
 extracts from one of the reports of Horace Mann 
 whereupon the city council of London reconsid- 
 ered its action and made the appropriation. 
 Such was the influence of Horace Mann in foreign 
 parts. 
 
 After his retirement from office, business men 
 of Boston presented him with a purse of two thou- 
 sand dollars as a slight token of their appreciation 
 of the service he had rendered the cause of educa- 
 tion. 
 
 Why should one man, in no adequate sense a 
 
2 HORACE MANN, 
 
 teacher or a philosopher, no single sentence of 
 whose writings lives as the keynote to his service 
 or wisdom, be singled out to carry the honor and 
 exert the educational influence of the century 
 in American life? It is easier to ask this question 
 than to answer it. No one has yet analyzed that 
 strain in human nature by which Washington 
 carries in his name the honor and glory of the he- 
 roic generals, statesmen and patriots of the Kev- 
 olution, or Grant the generalship of the Civil War 
 or John Brown the abolition enthusiasm of his 
 time. There are aLways many men who con- 
 tribute to the success of any great cause, and 
 some one among them receives the honor won by 
 all. In that great educational contest out of 
 which the normal schools were born and the 
 common school system of Massachusetts devel- 
 oped, Cyrus Pierce was the great teacher, Ed- 
 mund Dwight the organizer of the State Board 
 of Education, and the founder of the normal 
 schools through his gift of f 10,000, but the devo- 
 tion of Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, and 
 Samuel J. May, the benefactions of Edmund 
 Dwight and Josiah Quincy, and the administra- 
 tive wisdom of Barnas Sears and George S. Bout- 
 well are all merged in the name of Horace Mann. 
 This could not be changed if we would. Who 
 would change it if he could? 
 
 There must be some reason for this trait in 
 human nature. There must have been some- 
 thing in the personality or experience of Mr. Mann 
 to give him such distinction. It is safe to say 
 that no teacher could have won such laurels, nor 
 could he have earned his permanent distinction 
 merely as secretary of the Board of Education. 
 While he did not owe his reputation to his elo- 
 quence, literary brilliancy, professional training, 
 statesmanship, religious conviction, temperance 
 zeal, abolition enthusiasm, or personal friend- 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 3 
 
 ships, he could not have been what he was with 
 any of these factors omitted. 
 
 It is customary for the uninformed to attribute 
 Mr. Mann's eminence to the fact that he sacrificed 
 brilliant professional and political prospects to 
 devote himself to the cause of education, and to 
 consider this honor the due reward of such 
 sacrifice. This is only partly true. He was a 
 Boston lawyer and president of the Massachu- 
 setts Senate when he accepted the secretaryship 
 of the Board of Education at a salaiw of $1,500 a 
 year; but there was no prospect of immediate 
 political advancement for him, and for the last 
 three years of his practice he had slept in his little 
 law office, and more than one-half the days found 
 him without sufficient money to buy even a 
 meagre luncheon. This last fact was due partly 
 to his light income, but more to the heavy in- 
 debtedness incurred by indorsing for a brother, 
 whose financial failure placed heavy burdens 
 upon him. Again, he had every reason to sup- 
 pose that the salary would be $2,500 the first year 
 and rise to $3,000. There were greater sacrifices 
 than he anticipated.- The opportunity developed 
 elements of character, brilliant talents of voice 
 and pen, intensified the friendships of such men 
 as Josiah Quincy, Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, 
 Edward Everett, and Theodore Parker, and ulti- 
 mately won for him such personal and political 
 popularity as to give him the seat in Congress 
 when John Quincy Adams fell in his place in the 
 National House of Representatives, and enabled 
 him to secure reelection against the most tyranni- 
 cal dictation of Daniel Webster and the entire 
 political management at his command. 
 
 If I may be allowed to put in a single phrase 
 my estimate of the characteristics that made Mr. 
 Mann an educational leader I would say it was 
 his power to make and command a crisis. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 AT HOME AND AT SCHOOL. 
 
 On March 2, 1778, an exceptionally intelligent 
 village in Southern Massachusetts was incorpo- 
 rated as a town and was named after that 
 great genius and statesman, Benjamin Franklin. 
 Some enterprising citizen sent word to Mr. Frank- 
 lin that it would give great satisfaction to the peo- 
 ple if he would present to the town a bell for the 
 church, in appreciation of the honor. Mr. Franklin 
 said that he hoped a people who would name atown 
 for him would have more regard for "sense than 
 sound" and he preferred to give them a public 
 library of five hundred volumes. Eighteen years 
 later, May 4, 1796, Horace Mann was born in a 
 humble farmhouse, and that library of Franklin's 
 was the chief factor in giving the world the 
 studious, scholarly, .devoted, aggressive educa- 
 tional leader of America. 
 
 Until nearly twenty years of age he never went 
 to school more than a few weeks in midwinter, 
 and then to instructors who were "very good peo- 
 ple but very poor teachers." The town did not 
 then furnish "free text-books" and the lad 
 worked many a half-day braiding straw for hats 
 to get the money to buy spelling-book, arithmetic 
 and reader. His father died when he was but 
 thirteen and the boy worked thereafter for the 
 support of the family. 
 
 When nearly twenty he came to know an inspir- 
 ing classical teacher who convinced him that a 
 college course was possible, and within six 
 months from the time he first saw a Latin gram- 
 
THE EDUCATOR. ■ 5 
 
 mar he was admitted to the sophomore class of 
 Brown University. It was such a six months of 
 study as has rarely been known in America, and 
 it broke his health for life. Nor was this the only 
 evidence of the scholastic strength and brilliancy 
 of Horace Mann. Although he entered the class 
 with no adequate preparation and no literary 
 culture, with all the traditional prejudices 
 against the "short cut" students and those uncul- 
 tured, he soon led his class and graduated far in 
 advance of any other student. Upon graduating 
 at the age of twenty-three, he remained at Brown 
 as an instructor in Greek and Latin for three 
 years. During his college years he taught coun- 
 try schools a few weeks each winter. 
 
 Through life, Horace Mann was inclined to 
 refer to the trials and denials of his boyhood, to 
 the poor teaching and lack of opportunities as 
 great misfortunes, causing irreparable loss; but it 
 is an open question whether he did not owe more 
 to the first twenty years of his life in which there 
 was developed hunger for knowledge, craving for 
 opportunity which necessitated his reading his- 
 tories and other works adapted to men rather 
 than children, listening to such mighty sermons 
 as only an Emmons of that day could preach, — 
 thinking upon and rebelling against them all the 
 week, — than he could have owed to any method 
 of instruction that would have monopolized his 
 thought or, rather, have diverted his mind to 
 books or even to nature through these years. 
 
 From the day he entered college, he never had 
 an hour for his mind to lie fallow. Speaking of 
 these years he said, — "Yet with these obstruc- 
 tions, I had a love of knowledge which nothing- 
 could repress. An inward voice raised its plaint 
 forever 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. 
 
G HOB ACE MANN, 
 
 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-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." 
 
 All this denial and his life with his mother pro- 
 duced a character of which any man might well 
 be proud. "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 almost a climax) I never used the 
 'vile weed' in any form. I early formed the reso- 
 lution to be a slave to no habit." Speaking in 
 later life of his youthful longing for more educa- 
 tion, he said, — "I know not how it was; its motive 
 never took the form of wealth or fame. It was 
 rather an instinct which impelled towards knowl- 
 edge, as that of migratory birds impels them 
 northward in springtime. All my boyish castles 
 in the air had reference to doing 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 convic- 
 tion that knowledge was my needed instrument/' 
 
 Keferring to his financial limitations in college, 
 he wrote his sister at the time, — "If the children 
 of Israel were pressed for 'gear' half so hard as 
 I have been, I do not wonder they were willing to 
 worship a golden calf. It is a long time since my 
 last ninepence bade good-by to its brethren ; and 
 I suspect the last two parted on no very friendly 
 terms, for they have never since met together. 
 Poor wretches! never did two souls stand in 
 greater need of mutual support and consolation.'' 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 7 
 
 No study of the life of Horace Mann would be 
 complete that left out his tribute to his mother, 
 for whom he worked and with whom he lived so 
 incessantly after the death of his father. "Prin- 
 ciple, duty, gratitude, affection, have bound me 
 so closely to that parent whom alone Heaven 
 has spared me, that she seems to me rather a por- 
 tion Of my own existence than a separate and 
 independent being. I can conceive no emotions 
 more pure, more holy, more like those which glow 
 in the bosom of a perfected being, than those 
 which a virtuous son must feel towards an affec- 
 tionate mother. She has little means of render- 
 ing him assistance in his projects of aggrandize- 
 ment, or in the walks of ambition; so that his 
 feelings are uncontaminated with any of those 
 earth-born passions that sometimes mingle their 
 alloy with his other attachments. How different 
 is the regard which springs from benefits which 
 we hope hereafter to enjoy, from that which arises 
 from services rendered and kindnesses bestowed 
 even before we were capable of knowing their 
 value! It is this higher sentiment that a mother 
 challenges in a son. For myself, I can truly say 
 that the strongest and most abiding incentive 
 to excellence by which I was ever animated, 
 sprang from that look of solicitude and hope, that 
 heavenly expression of maternal tenderness, 
 when, without the utterance of a single word, my 
 mother has looked into my face, and silently told 
 me that my life was freighted with a two-fold 
 being, for it bore her destiny as well as my own. 
 And as truly can I say that the most exquisite 
 delight that ever thrilled me was, when some 
 flattering rumor of myself had found its way to 
 her ear, to mark her readier smile, her lighter 
 step, her disproportionate encomiums on things 
 of trivial value, when I was secretly conscious 
 that her altered mien was caused bv the fountains 
 
g HORACE MANN, 
 
 of pleasure that were pouring their sweet waters 
 over her heart." 
 
 Mr. Mann's theme for his valedictory at gradua- 
 tion was "The Progressive Character of the Hu : 
 man Race." This was really the one theme upon 
 which he wrote and thought and talked through 
 life. At the age of twenty-five, he entered the law 
 school at Litchfield, Conn. One of his mates at 
 the law school has described him as a youug man 
 with massive brow, high arching head, and mild 
 bright eye. He ranked as the best whist player 
 and the best lawyer in the institution. His train- 
 ing for his profession fitted him for a life of mis- 
 cellaneous usefulness and occasional brilliancy 
 rather than for that of a plodding lawyer, for 
 devotion to humanity rather than to professional 
 aspiration. 
 
 Ten years of legislative life must demoralize 
 the professional practice of any thoroughly con- 
 scientious and honorable man. Legislative ex- 
 perience to be of professional advantage must 
 be associated with the business side of the legis- 
 lation rather than the philanthropic. Mr. Mann's 
 legislative tastes, convictions and associations 
 were better adapted to make him useful to hu- 
 manity than financially successful as a lawyer. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 LAW AND LEGISLATURE. 
 
 At the age of twenty-seven, Mr, Mann was ad- 
 mitted to the bar and began practice in Dedham. 
 While never a great success financially, the court 
 records show that he won four out of five of the 
 cases that he tried. It was a financial misfor- 
 tune that he would never try a case in which he 
 did not believe that he was in the right. He 
 fully appreciated that a man will pay a much 
 larger sum to have a wrong cause advocated than 
 a right, and that it lessens the popularity of an 
 attorney to be thought good rather than smart, 
 to care more for being right than for winning. 
 In the fourteen years, he seems never to have had 
 a case that brought him large returns or high 
 honors, but his record for winning his cases has 
 few parallels. He held that an advocate loses 
 his highest power when he loses the ever-con- 
 scious conviction that he is contending for the 
 truth; that though the fees or fame may be a 
 stimulus, 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 superiors. He used to say that in his 
 conscious conviction of right there was a magnet- 
 ism ; and he only wanted an opportunity to be put 
 in communication with a jury in order to impreg- 
 nate them with his own belief. Beyond this, his 
 aim always was, before leaving any head or topic 
 in his argument, to condense its whole force into a 
 vivid epigrammatic point, which the jury could 
 not help remembering when they got into the 
 
10 HORACE MANN, 
 
 jury-room; and, by graphic illustration and simile, 
 to fasten pictures upon their minds, which they 
 would retain and reproduce after abstruse argu- 
 ments were forgotten. He endeavored to give to 
 each one of the jurors something to be "quoted" 
 on his side, when they retired for consultation. 
 He argued his cases as though he was in the jury- 
 room itself, taking part in the deliberations that 
 were to be held there. From the confidence in his 
 honesty, and those pictures with which he filled 
 the air of the jury-room, came his uncommon suc- 
 cess. The fourth year in Dedham he was elected 
 to the Legislature, and his first speech was one of 
 those masterly efforts which establish a repu- 
 tation that endures. 
 
 Most of the misfortune that came to Mr. Mann 
 in public life was associated directly or indirectly 
 with his religious views. The mighty preaching 
 of Doctor Emmons turned him, as a youth, against 
 the evangelical faith, and inspired a purpose to 
 champion liberality of thought on every occas- 
 sion. 
 
 His first legislative honors were won, in 1827, 
 in his great speech in defence of religious liberty 
 in opposition to a scheme by which close corpora- 
 tions could secure the income of certain property 
 forever to the support of particular creeds. From 
 that hour he was again and again bitterly antag- 
 onized by the evangelical press and leaders, while 
 at the same time he was unable to retain the un- 
 wavering support of those whom he championed. 
 
 His last days were saddened beyond descrip- 
 tion by a cruel sentence written by Theodore 
 Parker, one of his best friends, in which he ex- 
 pressed regret at Mr. Mann's religious attitude 
 at Antioch College, saying that he regretted that 
 Mr. Mann had forgotten that in religion as in 
 mathematics a straight line is the shortest dis- 
 tance between two points. 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. H 
 
 The town of Dedhani did him the honor to send 
 him to the Legislature for six successive years, 
 as long indeed as he lived in that town. At the 
 age of thirty-seven (1833) he moved to Boston, and 
 the same year that senatorial district honored 
 him, as few have been honored in political life, by 
 sending him immediately to the State Senate, 
 where he remained four years, the last two years 
 as president of that body. 
 
 During his legislative life he gave much atten- 
 tion to philanthropic matters, especially to those 
 connected with the care of the defective classes. 
 To him was largely due the establishment of the 
 Worcester Lunatic Asylum. He was one of the 
 most ardent champions in the cause of the deaf 
 and dumb. While engaged in efforts to amelio- 
 rate the condition of the unfortunate classes he 
 became convinced that the greatest need in Amer- 
 ica was the better education of all children and 
 youth; and he became the legislative champion 
 of the plans of Edmund Dwight. James G. Carter 
 and Robert Rantoul, Jr., for the establishment of 
 a Board of Education. 
 
 During his college course he became much at- 
 tached to the young daughter of Doctor Messer 
 in whose family he lived, and ten years later, 
 while he was practising law in Dedham, she 
 became his wife. Speaking of her an intimate 
 friend said, "When I knew his wife personally 
 (I had long known her through him) I was indeed 
 rejoiced that such an angelic being had been 
 created to be his comfort, solace, joy and happi- 
 ness. She was extremely delicate in health, and 
 called forth the tenderest care. This fostering, 
 protecting, caressing care, she had, of course, in 
 perfection." 
 
 Their life together was brief, and when she 
 died, it seemed as though there was for him no 
 consolation. He describes his emotions as no 
 
12 HORACE MANN, 
 
 one else could do: "Amid the current of conversa- 
 tion, in social intercourse or the avocations of 
 business, in the daily walk of life, it is never but 
 half forgotten; and the sight of an object,, the 
 utterance of a word, the tone of a voice, re-opens 
 upon me the mournful scene, and spreads around 
 me with electric quickness, a world of gloom. 
 During that period, when, for me, there was a 
 light upon earth brighter than any light of the 
 sun, and a voice sweeter than any of Nature's 
 harmonies, I did not think but that the happiness 
 which was boundless in present enjoyment would 
 be perpetual in duration. Do not blame my 
 ungrateful heart for not looking beyond the boon 
 with which Heaven had blessed me; for you know 
 not the potency of that enchantment. My life 
 went out of myself. One after another, the feel- 
 ings which had before been fastened upon other 
 objects loosened their strong grasp, and went to 
 dwell in the sanctuary of her holy and beautiful 
 nature. Ambition forgot the applause of the 
 world for the more precious gratulations of that 
 approving voice, Joy ceased its quests abroad; 
 for at home there was an exhaustless fountain 
 to slake its renewing thirst. There imagination 
 built her palaces, and garnered her choicest treas- 
 ures. She too supplied me with new strength for 
 toil and new motives for excellence. Within her 
 influence, there could be no contest for sordid 
 passions or degrading appetites; for she sent a 
 divine and overmastering strength into every 
 generous sentiment, which I cannot describe. 
 She purified my conceptions of purity, and beauti- 
 fied the ideal of every excellence. I never knew 
 her to express a selfish or an envious thought; 
 nor do I believe that the type of one was ever 
 admitted to disturb the peacefulness of her bosom. 
 Yet, in the passionate love she inspired, there was 
 nothing of oblivion of the rest of mankind. Her 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 13 
 
 teachings did not make one love others less, but 
 differently, more aboundingly. Her sympathy 
 with other's pain seemed to be quicker and 
 stronger than the sensation of her own; and with 
 a sensibility that would sigh at a crushed flower, 
 there was a spirit of endurance that would up- 
 hold a martyr. There was in her breast no scorn 
 of vice, but a wonder and amazement that it could 
 exist. To her it seemed almost a mystery; and 
 though she comprehended its deformity, it was 
 more in pity than in indignation that she regarded 
 it: but that hallowed joy with which she contem- 
 plated whatever tended to ameliorate the condi- 
 tion of mankind, to save them from pain or rescue 
 them from guilt, was, in its manifestations, more 
 like a vision from a brighter world, a divine illu- 
 mination, than like the earthly sentiment of hu- 
 manity." It was this affliction and the sadness 
 with which it shrouded his life that led his friends 
 to insist that he leave Dedham and take up life 
 anew in Boston. There are few more heartrending 
 scenes in life than the picture of this man leaving 
 such a home and living in practical poverty, sleep- 
 ing in his law office, the only person in the build- 
 ing, and, as he said, going without luncheon half 
 the time because he could not afford the indul- 
 gence. There is very little satisfaction in the 
 thought that one of the causes of this denial was 
 the misfortune of a brother for whose debts he 
 had become responsible. All these conditions 
 made it easy for him to be tempted from law to 
 semi-official life as secretary of the State Board 
 of Education. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 EDUCATIONAL CHAMPION. 
 
 The cause of education might never have had 
 Horace Mann as its great champion but for this 
 combination of circumstances, — financial embar- 
 rassment, the absence of the cheer, the comforts 
 and the necessities of home, and the bringing to 
 a close of a legislative career of ten years. While 
 he did not seek the secretaryship of the Board of 
 Education, it was brought to his attention at a 
 time when he must practically reenter upon the 
 practice of law, which had for him very little 
 attraction. He enjoyed individual cases but not 
 the practice of law in the abstract. Writing on 
 June 19, 1837, the very time that Edmund Dwight 
 was urging upon him the consideration of the 
 secretaryship, Mr. Mann said: "Employed the 
 whole day in looking up a technical question of 
 law. I have not, therefore, had anything in my 
 head but technical combinations of technicalities. 
 This part of the law has a strong tendency to 
 make the mind nearsighted. What Coleridge 
 says generally, and very untruly, of the law may 
 be just when applied solely to this part of it, — 
 that its operation upon the mind is like that of 
 a grindstone upon a knife; it narrows while it 
 sharpens. And is it not true that every object 
 of science, however grand or elevated, has its 
 atoms, its minute and subtle divisions and dis- 
 criminations? The degrees of longitude upon 
 the earth's surface, the zones into which the globe 
 has been divided, and their corresponding lines 
 and compartments in the heavens, would show 
 pretty well in the registry for county deeds; but 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 15 
 
 yet, in surveying and affixing the bounds and 
 limits to these vast tracts of space, what minute 
 calculations must the geographer and astronomer 
 make! what fractions, what decimals, what in- 
 finitesimals! So the natural philosopher, whose 
 patrimony, bequeathed to him by science, is con- 
 tinents and oceans and suns, must deal also with 
 globules and animalculse, and points vanishing 
 into nothingness. Who can have more subtle 
 questions to settle than the casuist or the meta- 
 physician? So of all. In one direction we lose 
 everything in magnificence, in vastness, in infin- 
 ity; in the other direction we are equally lost in 
 attempting to trace to their elements those sub- 
 stances, whatever they are, whose aggregate is 
 earth, ocean, air, sky, immensity. Those who 
 see nothing in the law but technicalities, apices, 
 and summa jura, are about as wise as the child 
 who mistook the infinite host of the stars for brass 
 nails that fastened up the earth's ceiling." The 
 next day he wrote : ''Another day in search of the 
 technical rules of law. If the whole professional 
 business of a lawyer consisted only in investigat- 
 ing and determining technical rules, one might 
 almost be excused for attempting to reach justice 
 summarily through the instrumentality of that 
 monster, a mob. Those who only have to pay 
 for technical law are comparatively fortunate; 
 but this effort for two days in succession to keep 
 the eye fixed on the edge of a razor is apt to make 
 one a little nervous." 
 
 Although he always tried to find satisfaction 
 in the general advantages of law it was easy to see 
 to what extent it bored him at the very time when 
 Mr. Dwight was urging him to accept the secre- 
 taryship of the Board. It ought in fairness to be 
 said that whenever he had a case it absorbed all 
 his thought and energy for the time being. He 
 had this to say at one time regarding the intensity 
 
IQ HORACE MANN, 
 
 of his devotion to every case that he had in hand : 
 "The truth is that hearing common sermons, 
 gives my piety the consumption. Ministers seem 
 to me not to care half so much about the salva- 
 tion of mankind as I do about a justice's case. 
 When I have a case before a justice of the peace 
 I can't help thinking of it beforehand, and per- 
 haps feeling grieved too, afterward, if in any 
 respect I might have conducted it better. If 1 
 am at dinner, the merriment or the philosophy of 
 the table-talk suggests something, which I put 
 away into a pigeon-hole in my mind for the case; 
 and when I read, be it poetry or prose, the case 
 hangs over the page like a magnet, and attracts 
 to itself whatever seems to be pertinent or appli- 
 cable. Success or failure leaves a bright or a 
 dark hue on my mind, often for days." 
 
 The attractions of his profession lessened as 
 the temptation to the secretaryship increased. 
 Mr. Mann inclined to accept the position on the 
 ground of adaptability to his taste and desires 
 before he could bring himself to admit that he 
 was equal to its responsibilities. In his personal 
 diary, intended for no eyes but his own, he wrote : 
 "Ought I to think of filling this high and respon- 
 sible office? Can I adequately perform its duties? 
 Will my greater zeal in^ the cause than that of 
 others supply the deficiency in point of talent and 
 information? Whoever shall undertake that task 
 must encounter privation, labor, and an infinite 
 annoyance from an infinite number of schemers. 
 He must condense the steam of enthusiasts, and 
 soften the rock of the incredulous. What toil in 
 arriving at a true system himself! what toil in 
 infusing that system into the minds of others! 
 How many dead minds to be resuscitated! how 
 many prurient ones to be soothed! How much of 
 mingled truth and error to be decompounded and 
 analyzed! What a spirit of perseverance would 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 17 
 
 be needed to sustain him all the way between the 
 inception and the accomplishment of his objects! 
 But should he succeed; should he bring forth the 
 germs of greatness and of happiness which na- 
 ture has scattered abroad, and expand them into 
 maturity, and enrich them with fruit; should he 
 be able to teach, to even a few of this generation, 
 how mind is a god over matter; how in arranging 
 objects of desire, a subordination of the less valu- 
 able to the more is the great secret of individual 
 happiness; how the whole of life depends upon 
 the scale which we form of its relative values, — 
 could he do this, what diffusion, what intensity, 
 what perpetuity of blessings he would confer! 
 How would his beneficial influence upon man- 
 kind widen and deepen as it descended forever ! 
 
 "I cannot think of that station as regards my- 
 self without feeling both hopes and fears, desires 
 and apprehensions, multiplying in my mind, — so 
 glorious a sphere, should it be crowned with 
 success; so heavy with disappointment and humil- 
 iation, should it fail through any avoidable mis- 
 fortune. What a thought, to have the future 
 minds of such multitudes dependent in any per- 
 ceptible degree upon one's own exertions! It is 
 such a thought as must mightily energize or 
 totally overpower any mind that can adequately 
 comprehend it." 
 
 On May 27, 1837, the governor appointed eight 
 gentlemen as the Board of Education. Mr. Mann 
 was one of these. He believed this Board to be 
 like a spring almost imperceptible, flowing from 
 the highest tableland between oceans, destined to 
 deepen and widen as it descended, diffusing 
 health and beauty in its course till nations shall 
 dwell upon its banks. He regarded this as the 
 first great movement towards an organized sys- 
 tem of common school education, which should be 
 at once thorough and universal. 
 
18 HORACE MANN, 
 
 At this time he said, — "I would much sooner 
 surrender a portion of the territory of the com- 
 monwealth to an ambitious and aggressive neigh- 
 bor than I would surrender the minds of its chil- 
 dren to the domain of ignorance." 
 
 On June 29, 1837, he was elected secretary of 
 the Board of Education. Of the position and his 
 relation to it, he says: "Few undertakings ac- 
 cording to my appreciation of it have been 
 greater. I know of none which may be more 
 fruitful in beneficent results. God grant me an 
 annihilation of selfishness, a mind of wisdom, a 
 heart of benevolence! How many men I shall 
 meet who are accessible only through a single mo- 
 tive, or who are incased in prejudice and jealousy, 
 and need, not to be subdued but to be remodeled! 
 how many who will vociferate their devotion to 
 the public, but whose thoughts will be intent on 
 themselves! There is but one spirit in which 
 these impediments can be met with success: it is 
 the spirit of self-abandonment, the spirit of mar- 
 tyrdom. To this I believe there are but few, of all 
 who wear the form of humanity, who will not 
 yield. I must not irritate, I must not humble, I 
 must not degrade anyone in his own eyes. I 
 must not present myself as a solid body to oppose 
 an iron barrier to any. I must be a fluid sort of a 
 man, adapting myself to tastes, opinions, habits, 
 manners, so far as this can be done without hy- 
 pocrisy or insincerity, or a compromise of princi- 
 ple. In all this there must be a higher object 
 than to win personal esteem, or favor, or worldly 
 applause. A new fountain may now be opened. 
 Let me strive to direct its current in such a man- 
 ner, that if, when I have departed from life, T 
 may still be permitted to witness its course, I 
 may behold it broadening and deepening in an 
 everlasting progression of virtue and happiness. 
 
 "Henceforth, so long as I hold this office, I 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 19 
 
 devote myself to the supremest welfare of man- 
 kind upon earth. An inconceivably greater labor 
 is undertaken. With the highest degree of pros- 
 perity, results will manifest themselves but 
 slowly. The harvest is far distant from the seed- 
 time. Faith is the only sustainer. I have faith 
 in the unprovability of the race, — in their acceler- 
 ating improvability. This effort may do appar- 
 ently but little. But mere beginning in a good 
 cause is never little. If we can get this vast 
 wheel into any perceptible motion, we shall have 
 accomplished much. And more and higher quali- 
 ties than mere labor and perseverance will be 
 requisite. Art for applying will be no less neces- 
 sary than science for combining and deducing. 
 No object ever gave scope for higher powers, or 
 exacted a more careful, sagacious use of them. 
 At first, it will be better to err on the side of 
 caution than of boldness. When walking over 
 quagmires, we should never venture long steps. 
 However, after all the advice which all the sages 
 who ever lived could give there is no such security 
 against danger, and in favor of success, as to 
 undertake it with a right spirit, — with a self- 
 sacrificing spirit. Men can resist the influence 
 of talent; they will deny demonstration, if need 
 be; but few will combat goodness for any length 
 of time. A spirit mildly devoting itself to a good 
 cause is a certain conqueror. Love is a universal 
 solvent. Wilfulness will maintain itself against 
 persecution, torture, death, but will be fused and 
 dissipated by any kindness, forbearance, sym- 
 pathy. Here is a clew given by God to lead us 
 through the labyrinth of the world." 
 
 Mr. Mann gave up the practice of law with no 
 apparent regrets and wrote, almost with enthu- 
 siasm: "I have abandoned jurisprudence, and be- 
 taken myself to the larger sphere of mind and 
 morals. Having found the present generation 
 
20 HORACE MANN. 
 
 composed of materials almost unmalleable, I am 
 about transferring my efforts to the next. Men 
 are cast-iron; but children are wax. Strength 
 expended upon the latter may be effectual, which 
 would make no impression upon the former." 
 
 "Let the next generation be my client," was 
 his call to duty as he turned from the courts to 
 the schools. 
 
 The spirit with which he entered upon this 
 work can have no better illustration than the 
 reply made to his friends who thought that the 
 office should have some better title than "secre- 
 tary of the Board of Education," "If the title is 
 not sufficiently honorable now, then it is clearly 
 left for me to elevate it; and I would rather be 
 creditor than debtor to the title." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 AS HE FOUND IT. 
 
 It was a great task upon which Mr. Mann 
 entered when he became secretary of the Massa- 
 chusetts State Board of Education. There was 
 never greater reverence for education in Massa- 
 chusetts than at this time. The population was 
 homogeneous; academies were numerous, and their 
 inspiration was felt throughout the state. There 
 was much home reading of good books, and every 
 boy of any ambition worked out problems and 
 studied by himself. Things were not as bad edu- 
 cationally as Mr. Mann thought them. There 
 was fair teaching in every city and large town. 
 The academies were enterprising. On a school 
 diet of ten weeks a year Mr. Mann was a good 
 illustration of what the home and school work 
 was accomplishing. Massachusetts has never 
 seen the time when she had a larger proportion 
 of good scholars and grand men than when the 
 Board of Education was organized. Whenever 
 an enthusiast compares existing conditions with 
 his ideals he finds the contrast between that 
 which is and that which ought to be enough to 
 exasperate a man of less zeal than himself. There 
 has been no time in the history of Massachusetts, 
 from the day of Peregrine White to this year in 
 which the wife of the President of the United States 
 invites a Boston kindergartner to apply all mod- 
 ern arts and devices to her daughter's education, 
 in which there was a higher class of talent devot- 
 ing its thought and energy to education or mak- 
 ing greater sacrifices for the improvement of 
 
22 HORACE MANN, 
 
 childhood than in the decade in which Horace 
 Mann enlisted under the banner of the public 
 schools. 
 
 W. E. Channing, Theodore Parker, Samuel J. 
 May, Edward Everett, Governor Briggs, Josiah 
 Quincy, Robert Rantoul, Jr., Edmund Dwight, 
 James G. Carter and Cyrus Pierce were ready 
 to say and do all in their power for the good of the 
 schools. What a surprise it would be to-day to 
 have the mayor of Boston give the secretary of the 
 Board of Education a check for $1,500 from his 
 own funds to be used in any way he saw fit for the 
 advancement of public school education, as his 
 grandfather Josiah Quincy, mayor of Boston, did 
 fifty-five years ago! What a sensation would be 
 created in the legislature were it announced that 
 some individual had made a donation of $10,000 
 for the professional training of teachers, as was 
 done less than sixty years ago by EdmUnd 
 Dwight. Jonathan Phillips, a private citizen, of 
 whom nothing else seems to be known, sent Mr. 
 Mann his check for $500 to use as he thought best 
 in the cause of public education. These condi- 
 tions need to be understood in order that one may 
 appreciate the circumstances that led the president 
 of the Massachusetts senate to become the secre- 
 tary of the Board of Education. The people as a 
 whole had no sympathy with the reformers w T ho 
 were shouting long and loud about the degeneracy 
 of the times. Nor did Mr. Mann have any adequate 
 grounds for his early denunciation. Indeed he 
 had no thought of attacking any of the work or 
 workers of the day. All that actuated him might 
 well inspire any man in any age or in any commu- 
 nity to make even greater sacrifices than those 
 which he proposed or experienced. It was _iotthat 
 Mr. Mann wished to criticise the work done or to 
 antagonize the teachers in their work but he felt, 
 as who does not feel to-dav, that America's future 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 23 
 
 depends upon the best common school education 
 for those who need it most. His sympathies were 
 always with the defective classes^ He devoted 
 much of his legislative energy to providing an asy- 
 lum for the insane and educational advantages 
 for the deaf, dumb and blind. This led him natur- 
 ally, inevitably, to realize that many children had 
 very little opportunity for school life, and that 
 even the best teaching was far below the standard. 
 It is as true now as it was then. The fact that he 
 had but ten weeks in school in any year of his 
 childhood inspired him to plan for something 
 more and better for coming generations. "Let 
 the next generation be my client" was his watch- 
 word. 
 
 Academies were much more influential then 
 than now, and they were more efficient than the 
 public schools. They had steadily gained since 
 the close of the Revolutionary war. In 1780 
 there were few private schools, but in 1837, when 
 Horace Mann began his work $328,000 was paid 
 in one year as tuition in the academies and private 
 schools of Massachusetts. This popularity of the 
 academies was at the expense of the public 
 schools in the wealthy communities. In 1837 the 
 average expenditure per pupil in the state was 
 $2.81 while in the twenty-nine most populous and 
 wealthy towns it was but $2.21. 
 
 Enthusiasm for academies created the impres- 
 sion that the education of youth was of much 
 greater moment than of children. In consequence 
 little was done for children under ten years of 
 age and in some communities nothing. Nan- 
 tucket, then having 9,000 inhabitants, made no 
 provision whatever for the younger or the older 
 children but only for the grammar grade pupils. 
 
 There was almost no attempt to do anything at 
 public expense for children of academic age. The 
 educational ardor and aspiration therefore was 
 
24 HORACE MANN, 
 
 tending more and more to benefit the few who 
 would make some adequate return to the com- 
 munity in a scholastic way. There was no for- 
 eign population, and no parent allowed his chil- 
 dren to grow up in ignorance. The home did 
 much, the grammar school and the academy did 
 more and the community was developing a good 
 class of citizens. 
 
 Mr. Mann saw how important a part the 
 churches played in the patronage of the acad- 
 emies, and his religious prejudices were aroused. 
 He had honest doubts regarding the good accom- 
 plished by sectarian schools. He had high ideals 
 of the good which must result from the education 
 together of children of all classes. It was a 
 blending of fear and hope combined with intense 
 conviction that actuated him when he announced 
 that his law library was for sale, bought such 
 educational books as were to be found, and went 
 to a quiet home at Franklin for a few days of 
 study and meditation. 
 
 His special preparation for the work was not 
 definite. He had seen little of schools as a pupil, 
 had taught three short terms in rural schools, had 
 instructed for a short time in college, had served 
 for eight years on the school board of Dedham, 
 had been closely associated with such inspiring 
 work as the education of the deaf, dumb and 
 blind, was the close friend of all the reformers 
 in education from the outside but knew few teach- 
 ers and had rarely attended educational gather- 
 ings. Maria Edgeworth and James Simpson were 
 his most available authors. 
 
 Among the objects that he set himself to ac- 
 complish were the awakening of public sentiment 
 through tife holding of public educational gather- 
 ings, the introduction of school apparatus, the 
 substituting of oral for text-book instruction, the 
 training of teachers, the better construction of 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 25 
 
 schoolhouses, the use of better books, better ar- 
 rangement of studies, better modes of instruction. 
 He went into retirement at Franklin for a time 
 and prepared an address for the awakening of 
 public sentiment. When he began his career by 
 holding revival meetings in the interest of educa- 
 tion in every village from Nantucket to Pittsfield, 
 he could not understand why people cared infinitely 
 more for a political speech than an educational 
 preachment, why they would leave him and go ten 
 miles to listen to a fourth-rate politician. In the 
 town of Barre, for illustration, the president of 
 the County Association and the president of the 
 American Institute of Instruction went twelve 
 miles to hear a political address when he was 
 lecturing upon education in their town. Of 
 Springfield, Mr. Mann wrote, "In point of num- 
 bers, a miserable meeting it has been." At Pitts- 
 field there were only two or three people present. 
 At Worcester he said, "On the whole, I think a 
 little dent has been made in this place." After 
 speaking at Great Barrington, he wrote, "To make 
 an impression in Berkshire in regard to the 
 schools is like trying to batter down Gibraltar with 
 one's fist." After Northampton, he wrote, "Ah, 
 me! I have hold of so large a mountain that there 
 is much danger that I shall break my own back in 
 trying to lift it." Of Barnstable he wrote, "As 
 miserable a convention as can well be conceived. 
 I will work in this moral as well as physical sand- 
 bank of a county till I can get some new things 
 to grow out of it." Of Dedham, his old borne 
 town, he says, "The convention was a meagre, 
 spiritless, discouraging affair. A few present 
 and all who were present chilled, choked by their 
 own fewness. If the schoolmaster is abroad in 
 this county I should like to meet him." 
 
 When Mr. Mann made a political speech at 
 Westport, a hundred people went over from New 
 
26 HORACE MANN, 
 
 Bedford to hear hini, and the whole town turned 
 out; but when, a few evenings later, he spoke in 
 the same place on education, no one came from 
 New Bedford, and scarcely any one came out at 
 Westport At Wellileet he had "a miserable, con- 
 temptible, deplorable convention." 
 
 On a second visit to Pittsneld, he found that no 
 arrangements had been made to prepare the 
 schoolroom for the convention, so he and George 
 N. Briggs, at that time governor of the state, pur- 
 chased a broom and themselves swept the school- 
 house and put it in order. At ten o'clock, the 
 time appointed for the convention, there was not 
 an individual present. At 11.30 o'clock eight peo- 
 ple had come. This is a sample of the "enthu- 
 siasm" with which his work was received. It 
 was very annoying to him to feel that as a lawyer, 
 politician and president of the senate he was a 
 popular speaker, but that as an educator he could 
 arouse little or no enthusiasm. Strange as this 
 seems there have been many experiences of the 
 officers of the Board of Education in recent years 
 not unlike these of sixty years ago. Many meet- 
 ings are held which are attended by almost none 
 except teachers. In many towns already men- 
 tioned there have been educational gatherings 
 with much talent provided at which the attend- 
 ance was scandalously small. But Mr. Mann's 
 enthusiasm did not wane, and he ultimately had 
 the state thoroughly aroused. This was his great 
 reward. 
 
 His new life was full of embarrassing incidents. 
 The first Sunday that he was away from home on 
 his new w r ork was spent at Martha's Vineyard. 
 There were three evangelical churches in Edgar- 
 town, a Congregational, Baptist and Methodist. 
 Everyone knew that he was non-evangelical in his 
 belief, and there was great curiosity to know at 
 which of the churches he would worship; no one 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 27 
 
 had conceived the idea that he could avoid attend- 
 ing any. When the day arrived, to the consterna- 
 tion of all, he drove over to see the Chapoquiddie 
 Indians, with their guardian, Mr. Thaxter, who 
 wished his advice regarding the intellectual and 
 moral improvement of the tribe. He met the 
 Indians at the meeting-house-schoolhouse where 
 the Sunday school was held six months in the 
 year. This Sunday school was the only school 
 maintained for them, and this was for half the 
 year. This Sunday episode produced a scandal, 
 and the scene can be better imagined than de- 
 scribed when a clergyman after riding nine miles 
 on Monday morning to attend the educational 
 meeting learned that the head of the educational 
 system of Massachusetts had been "to ride" in- 
 stead of to church the previous day. 
 
 This work, however, was not without its en- 
 couragements. On November 10th of his first 
 year he went to Salem and held a convention dur- 
 ing the day. He was booked also for an evening 
 lecture in the regular course of the city. The 
 convention was very thinly attended, even his 
 own personal friends, like Rantoul and Salton- 
 stall, not being present, but the few who were 
 there were so aroused by his address that they 
 insisted that it should be repeated as the lyceum 
 lecture of the evening, on which occasion the 
 popular response was so hearty as to cheer him 
 in his work for many a day. The first four years 
 were largely devoted to these crusades, to the 
 reading of the various school reports of the state, 
 and to writing his own state report. Greater de- 
 votion or faithfulness was never witnessed in any 
 school official. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE NORMAL SCHOOLS. 
 
 The normal schools required much time and 
 energy, sacrifice and wisdom. It was a great in- 
 novation that was proposed by James G. Carter, 
 the most far-sighted man of that wonderful edu- 
 cational period. It was his thought first, his 
 devotion and wisdom to the last, as it was Mr. 
 Edmund Dwight's gift of f 10,000 that made pos- 
 sible the first normal schools this side the sea, but 
 to Mr. Mann the honor and the glory have been 
 and ever will be given and rightly, too, although 
 one may fail to explain the equity in such an 
 assignment. 
 
 In 1647 Massachusetts took a position educa- 
 tionally that has been equaled by no other com- 
 munity on this continent when one considers its 
 significance in point of time, conditions and pro- 
 jection through the subsequent two hundred and 
 fifty -years. The discussion as to the relative in- 
 debtedness of the colonists to England and the 
 Netherlands has no place here, — suffice it to say 
 that no community in either hemisphere has any 
 such record of honor in education for so long a 
 period as has Massachusetts since 1647. The 
 methods have changed and the emphasis has been 
 shifted from time to time, but it is one uninter- 
 rupted record of loyalty to education and of gen- 
 eral progress. The apparent lapses are more in 
 the seeming than in the fact. 
 
 Mr. Mann was never a historian ; he had not the 
 historian's instinct or training and his utterances 
 upon the decadence of the system from 1647 to 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 29 
 
 1837 must be taken with several grains of allow- 
 ance for his talent in special pleading. It is one 
 of the requisites of a reformer to be able to mag- 
 nify his own theory and practice, and to minify 
 all that has preceded him. This vicious attitude 
 toward other good workers is an indispensable 
 virtue in any reformer. He must see only the 
 weakness and wrong in the past and only strength 
 and right in his own plans and purposes. John 
 the Baptist's denunciations were vital to the 
 love and mercy of Jesus. James G. Carter was 
 more far-sighted and had greater wisdom in deal- 
 ing with conditions; Edmund Dwight had more 
 means and the consecration to use them, but 
 neither had the heroism to say as did Horace Mann 
 that from 1647 to 1826 the laws were altered 
 again and again, to adapt them to the decreasing 
 demands of the public in regard to schools. 
 
 There has been one pertinent illustration in 
 modern times of the inevitable tendency to be- 
 little one's predecessors in educational activity. 
 The only real ''reform" movement in education 
 was twenty years ago when Quincy, Mass., at- 
 tained a national reputation through Charles Fran- 
 cis Adams, Jr., who claimed to have reformed the 
 schools of that town in his great pamphlet upon 
 "The New Departure." 
 
 From 1852 to 1856 Charles Francis Adams, 
 senior, was chairman of the school board of 
 Quincy. The tone of his report was all that any 
 reformer could ask. His administration was re- 
 markably successful. 
 
 1852. "The standard of instruction has greatly 
 risen, is rising yet. In no town has the advance 
 been more marked than in Quincy. All the teach- 
 ers for the past year are entitled to great credit. 
 
 1853. "The schools generally are in a very sat- 
 isfactory condition. It is not too much to say of 
 them that they will now compare with schools of 
 
30 HORACE MANN, 
 
 the same grade anywhere. Nowhere has the re- 
 sult been more satisfactory ... highly satisfac- 
 tory. . . . Highest approbation, etc. 
 
 1854. "The grammar school is now in all re- 
 spects in an excellent condition. 
 
 1855. "We have heard recitations in the high 
 school in French, in geometry, in algebra, in Latin 
 and in Greek which would have done credit to 
 any school in our commonwealth.-' 
 
 No more could have been said in praise of the 
 schools than is to be found on every page of the 
 reports written by Charles Francis Adams re- 
 garding the Quincy schools from 1852 to 185G. 
 Nor is it miscellaneous praise for the virtues are 
 discriminately set forth. He then resigned his 
 place to his son, John Quincy Adams, who was 
 chairman in 1857 and 59, 60 and 62, 70, 71, 72, 73. 
 Of the schools he wrote with the same enthusiasm 
 as his father had done. 
 
 1857. "The results are equal to the most san- 
 guine expectations. There is not one of these 
 schools respecting which we would speak in terms 
 other than highest commendation. 
 
 1859. "The schools are a source of congratu- 
 lation and pride. . . . Schools are excellent. . . . 
 Method and manner with children is peculiarly 
 happy. Of the twenty-one schools in town not 
 one is bad ... a feeling of general joy and sur- 
 prise. 
 
 1860. "The results are highly satisfactory . . . 
 schools are good, most of them very good. It is 
 with hearty satisfaction that your committee can 
 honestly present so nattering a report. 
 
 1S70. "The primary schools are in excellent 
 condition. The intermediate schools and their 
 teachers merit our highest commendation; they 
 are all good. The high school meets our highest 
 expectation." 
 
 In view of what is to be said bv his brother 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 31 
 
 three years later the following is of special inter- 
 est. 
 
 1871. "We have a custom of subjecting every 
 school in town to a searching scrutiny by the whole 
 committee at the close of the school year. This 
 duty was performed with a good deal of thorough- 
 ness. All are excellent and all are improving." 
 
 Charles Francis Adams, Jr., a younger son, 
 came upon the board the next year, 1872, and 
 these schools that had been "highly satisfactory," 
 "in excellent condition," "credit to any town in 
 the commonwealth," "nothing better anywhere," 
 "equal to the most sanguine expectations," "man- 
 ner with children peculiarly happy," "examined 
 with a searching scrutiny," "honestly present a 
 flattering report," etc., etc., were found to have 
 gone all to pieces for the accommodation of the 
 third member of the same family Mr. Charles 
 Francis Adams, Jr., who says: 
 
 1875. "This vain attempt to build upon nothing, 
 costing the country untold millions of money . . . 
 will surely lead us to mental bankruptcy if the 
 stupendous fraud [so vigorously praised by father 
 and brother] is not soon abolished and healthier 
 plans and better teaching, etc. These methods 
 [of his father and brother] turned scholars into 
 parrots and made meaningless farce of education. 
 For real results the teacher cared nothing. Smat- 
 ter was the order of the day [under the system of 
 his father and brother]. The teachers [of the 
 father and brother] were old, lymphatic, listless 
 schoolmarms. The examinations [of his father 
 and brother] were a study for the humorist." 
 
 It does not require a humorist to enjoy the 
 assurance with which this third member of the 
 Adams family praises the results under his ad- 
 ministration. 
 
 1875. "The application of these new ideas has 
 produced as great a change in teaching as Har- 
 
32 HORACE MANN, 
 
 vey's great discovery did in medicine. The in- 
 fant schools are transformed from painful to 
 pleasant places. The excellency or peculiarity 
 of our schools has excited a great deal of interest 
 among those persons who are observant of such 
 matters. The people of Quincy are gathering a 
 harvest of greater volume and value, etc. . . . 
 Really surprising progress has been effected in the 
 schools. ... A high degree of excellency has 
 been attained where excellence is most unusual. 
 . . . We must frankly confess that we are in a 
 great measure satisfied with the work we are 
 doing, and have good reason to anticipate a con- 
 stantly increasing improvement as we apply our 
 principles more thoroughly." 
 
 This chapter from modern history is introduced 
 merely to show that this tendency of human na- 
 ture is very general and Mr. Mann must not be 
 censured for overdrawing the conditions of the 
 schools before he entered upon the work. The 
 bad is always indescribably bad, the good is never 
 extravagantly good, the indifference in unevent- 
 ful times is always heartrending to one who is 
 keenly alive to all the responsibilities of the hour. 
 It is equally true in political, social, educational 
 and religious life, and, until human nature 
 changes, it will continue to be so. Indifference can 
 be aroused and the best can triumph over the 
 worst only when someone possesses the masterly 
 power to make and meet a crisis. This power 
 Horace Mann possessed, and to him rather than 
 to any other man of his time belongs the honor 
 and the glory. 
 
 The normal schools introduced the modern im- 
 provements to the American schools. The acad- 
 emies which came in with the close of the Revolu- 
 tionary war were to all intents and purposes the 
 normal schools for half a century. Nearly every 
 teacher in Massachusetts received his instruction 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 33 
 
 and inspiration at a New England academy. Too 
 much can hardly be said in their praise, but the 
 time came when they were thought to be possibili- 
 ties for the rich alone. This fear was never fully 
 justified since the larger number in most of these 
 academies were poor boys "working their way," 
 but for some cause the public schools in the 
 wealthier places were not universally patronized 
 by the "higher classes" of the community. There 
 was a final struggle between the inherited aris- 
 tocratic sentiment from across the seas and the 
 new-born democracy of America. 
 
 Until the academy came, the sons of wealthy 
 people were largely educated in England. That 
 was the one aristocratic ideal. The academy was 
 the transition for the remnant of aristocracy to 
 the new democracy. It matters little whether or 
 not there was any justification for the fears enter- 
 tained from 1826 to 1837; the fact that these fears 
 existed necessitated a radical transformation to 
 uniform democracy in matters of education. It 
 was this transformation that Mr. Mann accom- 
 plished and the normal school is in large meas- 
 ure the instrumentality. 
 
 The first academy came at the close of the 
 French and Indian war (1763) through the gener- 
 osity of William Dummer, educated in the Bos- 
 ton Latin school and in the academies of England. 
 This was followed at the close of the Revolution- 
 ary war by Phillips Andover and Leicester 
 academies, and a score of other similar institu- 
 tions. These furnished teachers for all the better 
 schools but they rapidly removed from the com- 
 mon schools all traces of Latin and Greek. In 
 1824 there were but seven towns in the state 
 required by law to provide for the teaching of 
 Latin. The teachers were very poorly qualified 
 for their work as soon as they were not required 
 to teach Latin. That requirement in the earlier 
 
34 HORACE MANN, 
 
 days had provided scholarly teacliers. When that 
 was abandoned the standard forjnen was ability 
 to "fight it out" in the winter schools, and for 
 women availability for the summer schools. 
 
 In 1824-5 James G. Carter of Lancaster wrote 
 an earnest series of articles, over the signature 
 "Franklin," for 'the Boston Patriot. His claim 
 was that "the first step, toward reform in our 
 system of popular education, is the scientific prep-" 
 aration of teachers for the free schools. And the 
 only measure that will insure to .the public the 
 attainment of this object, is to establish an insti- 
 tution for the very purpose." 
 
 At this time Horace Mann was beginning the 
 practice of law in Dedham. Mr. Carter wrote 
 upon this theme with great ability for ten years 
 before Mr. Mann's attention was given to the sub- 
 ject with any great devotion. To this agitation 
 by Mr. Carter we owe the consecration u of Mr. 
 Mann, and we can readily understand the disap- 
 pointment of Mr. Carter and the indignation of 
 his friends when Mr. Mann was elected to the 
 secretaryship which Mr. Carter had every reason 
 to expect would come to him. 
 
 The first memorable act of the board was to 
 recommend the passage of a law providing for the 
 establishment of normal schools. In March, 1838, 
 Hon. Edmund Dwight, one of the leading mem- 
 bers of the board, offered through Mr. Mann 
 f 10,000 for the establishment of a normal school 
 under the auspices of the state board, provided 
 the Legislature would appropriate a similar sum; 
 Within a month, April 19, — -a date memorable 
 from so many events, — the Legislature accepted 
 the proposition. On May 30 the state board voted 
 to establish a school in Plymouth county and 
 December 28 it voted to locate two others at Lex- 
 ington and Barre. The schools were opened, at 
 Lexington July 3, 1839; at Barre, September 4, 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 35 
 
 1839; at Bridgwater, September 9, 1840. The 
 schools at Lexington and Barre were both re- 
 moved so that Bridgewater is really the eldest - 
 normal school on the continent. The location of 
 this school was due to the activity of Rev. Charles 
 Brooks of Hingham who had visited Prussia in 
 1835 and had steadily advocated the Prussian 
 system of professional training for Massachu- 
 setts. Thus really the normal schools were in- 
 spired by the Prussian system-. 
 
 The first school opened was at Lexington under 
 the principalship of Cyrus Pierce, one of Amer- 
 ica's great teachers. At the opening only three 
 persons presented themselves for admission. It 
 grew slowly but steadily. Mr. Pierce did all the 
 teaching, superintended the interest of the board- 
 ing house, rose every morning in the winter at 
 3 o'clock to build the fires; a great part of the 
 time sleeping but three hours a night. The open- 
 ing day to which Mr. Mann had looked forward 
 with bright anticipation proved to be one of the 
 most discouraging. He wrote of it, that night: 
 "What remains but more exertion, more and more, 
 till it must succeed." Two months later, on Sep- 
 tember 4th, the Barre school was opened with 
 twenty students. The governor of the common- 
 wealth (George N. Briggs) opened the school with 
 a fine address upon the origin, progress, advan- 
 tages and hopes of the normal school. 
 
 Mr. Mann gave much attention to these schools, 
 notably to the one at Lexington. He was greatly 
 annoyed at the criticisms which were heard on 
 every hand. In the nature of the case the talent 
 which applied for training was not always the 
 best; the course was all too brief; the equip- 
 ment too limited There were many academies 
 that offered better opportunities for scholarship 
 and none of these institutions of learning were 
 friendly. The teachers already at work were in- 
 
36 HORACE MANN. 
 
 clined to interpret every argument for trained 
 teachers as a reflection on themselves. Not every 
 "normalite" succeeded as a teacher, in the judg- 
 ment of the local authorities. The ideal normal 
 was far removed from the real school and no one 
 appreciated this more than Mr. Mann whose heart 
 failed him many times in the first years of the 
 schools. 
 
 Here are sample sentences from persons of edu- 
 cational influence: -'Too much is claimed for the 
 normal schools in their infant state." "The prin- 
 cipals of the normal schools are comparatively in- 
 experienced in public school-keeping. They are 
 without that practice which makes perfect." "The 
 experience of a graduate of a normal school, 
 through the model school, is less than two weeks." 
 
 Mr. Mann was stimulated to greater effort and 
 to higher endeavor because of these criticisms. 
 He heard every word and used the judgment of 
 his critics as his own instructor in. jserfecting 
 these schools. The normal schools, now the glory 
 of the educational work of America, owe more 
 than will ever be expressed to his heroism, pa- 
 tience, devotion and skill. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 OPPOSITION. 
 
 In the spring of 1840, the formal opposition to 
 the Board of Education manifested itself. The 
 Observer, the Recorder and some of the Boston dai- 
 lies were making very bitter attacks upon the 
 board, and in March, 1840, these assumed the pro- 
 portion, as Mr. Mann said, of an "atrocious at- 
 tack." He was fearful that the opposition would 
 win in the Legislature. Referring to this possi- 
 bility, he said: "This is bad. I must submit; but 
 the cause shall not die if I can sustain or resus- 
 citate it. New modes may be found if old ones 
 fail. Perseverance, perseverance, and so on a 
 thousand times and ten thousand times ten thou- 
 sand." What a spirit! It was for such an hour 
 that he had come into power. 
 
 His election was a great disappointment to 
 James G. Carter and his friends. Mr. Carter had 
 made the Board of Education and the normal 
 schools a possibility; to him belonged the credit, 
 to him should have gone the honor, had the ques- 
 tion of honor been the first consideration. Hon. 
 Edmund Dwight was not unappreciative of the 
 service rendered by Mr. Carter, but he foresaw the 
 emergencies that must arise and he was con- 
 vinced that it was a question of service to a cause 
 and not of honor to a man ; and when the conflicts 
 raged with such fury from March, 1840, to Janu- 
 ary, 1847, the wisdom of the choice was demon- 
 strated. There was not another man in the state 
 probably who could or would have led to victory 
 as did Horace Mann. 
 
38 HORACE MANN, 
 
 Things were not as bad in the Legislature in 
 1840 as Mr. Mann feared, for the "bigots and van- 
 dals," as he styled them, were defeated by a vote 
 of 245 to 182. The author of this opposition move- 
 ment was the next year dropped from the Legis- 
 lature by his constituency "as a reward of his 
 malevolence." This was encouraging to Mr. Mann 
 who wrote, in the exuberance of victory: "The 
 common school is the institution which can re- 
 ceive and train up children in the elements of all 
 good knowledge and of virtue before they are 
 subjected to the alienating conceptions of life. 
 This institution is the greatest discovery ever 
 made by man; we repeat it,_the_common school is 
 the greatest discovery ever made by man. In two 
 grand characteristic attributes, it is supereminent 
 over all others ; first in its universality, for it is capa- 
 cious enough to receive and cherish in its parental 
 bosom every child that comes into the world; and 
 second, in the timeliness of the aid it proffers, — 
 its early, seasonable supplies of counsel and guid- 
 ance making security antedate danger. Other 
 social organizations are curative and remedial; 
 this is a preventive and an antidote. They come 
 to heal diseases and wounds; this, to make the 
 physical and moral frame invulnerable to them. 
 Let the common school be expanded to its capa- 
 bilities, let it be worked with the efficiency of 
 which it is susceptible, and nine-tenths of the 
 crimes in the penal code will become obsolete; the 
 long catalogue of human ills will be abridged; 
 men will walk more safely by day; every pillow 
 will be more inviolable by night; property, life 
 and character will be held by a stronger tenure; 
 all rational hopes respecting the future will be 
 brightened." 
 
 But Mr. Mann's confidence in the Legislature's 
 disapproval of the opposition was not well placed, 
 for a minority of the Committee on Education 
 
THE EDUCATOR, 39 
 
 promptly reported a bill to transfer the powers 
 and duties of the Board of Education to the gov- 
 ernor and council, and the duties of the secretary 
 to the secretary of state. This movement was 
 attributed with some justice to the radical evan- 
 gelical members of the Legislature and caused 
 Mr. Mann no little anxiety, for the plea of economy 
 was very popular that year. The vote on the 
 measure was postponed from time to time through 
 the whole session, so that there was no peace for 
 the secretary, and he had little time or strength 
 to give to the legitimate work of the office. When 
 it did come to a vote, the opposition chose an hour 
 when everything was to its advantage, but even 
 then the board was sustained by a vote of 131 to 
 114. Of this Mr. Mann wrote to a friend: "Never 
 was any question taken under circumstances more 
 disadvantageous to the prevailing party, and 1 
 am inclined to think that it will be considered, in 
 flash language, a settler." 
 
 The next year, 1842, the opposition made no 
 demonstration in the Legislature and the feeling- 
 was very strong towards the board and its meas- 
 ures. Mr. Mann secured an appropriation of 
 f 6,000 a year for three years for the normal 
 schools and $15 for each school district in the 
 state for a school library, on condition of its rais- 
 ing a like amount. These annual legislative afflic- 
 tions were more venomous and terrific than one 
 in this day can appreciate. Religious opposition 
 to Mr. Mann and his work was very keen; the 
 anti-temperance sentiment was ever on the alert 
 to discomfort him, the proslavery forces were 
 always against him, and all phases of conserva- 
 tism made him a target. Combined with all these 
 was a bitter opposition from the teachers and the 
 ever ready plea for economy. Mr. Mann met every 
 issue and every foe and won in every conflict. He 
 had more medals of victorv than ever came to anv 
 
40 HORACE MANN, 
 
 other educator. What Patrick Henry was in 
 1765, Sam Adams in 1775 and Abraham Lincoln 
 in 1856-60, Horace Mann was in 1840-47. Men 
 are raised up for special work and no man ever 
 came to the kingdom in better time than Horace 
 Mann, the educator. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MR. MANN'S REPORTS. 
 
 To his annual reports Mr. Mann gave his best 
 thought. There have been no such official educa- 
 tional documents prepared in any country. The 
 later reports of the Massachusetts board, its secre- 
 tary and agents have often been of inestimable 
 value. Superintendent W. T. Harris of St. Louis, 
 Superintendent Henry F. Harrington of New 
 Bedford, Superintendent George Howland of 
 Chicago, and others, issued great reports but 
 there has been nothing to compare with these 
 twelve reports of Mr. Mann. The state of New York 
 reprinted one of them entire, distributing 18,000 
 copies gratis through the state. At least one of 
 them was republished entire at public expense in 
 England and one at least was translated and re- 
 published entire at government expense in Ger- 
 many. Parliament invited him to enlarge upon 
 that department of his seventh report which re- 
 ferred to the schools of Great Britain and re- 
 printed it as a government document. 
 
 Many of his public addresses were printed and 
 extensively circulated. His address before the 
 American Institute of Instruction at New Bed- 
 ford, August, 1842, was specially published in an 
 edition of 20,000 for free distribution. There 
 has never been anything to compare with the 
 volume of his writing, its freshness and vigor, its 
 practical and philosophical wisdom. At this day 
 it is a better education to read his twelve reports, 
 his speeches and his controversies than the writ- 
 ings of any ten men aside from Henry Barnard 
 
42 HORACE MANN, 
 
 and W. T. Harris. His first annual report (1837) 
 must have been a revelation in that day as it is 
 without a peer even to this day. He said: "The 
 object of the common school system is to give to 
 every child a free, straight, solid pathway, by 
 which he can walk directly up from the ignorance 
 of an infant to a knowledge of the primary duties 
 of a man." He devotes the report to an exhaust- 
 ive, scholarly, mighty treatment of these ques- 
 tions: The situation, construction, condition and 
 number of schoolhouses; the manner in which 
 school committee-men discharge their duties; the 
 interest felt by the community in the education of 
 all its children; the position in which a certain 
 portion of the community stands in relation to 
 free schools; the competency of teachers. Upon 
 each of these he enlarged with much brilliancy, 
 discussing every phase of these questions. 
 
 His argument for expert supervision was as 
 skilful and vigorous as anything uttered in later 
 times: "The state employs in the common schools 
 more than three thousand teachers at an expense 
 of more than $465,000 raised by direct taxation. 
 But they have not one-thousandth part of the 
 supervision which watches the same number of 
 persons having the care of cattle, spindles or of 
 the retail of shop goods. Who would retain his 
 reputation for sanity, if he employed men on 
 his farm, or in his factory month after month with- 
 out oversight and even without inquiry." In this 
 tone he sweeps on from point to point with mar- 
 velous power. 
 
 The second annual report (1838) was largely 
 an arraignment of the educational means and 
 methods as he found them. The first had treated 
 of ideals and their attainment as applied to edu- 
 cation in the state. In the second he showed that 
 "the common school system of Massachusetts had 
 fallen into a state of general unsoundness and de- 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 43 
 
 bility." The schoolhouses were ill adapted to en- 
 courage mental effort and absolutely perilous to 
 the health of children; the schools were under 
 sleepy supervision; many of the most intelligent 
 and wealthy citizens had become estranged from 
 their welfare, and the teachers, although, with very 
 few exceptions, persons of estimable character 
 and of great private worth, yet in the absence of 
 all opportunity to qualify themselves for the per- 
 formance of the most difficult and delicate task 
 committed to human hands, were deeply and widely 
 deficient in a knowledge of the human mind as the 
 subject of improvement and a knowledge of the 
 means best adapted wisely to unfold and direct 
 its growing faculties. "To expect that a system 
 animated only by a feeble principle of life, and 
 that life of irregular action, could be restored at 
 once to health and vigor, would be a sure prepara- 
 tion for disappointment." 
 
 There has never been a more close, scientific 
 study of the actual conditions than those which 
 led to the publication of this second report. This 
 analytic study is supplemented by a remarkable 
 presentation of pedagogical principles. He shows 
 that in learning the effective labor must be per- 
 formed by the learner himself and generally this 
 must be a conscious effort on the pari of the pupil, 
 who must not be a passive recipient but an active, 
 voluntary agent. He must do more than admit 
 or welcome, he must reach out, and grasp, and 
 bring home. The teacher must bring knowledge 
 within arm's length of the learner; must break 
 down its masses into portions so minute, that they 
 can be taken up and appropriated one by one, but 
 the final, appropriating act must be learner's. 
 Knowledge is not annexed to the mind but the mind 
 assimilates it by its own vital powers. Each must 
 earn his own knowledge by the labor of his own 
 brain. Nature recognizes no title to learning by 
 
44 HORACE MANN, 
 
 inheritance, gift or finding. Development of mind 
 is by growth and organization. All effective 
 teaching must have reference to this indispensa- 
 ble, consummating act and effort of the learner. 
 Every scholar in the school must think with his 
 own mind as every singer in the choir must sing 
 with her own voice. The first requisite is the 
 existence in the mind of a desire to learn. Children 
 who spend six months in learning the alphabet 
 will, on the playground in a single half-day or 
 moonlight evening, learn the intricacies of a game 
 or sport, — where to stand, where to run, what to 
 say, how to count, and what are the laws and the 
 ethics of the game; the whole requiring more in- 
 tellectual effort than would suffice to learn half a 
 dozen alphabets. So of the recitation of verses, 
 mingled with action, and of juvenile games, played 
 in the chimney corner. And the reason is, thai 
 for the one, there is desire; while against the 
 other, there is repugnance. The teacher, in one 
 case, is rolling weight up hill, in the other down ; 
 for gravitation is not more to the motions of a 
 heavy body than desire is to the efficiency of the 
 intellect. Until a desire to learn exists within 
 the child, some foreign force must constantly be 
 supplied to keep him going ; but from the moment 
 that a desire is excited, he is self-motive and goes 
 alone. 
 
 As is often the case, the multitude of virtues 
 in this report made much less impression than the 
 few stinging sentences, as "sleepy supervision," 
 "a state of general unsoundness and debility," 
 "animated only by a feeble principle of life and 
 that life in irregular action." The wide world 
 over his great utterances were appreciated but 
 at home the few sharp expressions rankled and 
 were never forgotten by the leading teachers. 
 
 The third annual report (1839) dealt with the 
 people and their responsibility for the improve- 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 45 
 
 ment of the schools. It also dwelt upon the ne- 
 cessity of public libraries for the general intelli- 
 gence and upon universal and ever enlarging edu- 
 cational opportunities. The characteristic fea- 
 ture of Mr. Mann's reports is the way in which he 
 grapples with one or two subjects and treats them 
 with the mastery of a statesman. In this third 
 report he shifts the responsibility largely from 
 the teacher to the community, to public senti- 
 ment, to liberality of support, to loyalty to the 
 highest good in locating school buildings, choos- 
 ing and retaining teachers. His treatment of the 
 factory question in relation to attendance should 
 be reprinted and circulated in the factory towns 
 all over the land. 
 
 After portraying the educational effect of hav- 
 ing a child become a part of a machine by the 
 regularity of his movements according to orders 
 in a factory, he draws this terrible indictment of 
 the system. 
 
 u The ordinary movements of society may go 
 on without any shocks or collisions; as, in the hu- 
 man system, a disease may work at the vitals, 
 and gain a fatal ascendancy there, before it mani- 
 fests itself on the surface. But the punishment 
 for such an offence will not be remitted because 
 its infliction is postponed. The retribution, in- 
 deed, is not postponed, it only awaits the full 
 completion of the offence; for this is a crime of 
 such magnitude, that it requires years for the 
 criminal to perpetrate it in, and to finish it off 
 thoroughly in all its parts. But when the children 
 pass from the conditions of restraint to that of 
 freedom, from years of enforced but impatient 
 servitude to that independence for which they 
 have secretly pined, and to which they have looked 
 forward, not merely as the period of emancipa- 
 tion, but of long-delayed indulgence; when they 
 become strong in the passions and propensities 
 
46 HORACE 21 ANN, 
 
 that grow up spontaneously, but are weak in the 
 moral powers that control them, and blind in the 
 intellect which foresees their tendencies; when, 
 according to the course of our political institu- 
 tions, they go, by one bound, from the political 
 nothingness of a child to the political sover- 
 eignty of a man, — then, for that people who 
 so cruelly neglected and injured them, there will 
 assuredly come a day of retribution." 
 
 The public libraries of Massachusetts are her 
 pride as they are the wonder and admiration of 
 the world, and for them we are largely indebted 
 to this third annual report of Mr. Mann. For all 
 true, wise advocates of public libraries will turn 
 to this treasure-house of argument for their in- 
 spiration. 
 
 The fourth annual report grappled with the 
 great educational vice of the century following 
 the Revolution, the local school district, which 
 George H. Martin has so aptly characterized as 
 "the high-water mark of modern democracy and 
 the low-water mark of the Massachusetts school 
 system." Mr. Mann attempted to remedy this 
 by the union of districts. It is in this fourth re- 
 port that he deals with greatest vigor with the 
 problems presented by the normal schools. 
 
 It is interesting to note, at this time, when the 
 universities are very generally succeeding in the 
 introduction into the grammar schools of "uni- 
 versity studies," and demanding "university 
 flavor" for the normal schools, that Mr. Mann 
 always felt that one of the great victories of his 
 educational career was the exclusion of preten- 
 sion to scholarship and the accomplishment of 
 thoroughness in the branches a knowledge of 
 which was fundamental. 
 
 "At the normal school at Barre during the last 
 term, the number of pupils was about fifty. This 
 number might have been doubled if the visitors 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 47 
 
 would have consented to carry the applicants 
 forward at once into algebra and chemistry and 
 geometry and astronomy, instead of subjecting 
 them to a thorough review of common-school 
 studies. One of the most cheering auguries in 
 regard to our schools is the unanimity with which 
 the committees have awarded sentence of con- 
 demnation against the practice of introducing 
 into them the studies of the university to the ex- 
 clusion or neglect of the rudimental branches. 
 By such a practice a pupil foregoes all the stock 
 of real knowledge he might otherwise acquire; 
 and he receives in its stead only a show or coun- 
 terfeit of knowledge, which, with all intelligent 
 persons, only renders his ignorance more con- 
 spicuous. A child's limbs are as well fitted in 
 point of strength to play with the planets before 
 he can toss a ball, as his mind is to get any con- 
 ception of the laws which govern their stupendous 
 motions before he is master of common arithme- 
 tic. For these and similar considerations, it 
 seems that the first intellectual qualification of a 
 teacher is a critical thoroughness, both in rules 
 and principles, in regard to all the branches re- 
 quired by law to be taught in the common schools; 
 and a pow r er of recalling them in any of their parts 
 with a promptitude and certainty hardly inferior 
 to that with which he could tell his own name." 
 
 This fourth report may be characterized as 
 high-water mark in the practical treatment of 
 everyday questions connected with education. 
 
 The fifth annual report was the first to create 
 a sensation the world over. There had been a 
 growing reverence for the man throughout Ameri- 
 ca and in foreign parts but it was this fifth report 
 (1841) that was printed at public expense and dis- 
 tributed by the tens of thousand copies by the 
 New York legislature, by British authorities, and 
 by the German government. It is a glorious 
 
48 HORACE MANN, 
 
 presentation of the effect of education upon the 
 worldly fortunes of men, — upon property, upon 
 human comfort and competence, upon the out- 
 ward, visible, material interests or well-being of 
 individuals and communities. He showed that 
 the aggregate wealth of a town will be increased 
 just in proportion to the increase of its appropria- 
 tions for schools; tax for schools is an investment 
 and not a burden; money invested in the educa- 
 tion of a child will more than double his patri- 
 mony. Education ministers to our personal and 
 material wants beyond all other agencies, whether 
 excellence of climate, spontaneity of production, 
 mineral resources, or mines of silver and gold. 
 
 He shows the difference in productive ability 
 between the educated and the uneducated, "be- 
 tween a man or woman whose mind has been 
 awakened to thought and supplied with the rudi- 
 ments of knowledge by a good common-school 
 education and one whose faculties have never 
 been developed, or aided in emerging from their 
 original darkness and torpor, by such a privilege." 
 
 The effect of this report was not to glorify the 
 material aspect for he says: "This tribute is still 
 the faintest note of praise that can be uttered in 
 honor of so noble a theme; and however deserv- 
 ing of attention may be the economical view 
 of the subject yet it is one that dwindles into in- 
 significance when compared with these loftier and 
 more sacred attributes of the cause which have 
 the power of converting material wealth into spir- 
 itual well-being, and of giving to its possessor 
 lordship and sovereignty alike over the tempta- 
 tions of adversity, and the still more dangerous 
 seducements of prosperity, and which — so far as 
 human agency is concerned — must be looked to 
 for the establishment of peace and righteousness 
 upon earth, and for the enjoyment of glory and 
 happiness in heaven." 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 49 
 
 The sixth annual report (1842) attracted com- 
 paratively little attention dealing as it did largely 
 with the question of teaching physiology in 
 schools. Mr. Mann was very generally suspected 
 of coming dangerously near being a "crank," and 
 his work had been hindered in many important 
 phases by this malarial suspicion. He was radi- 
 cal on the temperance question, was an intense 
 enthusiast over the insane, the deaf, dumb and 
 blind, and was withal an ardent champion of 
 phrenology. These facts, taken as a whole, led 
 the great body of the people to fear that sooner 
 or later he would go off at a tangent, so that when 
 this sixth report appeared, one of the longest he 
 had written, devoted largely to physiology they 
 accepted without hesitation the general judgment 
 that the expected had happened. For six years 
 he had had many very bitter opponents, but the 
 more influential among them had nursed their 
 wrath in silence. There had been an element of 
 devotion and of grandeur in the first five reports 
 that led such men to say "the hour has not struck" 
 for us to speak. This sixth report came also at a 
 time when public impatience with phrenology 
 was quite distinct so that the appearance of this 
 report marked the moment of misfortune for Mr. 
 Mann. He had done the wrong thing at the 
 wrong time and no one realized this more than he. 
 These conditions must be taken into account in 
 estimating the great controversy with the "Thirty- 
 one Boston Masters" which followed. Mr. Mann 
 thought he was doing the best thing possible to 
 right his craft when he married and went abroad 
 for several months. The former act was a bless- 
 ing for which he never ceased to be thankful, but 
 the trip abroad was the beginning of fateful com- 
 plications. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE FAMOUS SEVENTH REPORT. 
 
 A sad chapter in Mr. Mann's life is that which 
 deals with his controversy with the thirty-one 
 Boston masters. Had he died with the issuance 
 of his fifth annual report he would have been 
 glorified in death as at no other hour of his life. 
 Had he "passed away" when he sailed for Europe, 
 there would have been a host of good people in 
 Massachusetts to say: "Well, he dies at a good 
 time.*' But his permanent place in educational 
 history is due to the great controversy with the 
 Boston masters more than to all other experiences 
 of his life. In its humiliation which was great, 
 appeared his ultimate power. There was never a 
 better illustration of the truth that emergencies 
 make men. 
 
 His fifth report was the climax of his growing 
 power; its reception by all peoples of both hemi- 
 spheres threw him off his guard. He was physi- 
 cally worn out and mentally exhausted. The 
 highest aspirations of his professional life seemed 
 about to be realized and he wrote this report on 
 physiology, which, though a great document in 
 itself, came as an anti-climax to an expectant peo- 
 ple. 
 
 From the first his standard had been the 
 Prussian schools which had in twenty years at- 
 tained ideal conditions, consequently when he 
 went abroad he studied those schools as a wor- 
 shipper. He was lionized everywhere in Scot- 
 land, England, Ireland, Germany, Saxony, Hol- 
 land, Belgium, France and Prussia. His fifth 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 51 
 
 report met him in every land and he returned with 
 renewed physical and mental vigor, with higher 
 aspirations, and a realization of the fact that he 
 was no longer merely the secretary of the Massa- 
 chusetts State Board of Education, but an inter- 
 national educational leader. He wrote his famous 
 seventh annual report (1843) with every condition 
 favorable for the highest nights but equally so for 
 occasional descents. No man ever had occasion 
 to expect more from any official utterance than 
 Mr. Mann from this report, both hemispheres 
 were awaiting it and he had every reason to 
 anticipate a chorus of praise. 
 
 This seventh report was almost exclusively con- 
 cerned with what he saw abroad. Read in the 
 light of modern times when criticism is freely in- 
 dulged in, one cannot understand why any special 
 exception should have been taken to this report 
 in which he said: "I have visited countries where 
 there is no national system of education, and 
 countries where the minutest details of the 
 schools are regulated by law. I have seen schools 
 in which each word and process, in many # lessons, 
 was almost overloaded with explanations and 
 commentary; and many schools in which four or 
 five hundred children were obliged to commit to 
 memory in the Latin language, the entire book of 
 Psalms and other parts of the Bible, neither 
 teachers nor children understanding a word of 
 the language which they were prating. I have 
 seen countries in whose schools all forms of cor- 
 poral punishment were used without stint or 
 measure; and I have visited one nation in whose 
 excellent and well-ordered schools scarcely a blow 
 has been struck for more than a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. On reflection, it seems to me that it would 
 be most strange if, from all this variety of system 
 and of no system, of sound instruction and of 
 babbling, of the discipline of violence and of 
 
52 HORACE MANN, 
 
 moral means, many beneficial hints for our warn- 
 ing or our imitation could not be derived." 
 
 To a reader of our day, he appears to have 
 written in the best of spirit, though he says: "1 
 do not hesitate to say that there are many things 
 abroad which we, at home, should do well to imi- 
 tate ; things, some of which are here, as yet, mere 
 matters of speculation and theory, but which, 
 there, have long been in operation, and are now 
 producing a harvest of rich and abundant bless- 
 ings. If the Prussian schoolmaster has better 
 methods of teaching reading, writing, grammar, 
 geography, arithmetic, etc., so that, in half the 
 time, he produces greater and better results, 
 surely we may copy his modes of teaching these 
 elements, without adopting his notions of passive 
 obedience to government, or of blind adherence 
 to the articles of a church. By the ordinance of 
 nature, the human faculties are substantially the 
 same all over the world; and hence the best means 
 for their development and growth in one place 
 must be substantially the best for their develop- 
 ment and growth everywhere. The spirit which 
 shall control the action of these faculties when 
 matured, which shall train them to self-reliance 
 or to abject submission, which shall lead them to 
 refer all questions to the standard of reason, or 
 to that of authority, — this spirit is wholly dis- 
 tinct and distinguishable from the manner in 
 which the faculties themselves should be trained ; 
 and we may avail ourselves of all improved meth- 
 ods in the earlier processes, without being con- 
 taminated by the abuses which may be made to 
 follow them. The best style of teaching arith- 
 metic or spelling has no necessary or natural con- 
 nection with the doctrine of hereditary right; and 
 an accomplished lesson in geography or grammar 
 commits the human intellect to no particular dog 
 ma in religion. 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 53 
 
 "A generous and impartial mind does not ask 
 whence a thing comes, but rather 'what is it?' 
 Those who at the present day, would reject an 
 improvement because of the place of its origin, 
 belong to the same school of bigotry with those 
 who inquired if any good could come out of Naza- 
 reth; and what infinite blessings would the world 
 have lost had that party been punished by suc- 
 cess! Throughout my whole tour, no one prin- 
 ciple has been more frequently exemplified than 
 this — that wherever I have found the best institu- 
 tions, — educational, reformatory, charitable, pe- 
 nal or otherwise, — there I have always found the 
 greatest desire to know how similar institutions 
 were administered among ourselves; and where 
 I have found the worst, there I have found most 
 of the spirit of self-complacency, and even an 
 offensive disinclination to hear of better 
 methods.*' 
 
 He takes occasion to speak with exuberant 
 praise of the work done by his friend, Dr. S. G. 
 Howe in the Institution for the Blind. He gives 
 an elaborate transcript of the lesson he heard 
 taught in a Scotch school, but his greatest enthu- 
 siasm is manifest in his description of work in the 
 Prussian schools, emphasizing their methods of 
 teaching reading. Referring to these schools, he 
 says that he is persuaded that no thorough reform 
 will be effected in Massachusetts schools till the 
 practice of beginning with the alphabet is abol- 
 ished, and says when he inquired in Prussia if 
 they began with the names of the letters as given 
 in the alphabet, the look they gave him implied 
 no great respect for his professional intelligence. 
 He devotes several pages to ridiculing the alpha- 
 bet method. He thus considers each of the ele- 
 mentary school subjects. 
 
 This report appeared in the spring and was 
 immediately construed by the Boston masters as 
 
54 HORACE MANN, 
 
 a reflection upon their methods. The first recep- 
 tion of the report was the most enthusiastic given 
 to any of his publications, but the private criti- 
 cism greatly annoyed him, and he wrote, as early 
 as April, "There are owls who to adapt the world 
 to their own eyes would always keep the sun from 
 rising. Most teachers amongst us have been ani- 
 mated to greater exertions by the account of the 
 best schools abroad. Others are offended at being- 
 driven out of the paradise which their own self- 
 esteem had erected for them." The first open at- 
 tack was through the columns of a religious 
 paper. These attacks became very virulent and 
 Mr. Mann replied; but in publishing his reply the 
 editor made some "weak and wicked" comments, 
 to which he also replied. This reply was not pub- 
 lished in that paper but printed elsewhere, and 
 a lively newspaper controversy followed. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 "REMARKS" OF THE MASTERS. 
 
 Through the spring and summer, in nearly every 
 educational convention held throughout the state, 
 some of the grammar masters of Boston, Worces- 
 ter and other cities were sure to be upon the pro- 
 gram and always with an attack on the ideas 
 presented by Mr. Mann in his seventh annual 
 report. But all this, though annoying, was unin- 
 portant in comparison with "The Remarks on the 
 Seventh Annual Report of the Hon. Horace 
 Mann," a document of 144 pages issued by the 
 thirty-one Boston masters. These "Remarks" 
 were prepared by four different members of the 
 Masters' Association, each section read before 
 that body, and then published in the hope that 
 they might "help in some degree to correct erro- 
 neous views and impressions, and thus tend to 
 promote a healthy tone in public sentiment in 
 relation to many things connected with the wel- 
 fare of our common schools." "The teacher, who 
 has stood for many years, himself against a host 
 of five or six hundred children from all ranks and 
 conditions of society, thinks he may once ask a 
 hearing before the public. We know that liter- 
 ary and moral amateurs seem very often to repu- 
 diate the notion, that 'experience is the best 
 schoolmaster.' We would not less eschew impa- 
 tience with such and the great community, than 
 with the children of our charge. We desire no 
 assent to anything which is not right and reasona- 
 ble; but being of one mind in regard to great 
 
50 HORACE MANN, 
 
 cardinal principles, we shall once, at least, ven- 
 ture 'abroad' in their defence.'' 
 
 The thirty-one masters who signed this docu- 
 ment were: Barnum Field, Franklin School; Jos- 
 eph Hale, Johnson School ; Samuel S. Greene, New 
 North School; Cornelius Walker, Wells School; 
 William D. Swan, Mayhew School; William A. 
 Shepard, Brimmer School; A. Andrews, Bowdoin 
 School; James Robinson, Bowdoin School; Wil- 
 liam J. Adams, Hancock School; Peter Mackin- 
 tosh, Jr., Hancock School; Samuel Barrett, Adams 
 School; Josiah Fairbank, Adams School; C. B. 
 Sherman, Eliot School; Levi Conant, Eliot School; 
 Aaron D. Capen, Mayhew School; Frederick 
 Crafts, Hawes School ; John Alex. Harris, Hawes 
 School; Abner Forbes, Smith School; Albert 
 Bowker, Lyman School; Nathan Merrill, Franklin 
 School; Reuben Swan, Jr., Wells School; George 
 Allen, Jr., Endicott School ; Loring Lathrop, Endi- 
 cott School; Henry Williams, Jr., Winthrop 
 School; Samuel L. Gould, Winthrop School; 
 Thomas Baker, Boylston School; Charles Kim- 
 ball, Boylston School ; Joshua Bates, Jr., Brimmer 
 School; Benj. Drew, Jr., New T North School; 
 J. A. Stearns, Mather School; Jona. Battles, Jr., 
 Mather School. 
 
 These "Remarks" were as brilliant productions 
 as ever came from the pens of grammar masters. 
 Six months, practically, had been spent in the 
 preparation. Of course there is much which now 
 seems too ridiculous to have been written with 
 seriousness which then passed for brilliant ap- 
 peals to the convictions and prejudices of the 
 people. The masters make a strong presenta- 
 tion of the virtues of the "Puritan fathers who 
 founded a university in ten years after they 
 landed upon New England's rude and rocky 
 shore," and established the common schools — "to 
 whose influence the present generation is in- 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 57 
 
 debted for most of the civic, social and religious 
 blessings"; call attention to the fact that the 
 great leaders of two hundred years could boast 
 no higher alma mater than the rude room of some 
 humble house in which they gathered a few weeks 
 each season; and seem to apologize for the 
 teachers "who have left behind them monuments 
 which should exact feelings of gratitude rather 
 than produce dissatisfaction." 
 
 "With all the rude fixtures and other inconven- 
 iences for school purposes, an enlightened public 
 sentiment was early formed, which sustained the 
 State Legislature in giving hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars to the colleges and other seminaries of 
 learning. After making allowance for the social 
 evils of war and intemperance, the progress of 
 education to the present time seems truly wonder- 
 ful. The good cause was never more prosper- 
 ous than at the time the Board of Education was 
 formed, and the establishment of such a body, 
 with little or no opposition, certainly indicated a 
 healthy tone in public sentiment. All the friends 
 of the common schools from the governor to the 
 most humble citizen, felt a desire to see these 
 institutions improved, and their blessings ex- 
 tended to every child in the commonwealth. The 
 desire was for improvement, and not for revolu- 
 tion, in that 'ancient and cherished institution, the 
 common schools of Massachusetts.'" Mr. Mann 
 had described a performance by the blind on 
 organs unusual in this country, organs construc- 
 ted with a set of keys for the feet, so that the feet 
 could play an accompaniment to the hands, and 
 he is informed, sarcastically, that there are fifty 
 such organs in churches within sight of the State 
 House. Mr. Mann claimed that in six weeks he 
 visited hundreds of schools and saw tens of thou- 
 sands of scholars, saying that he did not merely 
 look at these schools but that he entered them 
 
58 HORACE MANN, 
 
 before the first recitation in the morning and 
 remained until after the last at night. He is 
 reminded that in another connection he speaks 
 facetiously of the mathematical instruction in 
 our schools saying, "If a boy states that he has 
 seen 10,000 horses and you make him count 10,000 
 kernels of corn, he will never see so many horses 
 again," and they suggest that if he should count 
 the number of school days in six weeks he would 
 not visit so many hundreds of schools or see so 
 many tens of thousands of scholars in the same 
 time. 
 
 Mr. Mann commends the good conduct in the 
 Holland schools where they have no corporal 
 punishment, remarking that one pupil in 100 
 is expelled for bad conduct. His attention is 
 called to the fact that good conduct is rather ex- 
 pensive according to his own showing. 
 
 "A sacrilegious hand has been laid upon every- 
 thing mental, literary and moral that did not con- 
 form to the new light of the day. Fulminations 
 of sarcasm and ridicule, from the lecture room 
 and the press, in essays and speeches, were the 
 forebodings of the new era in the history of 
 common schools, and in the experience of teach- 
 ers. After Washington had crossed the Dela- 
 ware, in the darkest hour of the Eevolution, 
 Congress gave him new power, in consideration of 
 the new work before him; but it seemed that 
 before the teacher could be allowed to go on in his 
 great work of warring against ignorance, idleness 
 and vice, his authority should be abridged, and all 
 his acquired reputation and influence forfeited, 
 as would be the goods of a contraband trade. 
 All exaggerated accounts of cases in the school 
 discipline of some teachers, and the supposed 
 disqualifications of others, seemed to be set forth 
 to lessen the authority, influence and usefulness 
 of teachers, and give a new direction to public 
 sentiment. 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 59 
 
 "In matters of education, how vain and worth- 
 less have been spasmodic efforts and hot-bed 
 theories, in which the projectors have disre- 
 garded expense and observation! Of such va- 
 garies, in the first place, may be mentioned the 
 infant school system, which, for a while was the 
 lion of its day. The fond parent, the philosopher, 
 and the philanthropist, were equally captivated 
 by the scintillations of infantile genius. The 
 doting mother and the credulous aunt, with 
 rapturous delight told their friends of the rapid 
 progress of the prattling child; and the learned 
 president of a New Englaad college, when he heard 
 the little philosopher say that the hat, including 
 the ribbon and buckle, was composed of parts of 
 the three kingdoms of nature, the animal, vege- 
 table and mineral, remarked that he then saw by 
 what means the world would be converted; and he 
 seemed to think that in Geology, Botany, and Zo- 
 ology, there would be no farther need of the 
 services of Lyell, Gray and Audubon; but the 
 object of live mental vision proved an ignis 
 fatuus. The sister of a distinguished governor 
 said the whole affair of infant schools reminded 
 her of those youthful days when she planted 
 beans in the garden and soon pulled them up to 
 see if the roots had grown." 
 
 The normal schools, in their early days afforded 
 abundant opportunity for these critics to turn 
 against them many of the things that Mr. Mann 
 had said regarding the common school system. 
 
 Mr. Mann's reason for going abroad was the 
 fact that he had spent six years and spared 
 neither labor nor expense in fulfilling that por- 
 tion of the law which requires that the secretary 
 shall collect information; and for this purpose had 
 visited schools in most of the free states and in 
 several of the slave states of the Union, and had 
 done all he could to learn what was being accom- 
 
00 HORACE MANN, 
 
 plished throughout this country. He had turned 
 his eyes again and again to some new quarter of 
 the horizon with the hope that they might be 
 greeted by a brighter beam of light. 
 
 "Actual observation alone can give anything 
 approaching to the true idea. I do not exag- 
 gerate when I say that the most active and lively 
 schools I have ever seen in the United States 
 must be regarded almost as dormitories, if com- 
 pared with the fervid life of the Scotch schools; 
 and, by the side of theirs, our pupils would seem 
 to be hibernating animals just emerging from 
 their torpid state, and as yet but half conscious 
 of the possession of life and faculties. It is 
 certainly within bounds to say there were six 
 times as many questions put and answers given, 
 in the same space of time, as I ever heard put 
 and given in any school in our own country." 
 
 "Nor is this all. The teacher does not stand 
 immovably fixed to one spot (I never saw a 
 teacher in Scotland sitting in a school-room), nor 
 are the bodies of the pupils mere blocks, resting 
 motionless in their seats, or lolling from side to 
 side as though life were deserting them." 
 
 Mr. Mann is asked what he knows of the present 
 state of the Boston schools from actual observa- 
 tion and is told that he knows comparatively 
 nothing as he has not in six years visited a single 
 school in the city and knows nothing of them by 
 observation and he makes hasty statements and 
 comparisons upon matters abroad and at home. 
 For instance, he devotes a chapter to music in the 
 Prussian schools while he never heard any sing- 
 ing exercise in the Boston schools. It is not 
 known to any of the masters that the secretary 
 has improved any opportunity, within five years, 
 of knowing anything of the views of Boston 
 teachers or anything of their plans or the result 
 of their instruction. He has not held a meeting 
 
THE EDUCATOR. $i 
 
 in Boston for six years, and it is difficult for us to 
 understand how Mr. Mann could have collected 
 or diffused any information in Suffolk County. 
 Many of the thirty-one masters were graduates 
 of colleges and universities, had had much exper- 
 ience, frequently assembling themselves together, 
 and had delivered addresses upon many educa- 
 tional subjects. 
 
 All in all, this was a bright, strong document 
 with which the thirty-one masters might well feel 
 satisfied, but the times were against them. Five 
 years before, this would have been a stunning 
 blow, but the sentiment had changed, and though 
 they were congratulated by the fraternity, it 
 rallied to the support of Mr. Mann multitudes who 
 had hesitated hitherto to identify themselves 
 with him. Though many laughed at the sharp 
 thrusts and the just criticisms, they ended by 
 sympathizing with him, saying that he would 
 be more careful of his rhetoric and his figures 
 another time. Although it was rumored for 
 some weeks that the Boston masters were plan- 
 ning a severe attack on Mr. Mann he was taken 
 entirely by surprise. He had no suspicion that 
 his report was so vulnerable nor that the masters 
 were so able. Six months of close study were 
 given to their work and when it appeared it was 
 a masterpiece. The effect upon Mr. Mann was all 
 and more than his bitterest opponent could ask. 
 It cut him to the quick. Speaking of it to a friend 
 in England he said that he had suffered severely 
 in the conflict so far as his feelings were con 
 cerned and added, "I have doubtless suffered con- 
 siderably in reputation." He was severely 
 wrenched by their criticisms and replied while 
 his indignation had the better of his judgment. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 "REPLY" TO "REMARKS." 
 
 Up to this time every public utterance had 
 been prepared with the utmost care, with a view 
 to permanence in literature, universal scholarly 
 respect, and the highest influence. Now he for- 
 got all this and wrote without preparation, and 
 with a feeling of contempt for his antagonists. 
 In this last phase of mind lay his greatest weak- 
 ness. Notwithstanding his effort in the "Reply" 
 to give the impression that he had the highest 
 respect for teachers — some teachers — one cannot 
 escape the feeling that he had never had any ade- 
 quate respect for the Boston masters. He esti- 
 mated them by their numbers, their influence 
 gained through the other teachers who were 
 indebted to them, and through their pupils whose 
 loyalty was natural. In a letter written at the 
 time may be seen his misconception of the men, 
 affirming, as he does, that these grammar school 
 masters saw their own condemnation in these 
 descriptions of their European contemporaries, 
 and "resolved as a matter of self-preservation, to 
 keep out the infection of so fatal an example as 
 was afforded by the Prussian schools"; the spirit 
 of evil prevailed among the masters; the writing 
 of the "Remarks" fell into bad hands. The same 
 spirit appears when he says that the normal 
 school at Lexington was so much above even the 
 conception of most teachers as not to be appreci- 
 ated by them as a rule. 
 
 When these "Remarks" appeared he would not 
 acknowledge their ability or the strength of any 
 
THE EDUCATOR. £> 
 
 of their positions, but applied ridicule and treated 
 them largely with contempt. It is easy to see how 
 he could have crushed the masters at a single blow 
 had he dealt with them after his usually careful 
 and artistic fashion in a paniphlet of twenty 
 pages ; instead, he chose to w 7 rite 175 pages, many 
 of which were in no sense creditable to him. 
 
 He read their "Remarks" with astonishment 
 and grief but proceeded to show very clearly that 
 indignation and retaliation played a more impor- 
 tant part. They were accused of introducing his 
 name a hundred times and more in connection with 
 sentiments that he never felt and with expressions 
 that he never uttered; they were not philosoph- 
 ical but censorious and aspersive; many of them 
 were young, "mewling and purling in their nurses' 
 arms" when the principals of the normal schools 
 had achieved success; the grammar masters were 
 "like thirty-one vulgar fractions multiplied into 
 themselves, yielding a most contemptible prod- 
 uct" ; there were "sutures and overlappings where 
 the heterogeneous parts are rudely joined to- 
 gether"; they showed a "culpable indifference to 
 truth and the sacredness of character"; their 
 literary effort as claimed by themselves in the 
 "Remarks" would have required but a line a 
 day from each in the time devoted to it; 
 many of the "Remarks" were old lectures new- 
 vamped; it must have been remorseless imposi- 
 tion of labor ; the pages swam with error. 
 
 The depth of his feeling is best shown when at 
 the close of a long plea for harmony between him- 
 self and the thirty-one masters, he makes an ex- 
 ception in regard to one individual, the "author 
 whoever he may be of the first section as far as 
 page 38" saying, "until he changes his nature or 
 I change my nature we must continue to dwell on 
 opposite sides of the moral universe." He then 
 devotes more than a page to his characterization 
 
g4 HORACE MANN, 
 
 of this "maligner." Some of the signatures affected 
 him with amazement and unspeakable regret and 
 could tears of night efface them, they would be 
 gladly shed. His report had been mutilated and 
 garbled; the shade had been copied and all the 
 light omitted; a forgery of the original had been 
 sent out; they had made fraudulent transposi- 
 tions. 
 
 The "Reply" was certainly earnest and the 
 writer had all the over-confidence of an accused 
 man who knows his innocence and knows that he 
 can prove it, but it is inconceivable that a man of 
 his talent and experience should recite the fact 
 that he had taught district schools, tutored in 
 college and served on a country school board as 
 though these were any adequate training. It was 
 the man and not his trifling previous experience 
 in school work that led to his call to the secretary- 
 ship. He nowhere appears to less advantage 
 than when he meets their arraignment for not 
 having visited the Boston schools. It is incon- 
 ceivable that he should give pages to the 
 proof that it was not possible for them to know 
 absolutely of their own experience whether or not 
 he had visited the schools, since some of them had 
 not been teaching in their present positions so 
 long and they were not always in attendance; and 
 proceed to charge them with bearing false- wit 
 ness in testifying that they knew what they could 
 not have known; giving much space to showing 
 that he had once heard a singing lesson, had 
 visited two schools with the mayor spending 
 half an hour in each, had been at an exhibition 
 and in all had visited the Boston schools twelve 
 times in five years and then try to demonstrate 
 that this is their mathematical share of his time. 
 It was fruitless, also, for him to attempt to es- 
 cape the responsibility for having spoken dis- 
 paragingly of teachers by citing pages of fairly 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 65 
 
 complimentary things said of them in other 
 reports and addresses. No one knew better than 
 Mr. Mann that there can be no trial balance in 
 such cases, that there are debts that can never 
 be paid off in that way. A man may have paid 
 millions in the past but it does not save him from 
 insolvency when the last great debt appears in 
 judgment. It was equally useless for a man in 
 his position to seek exemption from the conse- 
 quences of his undervaluation by quoting from 
 other lesser men who had spoken with greater 
 indiscretion. There was not wanting abundance 
 of opportunity for a terrific blow had he been in 
 the mood and condition to have dealt it. Their 
 claim that the schools of the Commonwealth were 
 in excellent condition when he came into office is 
 met in a masterly manner ; in many towns educa- 
 tion was sadly neglected; there was no provision 
 for higher education at public expense except in 
 a few cities; there was in many places no provi- 
 sion for children under nine or ten ; many schools 
 were open but a few weeks; and many scholars 
 travelled from one section of the town to another. 
 In this their charge was skilfully met. 
 
 The assumption that he had in any wise 
 attacked the Boston schools was almost cruelly 
 met with the cold facts that he had merely men- 
 tioned Boston with Lexington and a few other 
 places in Massachusetts to show the relative 
 location compared with the places visited in 
 Europe, and that the attempt to make him con- 
 nect Boston with the Scotch schools was more 
 than absurd, it was vicious. There is no gainsay- 
 ing his accusation that their method of making 
 him say what he never said would make the Bible 
 say there is no God when it merely recites the fact 
 the fool hath said this in his heart. Mr. Mann 
 admits the justice of the charge of redundancy 
 of metaphor and illustration, and says it is the 
 
60 HORACE MANN, 
 
 fault of his mind, and that if they could only 
 know how much he strives against it they would 
 pity rather than censure. 
 
 While all of the masters were not in full sym- 
 pathy with the tone and temper of the "Remarks" 
 in every particular, the fraternal sentiment led 
 to the signing of them, and all but W. J. Adams 
 stood together loyally. Mr. Mann had an experi- 
 ence at Brown University from which he should 
 have learned to sympathize with the "thirty-one." 
 He was chosen orator of a mock service in the 
 chapel and the college authorities forbade the 
 exercise. Mann did not favor the carrying out of 
 the plans, but when he found that the others would 
 insist he said, "I would better rebel against the 
 college government than against the majority of 
 my fellow students," and so he went ahead with 
 them and delivered his oration. It was this spirit 
 that made the thirty-one Boston masters a unit 
 in their "Remarks." 
 
 Mr. Mann's "Reply" was a great surprise to 
 both sides, revealing him in a new light. Such 
 vindictiveness was not supposed to be in his 
 nature. All the intensity of twenty years of 
 political and official life and religious controversy 
 had not called forth upon the combined enemies 
 of all truth, righteousness and progress a hun- 
 dredth part of the terrors of this "Reply." Its 
 assumptions and assurances were so extravagant, 
 its denunciations so violent, its claims to personal 
 superiority so heroic that it fairly dazed the 
 public and for the moment paralyzed the masters. 
 The masters were in a most uncomfortable and 
 unfortunate position. He had made them ap- 
 pear to antagonize Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Cyrus 
 Pierce, George B. Emerson and others. Like 
 magic the social, intellectual and progressive 
 political leaders rallied as champions of Mr. 
 Mann, who showed himself to be a terrific fighter 
 
THE EDUCATOR. (57 
 
 and a merciless foe. The peace he offered the 
 masters, provided they would offer up Barnum 
 Field as a scapegoat, could not be thought of for 
 a moment, and Mr. Mann accepted that as a chal- 
 lenge from the thirty-one. He enlisted the press 
 very generally against the masters and took a 
 personal interest in electing members of the 
 school board who were his ardent friends. It was 
 decided to have a vigorous examination of the 
 grammar schools and the masters petitioned the 
 mayor not to appoint either Dr. Howe or Mr. Brig- 
 ham for either of the examinations, but he made 
 each chairman of one of the committees therefor. 
 Nothing could have been more discomfiting to 
 the masters or a greater triumph for Mr. Mann, 
 who advised with, the committee regarding the 
 removal of several of the masters, four of whom 
 soon retired from the service. When the results 
 of the examinations, which had no single ray of 
 cheer in them, were made public eight thousand 
 copies were printed for free distribution. It was 
 at such an hour of triumph for Mr. Mann that they 
 prepared the "Rejoinder" to the "Reply" to the 
 "Remarks" upon his seventh report. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 "REJOINDER" TO THE "REPLY." 
 
 Mr. Barnum Field, respectfully declined to 
 sign the "Rejoinder" because Mr. Mann had said 
 that he was never to be forgiven and they must 
 continue to dwell on opposite sides of the moral 
 universe. In his place appeared a powerful 
 presentation of the case of the thirty-one masters, 
 calm, clear, firm, earnest. The writers of the 
 other sections were Wm. A. Shepard, S. S. Greene, 
 and Joseph Hale. 
 
 Read to-day, this first part stands as an un- 
 impeachable indictment of the matter, method 
 and manner of Mr. Mann's "Reply." He 
 is charged with misunderstanding or mis- 
 representing their "Remarks"; with having ac- 
 cused them of what was farthest from their 
 thought; with having attributed motives of which 
 they never dreamed; with injustice, impatience 
 and ill temper. They lose much, however, from 
 being forced to apologize for what Mr. Mann had 
 made them appear to have said and for having to 
 take the attitude of defence of themselves as well 
 as of their "Remarks." Their great gain was in 
 throwing back upon Mr. Mann every one of the 
 really good points he had made against them. 
 Where he had represented them as falsifiers not 
 worthy to be instructors of youth because they 
 had asserted that he knew nothing of the 
 Boston schools — claiming to have visited these 
 schools twelve times in the five years specified — 
 they show that five of these occasions, by his own 
 admission, were after the writing of the report; 
 
THE EDUCATOR. $*j 
 
 that the other seven had not averaged fifteen 
 minutes each; that one was to examine a map ex- 
 hibition; one to see the building; one was after 
 school hours; one was after the recitations closed; 
 one at an exhibition ; one for the purpose of mak- 
 ing a speech; one to hear a lesson in music. 
 
 Mr. Mann had made much of the fact that he 
 had frequently visited Mr. Harrington's and Mr. 
 Tower's schools for they were the best in the city, 
 but the former had left teaching before the five 
 years' limit and the latter two years before that. 
 
 Mr. Mann's attempt to escape their shaft at his 
 tens of thousands of pupils visited in Prussia on 
 the ground that he had said, "I think I may say" 
 and had not put it positively, is turned upon him 
 with irresistible force because he said, "I think I 
 may say, within bounds, tens of thousands." Mr. 
 Mann is left without one unchallenged personal 
 position and in every way his "Reply" is shown to 
 be more vulnerable than his report. Many of the 
 wonderful methods seen in Prussia, published 
 and glorified as coming from there were in daily 
 use in Boston and had been for four or five years. 
 The masters had been studying these new things 
 from Prussia in advance and had adopted some, 
 and adapted others and his ignorance thereof is 
 made to recoil upon him with much force. 
 
 Mr. Shepard's "Rejoinder" is more sarcastic, 
 more brilliant and consequently less effective. He 
 was a young man but talented and specially gifted 
 in controversy and among the many rankling sug- 
 gestions was the irresistible ridicule in comment- 
 ing upon the Sunday-school visitation. In attempt- 
 ing to parry the thrust in the "Remarks" where 
 Mr. Shepard had figured out thirty-six days in 
 six weeks, Mr. Mann had insisted that as he had 
 visited Sunday schools these ought to be included 
 and the whole be figured on the basis of forty-two 
 days, which correction Mr. Shepard allows very 
 
70 HORACE MANN, 
 
 graciously but in a decidedly merry vein. Among 
 the pleasantries of Mr. Shepard is a figuring out 
 of the "leaps into the air in a Scotch school." In 
 Mr. Mann's ardent description of this school, 
 speaking of the enthusiasm, he declares that the 
 children "actually leap into the air from the energy 
 of their impulses, and repeat this as often as once 
 in two minutes on the average," and Mr. Shepard 
 shows that this must mean three thousand, six 
 hundred "leaps into the air" or one leap every two 
 seconds. 
 
 Mr. S. S. Greene's "Rejoinder" is a dignified dis- 
 cussion of what has since come to be regarded as 
 the "word" method of teaching reading, and al- 
 though "logical," bright and brilliant, it appears 
 so absurd in the light of modern revelations that 
 one reads it with impatience. From the first Mr. 
 Mann had every pedagogical advantage as they 
 had the personal. He knew that he was in the 
 right, knew that the new methods in reading, 
 geography, language and arithmetic were as sure 
 to come as noon to follow the dawn. There has 
 scarcely been an idea in all the departures of re- 
 cent years not embodied in Mr. Mann's seventh 
 report. Every progressive movement in teaching 
 words, in using maps, in nature study, in abolish- 
 ing corporal punishment, in emphasizing the 
 moral element in education was championed with 
 intensity by Mr. Mann in his seventh report, fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 Miss Mathilde E. Coffin has made quite a sensa- 
 tion by introducing into the Detroit schools ex- 
 amples and problems made from the facts daily 
 presented by the press on the ground that every 
 example should give some useful information as 
 well as present opportunity for practice. Mr. 
 Mann wrote a text-book on arithmetic based on 
 that idea, pure and simple, nearly half a century 
 since. 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 71 
 
 The "Remarks" and the "Rejoinder" were 
 mainly devoted to defending what no power could 
 save and the sentiment of the city realized it. The 
 logical skill and masterly style of these two great 
 documents, together with the fact that every one 
 recognized that they had the advantage of him in 
 the controversy but gave greater emphasis to the 
 truth for which he stood. The strength of these 
 two masterpieces of controversy was their weak- 
 ness and with the appearance of the "Rejoinder" 
 Mr. Mann's place as an educator was for the first 
 time unchallenged, and the city and the state were 
 ready to do his bidding for the advancement of 
 education. The "Rejoinder" caused no ripple of 
 excitement, the public interest in the controversy 
 had abated, public judgment was made up and 
 language counted for little. Mr. Mann was en- 
 throned as the genius of educational progress 
 and few took the trouble to read what was so well 
 said by his antagonists. It was the old, old story 
 with which the world is so familiar. "There is a 
 tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood 
 leads on to fortune." 
 
CHAPTER XIH. 
 
 THE "ANSWER" AND THE CRISIS. 
 
 Mr. Mann's "Answer" to the "Rejoinder" shows 
 him in quite a different light. "Richard is him- 
 self again." He was certainly not himself when 
 he wrote his "Reply." He admitted afterward 
 that he was driven to the wall and must turn upon 
 his pursuer and vindicate himself. It was an act 
 of desperation. It grieved his friends, who lost 
 no time in rallying to his assistance. 
 
 The details of the conflict were taken out of his 
 hands at once. It was seen that he was no better 
 qualified to conduct his own case than a lawyer 
 to plead his own cause or a physician to admin- 
 ister to himself in a high fever. Thirty of the 
 most eminent men of Boston organized them- 
 selves at once to withstand the attack of the 
 thirty masters — Mr. Adam's withdrawal having 
 reduced their number to thirty. They took in 
 hand the election of school boards, the naming of 
 committees for the examination of the grammar 
 schools, the removal of inefficient grammar 
 masters, — four of whom were dismissed within 
 two years, — the management of the Legislature 
 and all other matters of this kind. The names of 
 these men were never made public and their co- 
 operation was not known for a long time. The 
 masters thought their triumph was to be sure and 
 speedy. They had every reason so to think, and 
 some of them had said, in the hour of over-confi- 
 dence, "the board of education is already abol- 
 ished, we only await the action of the Legislature 
 to record the fact." They soon found, however, 
 
THE EDUCATOR, 73 
 
 that they were not in a conflict with Mr. Mann but 
 with the spirit of progress itself, with principali- 
 ties and powers, with unseen forces, social and 
 political. 
 
 No men or body of men could have won 
 in such a contest. In it all of Mr. Mann's 
 grandeur was apparent. His friendships were in 
 evidence, Josiah Quincy, Charles Sumner, Ed- 
 ward Everett, John G. Whittier, Henry Wilson, 
 Anson P. Burlingame, Theodore Parker, with 
 merchants, bankers and professional men, ar- 
 rayed themselves with him. These thirty at once 
 raised among themselves f 5,000 and asked the 
 Legislature for a like sum, that thus f 10,000 might 
 be placed in the hands of the Board of Education 
 for the improvement of the normal schools. 
 Charles Sumner gave his bond for the payment 
 of this sum. This was done as a vote of confi- 
 dence in the board and its secretary and it passed 
 almost unanimously. For the first time there 
 was no opposition in the Legislature to the Board 
 or to anything that it proposed. Indifference to 
 education everywhere disappeared and even the 
 state teachers' association that had arranged a 
 program attacking the Board, read the signs of 
 the times in season to change the plans and have 
 no reference to the Board whatever. 
 
 Mr. Mann's "Answer" recognized the fact that 
 he had nothing to fear and although he can 
 scarcely be accused of being merciful, he was 
 temperate, and the chastisements which he ad- 
 ministered were with the hand of a master. The 
 "Rejoinder" had explained very fully that the 
 "Remarks" did not mean what the "Reply" had 
 made them seem to mean, and he skilfully humil- 
 iated the masters by accepting their adequate 
 apology. With the same force he declines to 
 notice the "bitterness" in the "Rejoinder" on the 
 ground that bitterness is bitter enough when it is 
 
74 HORACE MANN., 
 
 fresh, but it is intolerable when it is sour. The 
 "Answer" had little interest then and less now for 
 it was understood then aud is better understood 
 now that the controversy had been fought out on 
 general influences rather than in the technicali- 
 ties of discussion. No one cared how many times 
 he had visited the Boston schools, for what he 
 had gone, or with whom. None cared how many 
 schools he had visited in six weeks in Prussia nor 
 how many "leaps into the air" the children made 
 per minute in the Scotch school; none cared for 
 the question of veracity or the extent of the flights 
 of rhetoric or imagination. It was enough that 
 Mr. Mann had established the principle that 
 teachers should be trained, that was common 
 sense; that there should be less corporal punish- 
 ment, that was common sense also, — the number 
 of punishments in Boston were reduced eighty 
 per cent in two years after the "Remarks"; that 
 he believed in methods in reading, geography and 
 arithmetic, that looked sensible on the surface, 
 and the general verdict was that it was vicious for 
 the masters to annoy him and call him off from 
 his greater work. 
 
 The weakness of his "Reply" and the strength 
 of the "Remarks" and of the "Rejoinder" con- 
 cerned no one. The world had its own interests 
 and concerned itself not the least with the justice 
 or the injustice of the case, with argumentative 
 winnings and losings of the disputants. The pub- 
 lic formed its judgments by the logic of events 
 and that verdict glorified Horace Mann and made 
 him educationally immortal. 
 
 There is no better opportunity to study the 
 
 hidden forces in society than is presented by the 
 
 conditions in Boston in 1843-6 and the experi- 
 
 . ences of Horace Mann and the thirty-one Boston 
 
 masters. 
 
 Mr. Mann made an educational crisis. To make 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 75 
 
 a crisis one must focus public attention upon 
 some issue; force the opponents to make so clear 
 a presentation as to satisfy all parties interested; 
 and convince the disinterested public that the 
 opposition occupies wholly untenable ground. 
 This is the highest achievement of a reformer. 
 No man is great who cannot in the emergency, 
 focus public attention upon his issue, who does 
 not succeed in getting a mighty presentation of 
 the opposition, who does not win the disinterested 
 public. Pitt's fame was largely due to Walpole; 
 and Disraeli's to Gladstone. Webster's niche is 
 largely due to the masterly speech of Hayne to 
 whom he could and did reply, and Lincoln would 
 never have had the opportunity to immortalize 
 himself but for the mighty speeches of Stephen 
 A. Douglas which he answered. Horace Mann j 
 would never have had his place as an educator 
 but for the controversy with the Boston masters. 
 Were it possible, as it is not, to rob those two 
 great documents — the "Remarks" and the "Re- 
 joinder" — of their strength, Mr. Mann would be 
 robbed largely of his preeminence. His first 
 five reports and his crusades up and down the 
 state had focused public attention, but in all those 
 years there were well-defined suspicions that 
 his was not a disinterested service, that his wis- 
 dom was not without alloy. The Unitarians had 
 captured most of the churches in and about Bos- 
 ton, they had taken to themselves Harvard col- 
 lege and there were not wanting those who 
 hinted broadly that Mr. Mann had sectarian 
 designs on the public schools. 
 
 So long as he lectured abstractly, and talked of 
 reforms that were needed people were willing 
 that he should talk; when the "Remarks" ap- 
 peared everybody said, as they did of Walpole a 
 hundred years earlier, of Gladstone, of Hayne and 
 of Douglas in their time, "that is unanswerable." 
 
76 HORACE MANN. 
 
 The associates of the masters, like the associates 
 of Walpole and Douglas, rallied about their 
 champions but the disinterested public went with 
 Mr. Mann as it had gone with Mr. Lincoln in the 
 Douglas debates. He had made a crisis and his 
 seventh report was an immortal document; oppo- 
 sition to the normal schools was never more to be 
 heard in the land and oral instruction, the word 
 method and less corporal punishment were cer- 
 tain to come to the Boston schools. He who 
 magnifies those great opposing documents helps 
 to give the crisis maker his place upon the throne. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE STATESMAN. 
 
 When Mr. Mann left law and politics for an edu- 
 cational career he lost caste politically. His in- 
 fluence waned. He was not sought for cam- 
 paigning* and the Legislature where he had served 
 for many years heeded his pleadings little more 
 than those of the stranger. Before the echoes of 
 the controversy had died away, Mr. Mann was se- 
 lected from Daniel Webster's Congressional dis- 
 trict to take the seat in Congress made vacant by 
 the sudden death in the House of ex-President 
 John Quincy Adams and that from a district in 
 which he had resided but a short time. It was an 
 honor such as has rarely come to an educator. 
 
 From the first he attracted attention in Wash-' 
 ington because of his reputation and forensic 
 power. He had been in Congress but a little 
 time when Mr. Webster delivered his famous— - 
 many thought infamous — seventh of March 
 speech in which he outraged the political senti- 
 ment of Massachusetts. What Mr. Webster 
 thought sure to add to his political prospects and 
 to the business advantage of Boston was inter- 
 preted to his disadvantage. Mr. Mann seized the 
 occasion for heroic action. He reasoned, as he 
 afterward admitted, that, with the feeling against 
 Mr. Webster because of this speech, he would 
 not venture to be a candidate for reelection ; if he 
 did, defeat was certain. In view of these condi- 
 tions Mr. Mann made a vigorous, keen, severe 
 attack upon Mr. Webster which angered that 
 statesman as nothing in his experience had done 
 
78 HORACE MANN,' 
 
 before. This was due partly to the fact that it 
 came when he was unprepared to meet it and 
 partly because of the audacity of the man, and as 
 he thought, impropriety of the junior congress- 
 man administering a rebuke to the senior senator. 
 
 The best laid plans sometimes come to naught. 
 At this juncture President Taylor died, Mr. 
 Filmore succeeded him, Mr. Webster was made 
 secretary of state and became to all intents 
 and purposes the administration with all the 
 patronage for New England at his disposal. 
 Nothing could have been worse for Mr. Mann. 
 The condemnation was now directed to him and 
 criticisms, public and private, were showered 
 upon him. When his term expired and he was up for 
 reelection Mr. Webster and the entire party ma- 
 chinery worked against him with such vigor that 
 he lost the renomination by a single vote. He de- 
 clared himself an independent candidate, spoke in 
 every village and hamlet in the district, and was 
 elected over the regular nominee by a large vote. 
 This was a personal triumph for Mr. Mann, but 
 for Mr. Webster it was a personal rebuke which 
 he felt keenly. 
 
 Mr. Mann's congressional record was eminently 
 creditable and demonstrated his statesmanlike 
 qualities. At the close of the regulation term in 
 Congress he was made the candidate of the new 
 party of Sumner, Wilson, Burlingame and others 
 for governor. There was no possibility that year 
 of his election and he put no heart into the cam- 
 paign. His nomination was made by Henry Wil- 
 son and seconded by Anson P. Burlingame in 
 speeches that were among the noblest tributes 
 ever offered a candidate. With this he retired 
 from the political arena where he had won laurels 
 and had been of great service to humanity. The 
 brilliancy of this experience added a halo to his 
 educational service which gave it character and 
 statesmanlike dignity. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 AT ANTIOCH COLLEGE. 
 
 An inscrutable Providence or a cruel fate led 
 Mr. Mann at the age of fifty-six to accept the pres- 
 idency of Antioch college, Yellow Springs, Ohio, 
 and attempt the impossible under conditions that 
 chafed and rasped him for the remaining years 
 of his eventful life. 
 
 In America there are two sad pictures, an edu- 
 cator out of place at fifty-six* and a politician 
 out of a job at any time. Mr. Mann's defeat for 
 the governorship, although in no sense a sur- 
 prise, left him with no immediate political future, 
 and he maybe pardoned if he did not see any 
 educational attractions in New England. Had 
 he rested for a few months many choices would 
 have been presented. The lecture platform, the 
 literary arena or any one of many educational 
 positions would have been available, but the 
 friends of Antioch college had enlisted his sym- 
 pathies, appealed to his self-sacrificing devotion, 
 magnified the possibilities, misrepresented — let it 
 be hoped unintentionally — the reality, and he 
 took his family out of Massachusetts that he had 
 blessed into an institution, community and condi- 
 tions which were at that time as ill adapted to 
 him as the depths of the sea to a canary. 
 
 Religiously, educationally, politically, socially, 
 philanthropically he was misplaced. His friends 
 have sometimes heaped abuse upon the men and 
 the community that wore him out completely in 
 six years, wrecking him physically and shading 
 every hour of those last years, but it is probable 
 
80 HORACE MANN, 
 
 that he was as great a burden to them as they 
 were to him. It is useless to censure, but much 
 charity is required for a worshipper at the shrine 
 of Horace Mann to see his family literally 
 "dumped" homeless and friendless upon the 
 debris of that college yard with no house in the 
 town, no rooms in the building ready for, or ap- 
 proaching readiness, for wife and children, 
 and that was really as bright a day as he saw 
 until his beautiful translation to the Land Im- 
 mortal from the bosom of his family, August 2, 
 1858. 
 
 He was misplaced but he could not, would not 
 retreat and against the advice of all friends he 
 stayed and hoped against hope, sacrificed religious 
 ideals, personal comforts, home privileges and 
 continued to bury the money of his friends. He 
 fought opposition in an arena where he was at 
 every disadvantage until at the age of sixty-two 
 his spirit seemed to float away in a delightful 
 vision and a glorious inheritance remained for 
 the widow and orphan of one of the most beauti- 
 ful, grand and noble characters that has blessed 
 this land. 
 
 A fractional part of the energy, wisdom, devo- 
 tion that were wasted at Antioch would have im- 
 mortalized him as a college president at Williams 
 or at Oberlin, but the history of education has 
 gained much from the failure of his party to win 
 in the gubernatorial contest of 1852 and from the 
 failure to establish an educational institution of 
 national fame in southeastern Ohio for from 
 the public mind the last ten years of his life have 
 faded from memory and all that remains to be 
 more and more glorified are the ten years of sac- 
 rifice and devotion, of heroism and wisdom, of 
 talent and genius with which the schools of 
 Massachusetts were blessed, as have been the 
 schools of no other commonwealth. » In front of 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. g]_ 
 
 the State House, in storm and sunshine, as a work 
 of art, stands a noble statue of a grand man, but 
 a fitter memorial is the manhood and woman- 
 hood of Massachusetts, all the brighter and 
 better because of the life, the labor and the love 
 of 
 
 HORACE MANN. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 A-B-C IN THE CONTROVERSY. 
 
 The first question to arise with every reader of 
 these pages thus far will be, — "Why not include 
 the controversy?" The answer is very simple. 
 Because the six principal documents would of 
 themselves require a book twelve times the size 
 of this. All that can be attempted is to give in 
 the concluding chapter a few selections regarding 
 one phase of the contest. The a-b-c will afford as 
 good an illustration as any. This is Mr. Mann's 
 description of the word method or as he styled it, 
 the Prussian way of teaching children to read. 
 
 "The teacher first drew a house upon the black- 
 board. By the side of the drawing and under it, 
 he wrote the word house. With a long pointing 
 rod he ran over the form of the letters, — the chil- 
 dren, with their slates before them and their 
 pencils in their hands, looking at the pointing rod 
 and tracing the forms of the letters in the air. 
 The next process was to copy the word 'house,' 
 both in script and in print, on their slates. Then 
 followed the formation of the sounds of the letters 
 of which the word was composed, and the spelling 
 of the word. Here the names of the letters were 
 not given but only the sounds which those letters 
 have in combination. The letter h was first 
 selected and set up in the reading-frame, and the 
 children, instead of articulating our alphabetic h, 
 (aitch,) merely gave a hard breathing,- — such a 
 sound as the letter really has in the word 'house.' 
 Then the diphthong, au (the German word for 
 'house' is spelled 4 haus') was taken and sounded 
 
THE EDUCATOR. go 
 
 by itself, in the same way. Then the blocks con- 
 taining h, and an, were brought together, and the 
 two sounds were combined. Lastly, the letter s 
 was first sounded by itself, then added to the 
 others, and then the whole word was spoken. 
 Sometimes the last letter in a word was first taken 
 and sounded, — after that the penultimate, — and 
 so on until the word was completed. The re- 
 sponses of the children were sometimes individual, 
 and sometimes simultaneous, according to a 
 signal given by the master. 
 
 "In every such school, also, there are printed 
 sheets or cards, containing the letters, diphthongs 
 and whole words. The children are taught to 
 sound a diphthong, and then asked in what words 
 that sound occurs. On some of these cards there 
 are words enough to make several short sentences, 
 and when the pupils are a little advanced, the 
 teacher points to several isolated words in succes- 
 sion, which when taken together make a familiar 
 sentence, and thus he gives them an agreeable 
 surprise, and a pleasant initiation into reading. 
 
 "After the word 'house' was thus completely 
 impressed upon the minds of the children, the 
 teacher drew his pointing rod over the lines which 
 formed the house; and the children imitated him, 
 first in the air, while they were looking at his 
 motions, then on their slates. In their drawings 
 there was of course a great variety as to taste and 
 accuracy; but each seemed pleased with his own, 
 for their first attempts had never been so criti- 
 cised as to produce discouragement. Several 
 children were then called to the blackboard to 
 draw a house with chalk. After this, the teacher 
 entered into a conversation about houses." 
 
 "Compare the above method with that of calling 
 up a class of abecedarians, — or, what is more 
 common, a single child, and, while the teacher 
 holds a book or a card before him, and, with a 
 
84 HORACE MANN, 
 
 pointer in his hand, says, a, he echoes a; then b, 
 and he echoes b; and so on until the vertical row of 
 lifeless and ill-favored characters is completed, 
 and then of remanding him to his seat, to sit still 
 and look at vacancy. If the child is bright, the 
 time which passes during this lesson is the only 
 part of the day when he does not think. Not a 
 single faculty of the mind is occupied except that 
 of imitating sounds; and even the number of these 
 imitations amounts only to twenty-six. A parrot 
 or an idiot could do the same thing. And so of 
 the organs and members of the body. They are 
 condemned to inactivity; — for the child who 
 stands most like a post is most approved; nay, he 
 is rebuked if he does not stand like a post. A 
 head that does not turn to the right or left, an eye 
 that lies moveless in its socket, hands hanging 
 motionless at the side, and feet immovable as 
 those of a statue, are the points of excellence, 
 while the child is echoing the senseless table of a, 
 b, c. As a general rule, six months are spent be- 
 fore the twenty-six letters are mastered, though 
 the same child would learn the names of twenty- 
 six playmates or twenty-six playthings in one or 
 two days." 
 
 "The practice of beginning with the 'Names of 
 Letters,' is founded upon the idea that it facili- 
 tates the combination of them into words. On 
 the other hand, I believe that if two children, of 
 equal quickness and capacity, are taken, one of 
 whom can name every letter of the alphabet, at 
 sight, and the other does not know them from 
 Chinese characters, the latter can be most easily 
 taught to read, — in other words, that learning the 
 letters first is an absolute hindrance." 
 
 "The letter a, says Worcester, has seven sounds, 
 as in fate, fat, fare, far, fast, fall, liar. In the 
 alphabet, and as a name, it has but one, — the long 
 sound. Now suppose the words of our language 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 8.5 
 
 in which this letter occurs, to be equally divided 
 among these seven classes. The consequence 
 must be that as soon as the child begins to read, 
 he will find one word in which the letter a has the 
 sound he has been taught to give it, and six words 
 in which it has a different sound. If, then, he 
 follows the instruction he has received, he goes 
 wrong six times to going right once. Indeed, in 
 running over a score of his most familiar words, — 
 such as papa, mama, father, apple, hat, cat, rat, ball, 
 fall, call, zcarm, swarm, man, can, pan, ran, brass, 
 glass, water, star, etc., he does not find, in a single 
 instance, that sound of a which he has been taught 
 to give it in the alphabet." 
 
 "Did the vowels adhere to their own sounds, the 
 difficulty would be greatly diminished. But, not 
 only do the same vowels appear in different 
 dresses, like masqueraders, but, like harlequins, 
 they exchange garbs w T ith each other. How often 
 does e take the sound of a, as in there, where, etc. ; 
 and i, the sound of e; and 0, the sound of u; and u, 
 the sound of 0; and y, the sound of i. 
 
 kk In one important particular the consonants are 
 more perplexing than the vowels. The very defi- 
 nition of a consonant, as given in the spelling- 
 books, is, 'a letter which has no sound, or only an 
 imperfect one, without the help of a vowel.' And 
 yet the definers themselves, and the teachers who 
 follow them, proceed immediately to give a per- 
 fect sound to all the consonants." 
 
 "I believe it is within bounds to say, that we do 
 not sound the letters in reading once in a 
 hundred times as we were taught to sound 
 them when learning the alphabet. Indeed, 
 were we to do so in one tenth part of the in- 
 stances, we should be understood by nobody. 
 What analogy can be pointed out between 
 the rough breathing of the letter h, in the 
 words when, where, how, etc., and the "name- 
 
gg HORACE 31 ANN, 
 
 sound 1 ' (aytch, aitch, or aych, as it is given by 
 different spelling-book compilers) of that letter, 
 as it is taught from the alphabet? 
 
 "This subject might be further illustrated by 
 reference to other languages, — the Greek, for in- 
 stance. Will the names of the letters, kappa, 
 omicron, sigma, mu, omicron, sigma, make the word 
 kosmos? And yet these letters come as near mak- 
 ing that word, as those given by the Rev. Mr. Otti- 
 well Wood, at a late trial in Lancashire, England, 
 did to the sound of his own name. On Mr. Wood's 
 giving his name to the court, the judge said, 
 'Pray, Mr. Wood, how do you spell your name?' 
 to which the witness replied; — 'O double T, I 
 double U, E double L, double U, double O, D.' In 
 the anecdote it is added, that the learned judge at 
 first laid down his pen in astonishment; and then, 
 after making two or three unsuccessful attempts, 
 declared he was unable to record it." 
 
 To this the Masters made extended reply in 
 their "Remarks" from which the following state- 
 ment is selected : — 
 
 "When we speak of words, we may mean either 
 the audible, or the written signs of our ideas. The 
 term word is, therefore, ambiguous, unless it be so 
 qualified as to have a specific reference. In 
 speaking of familiar words, nothing can be meant 
 except that the child can utter them; he knows 
 them only as audible signs. To say that printed 
 words are familiar to a child's tongue, can have 
 no other meaning than that he is accustomed to 
 the taste of ink ; to say that such words are famil- 
 iar to his ear, is to attribute to that ink, a tongue ; 
 and to say that they are familiar to the mind, is to 
 suppose the child already able to read. Now, as 
 reading aloud is nothing less than translating 
 written into audible signs, a knowledge of the latter, 
 whatever may be the system of teaching, is pre- 
 supposed to exist, and is about as necessarv to the 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 87 
 
 one learning to read, as would be a knowledge of 
 the English language to one who would translate 
 Greek into English. 
 
 "To illustrate. Take the printed word mother; 
 when pronounced, it is familiar 'to the ear, the 
 tongue, and the mind.' Does this familiarity aid 
 the child in the least, in comprehending the 
 printed picture? Can he, from his acquaintance 
 with the audible sigu, utter that sign by looking 
 upon the six unknown letters which spell it? 
 
 "The truth is, in all that belongs, appropriately, 
 to the question under consideration, the word is 
 unknown; unknown as a whole, unknown in all its 
 parts, and unknown as to the mode of combining 
 those parts. The question, when restricted to its 
 appropriate limits, is simply this; 'What is the 
 best method of teaching a child to comprehend 
 printed words?' " 
 
 "Is the rose any the less agreeable to the mind 
 of the child, or, is the word rose, when pronounced, 
 any the less familiar to his organs of speech or to 
 his ear, because its printed sign is learned by com- 
 bining the letters r-o-s-e? Or does the mere act of 
 telling the child to say rose, while pointing to the 
 picture, formed of four unknown letters, in any 
 way enhance its agreeableness? 
 
 "The question, then, is not whether a child shall 
 be 'introduced to a stranger through the medium 
 of old acquaintances,' for, in fact, by the new 
 system, this introduction is made through the 
 medium of the teacher's voice. 
 
 "The true question at issue is, whether the child 
 shall be furnished with an attendant to announce 
 the name of the stranger, or whether he shall be 
 furnished with letters of introduction by which, un- 
 attended, he may make the acquaintance, not of 
 some seven hundred strangers merely, but of the 
 whole seventy thousand unknown members of our 
 populous vocabulary." 
 
gg HORACE 31 ANN, 
 
 "When the secretary, in speaking of a child 
 after the first year of his life, says that, then, 'the 
 wonderful faculty of language begins to develop 
 itself,' he undoubtedly refers to spoken language. 
 And well may that be called a wonderful faculty 
 by which, through the agency of the vocal organs, 
 we can so modify mere sounds, as to send them 
 forth freighted with thoughts which may cause 
 the hearts of others to thrill with ecstatic delight, 
 or throb with unutterable anguish. And no 
 wonder that there should have existed, early in 
 the history of the world, a desire to enchain and 
 represent to the eye these evanescent messengers 
 of thought. Hence the early and rude attempts 
 at writing, by means of pictures and symbols. 
 But these, unfortunately, were representatives of 
 the message, not the messenger; of the idea, not the 
 sound which conveys it. At length arose that 
 wonderful invention, the art of representing to the 
 eye, by means of letters, the component parts of a 
 spoken word, so that now, not merely the errand, 
 but the bearer stands pictured before us. The 
 grand and distinctive feature of this invention is, 
 that it establishes a connection between the 
 written and the audible signs of our ideas. It 
 throws, as it were, a bridge across the otherwise 
 impassable gulf which must ever have separated 
 the one from the other. The hieroglyphics and 
 symbols of the ancients performed but one func- 
 tion. To those who, by a purely arbitrary asso- 
 ciation, were able to pass from the sign to the 
 thing signified, they were representatives of 
 ideas — and ideas merely; hence they are called 
 ideographic characters, and that mode of writing 
 has been denominated the symbolic, and is exem- 
 plified in the Chinese language." 
 
 "The new system of teaching reading abandons 
 entirely the distinctive feature of the phonetic 
 mode of writing, and our w T ords are treated as 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 89 
 
 though they were capable of performing but one 
 function, that of representing ideas. The lan- 
 guage, although written with alphabetic char- 
 acters, becomes, to all intents and purposes, a 
 symbolic language. Now we say, as ours is 
 designedly a phonetic language, no system of 
 teaching ought to meet with public favor, that 
 strips it of its principal power. And we confess 
 ourselves not a little surprised that the secretary, 
 who cherishes such correct views of the inferiority 
 of the Chinese language, should urge us to con- 
 vert ours into Chinese." 
 
 "As our language was written with alphabetic 
 characters, our words are too long and cumbrous 
 for becoming mere symbols. A single character 
 would be vastly superior to our trisyllables and 
 polysyllables. If the new system prevails, we may 
 soon expect a demand for reform in this respect. 
 As it now is, the child must meet with all the 
 difficulties that necessarily accompany the ac- 
 quisition of the Chinese language, and these 
 greatly increased by the forms of our words. 
 
 "The defenders of the new system seem to lose 
 sight of the nature and design of the alphabetic 
 mode of writing, as an invention. To understand 
 an invention, we must first know the law of nature 
 which gave rise to it, and then the several parts 
 of the invented system, as well as the adaptation 
 of these parts, when combined, to accomplish 
 some useful purpose. Thus, to explain the steam- 
 engine, the chemical law by which water is con- 
 verted into steam must first be understood, and in 
 connection with it, that of elasticity, common to 
 all aeriform bodies. Then follows — what consti- 
 tutes the main point in this illustration — the ex- 
 planation of the several parts of the machine, with 
 the modes of combining them, so as to gain that 
 immense power, which is found so valuable in the 
 arts. Take another illustration, more nearly 
 
90 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 
 allied to the subject under consideration. It was 
 discovered a few years since, that a piece of iron 
 exposed, under given circumstances, to a galvanic 
 current, would become a powerful magnet, and 
 that it would cease to be such, the instant the 
 current was intercepted. Little was it then 
 thought, that this simple discovery would give 
 rise to an invention by which the winged light- 
 ning, fit messenger of thought, could be employed 
 to enable the inhabitants of Maine to converse 
 with their otherwise distant neighbors in Louis- 
 iana, with almost as much ease, as though the 
 parties were seated in the same parlor. 
 
 "Now, no one will pretend, that to make use of 
 the steam-engine successfully, all that is neces- 
 sary is to gain an idea of it, as a whole. The 
 several parts, with their various relations and 
 combinations, must be explained. Equally neces- 
 sary is it, in managing the magnetic telegraph, for 
 the operator to be familiar with the laws of elec- 
 tricity, and the adaptation of the several parts of 
 the machine, to accomplish, by means of that 
 agent, the object proposed. But who would 
 think of interpreting the results of its operation, 
 the dots, the lines, the spaces, by looking upon 
 them as constituting a single picture? 
 
 "To apply these illustrations. It was discov- 
 ered, ages ago, that Nature had endowed the 
 organs of speech with the power of uttering a 
 limited number of simple sounds. From this dis- 
 covery originated the invention of letters to repre- 
 sent these elementary sounds. Letters constitute 
 the machinery of the invention. They are the tools 
 by which the art of reading is to be acquired; and 
 a thorough knowledge of letters bears the same 
 relation to reading, as does the thorough acquaint- 
 ance with the parts of a steam-engine, or of the 
 magnetic telegraph to a skilful use of these instru- 
 ments. The new system proposes to abandon, for 
 
THE EDUCATOR. yi 
 
 a time at least, all that is peculiar to this inven- 
 tion; all that distinguishes it from the rude and 
 unphilosophical systems of symbolic writing, 
 which, centuries ago, gave place to it, throughout 
 every portion of the civilized world. Now, since 
 such an estimate was placed upon this invention by 
 the ancients, as to secure its adoption to the exclu- 
 sion of all other methods of writing; and since a 
 trial of many centuries has served only to confirm 
 mankind in the belief of its superiority over every 
 other system; we can but protest against the 
 adoption of a mode of teaching, that subjects the 
 child to such inconvenience and loss." 
 
 "The word letter, as applied to the alphabet, is 
 ambiguous, unless accompanied by some term, or 
 explanatory phrase, to show what is intended. 
 In referring to one of the elementary sounds 
 which enters into the formation of a spoken word, 
 we call that sound a letter; so, in speaking of the 
 conventional sign, which represents that sound to 
 the eye, as the character h, seen in a printed word, 
 that sign we call a letter ; both the sound and the 
 sign, take the name aitch, for example ; this name, in 
 turn, is called a letter. Now, to prevent confu- 
 sion, these three things, the power, the character, 
 and the name, should be kept entirely distinct 
 from each other. In a spoken word, elementary 
 sounds are combined; in a zvritten word, elemen- 
 tary characters; in neither written nor spoken 
 words, are the names of letters joined, except in 
 those instances, where the name and power are 
 the same, as in the case of the long sounds of the 
 vowels." 
 
 "We never supposed, nor do we know of a single 
 advocate of the old system, who ever supposed, 
 that the names of letters entered into the forma- 
 tion of words ; as, h-a-t, into aitchaitee; 'leg,' into 
 'elegy.' 
 
 "Names were not given to letters for such a pur- 
 
92 BORAGE MANN, 
 
 pose. They were assigned to them, for the same 
 reason that names are given to other objects, to 
 aid us in referring to the objects themselves. One 
 would scarcely expect to convince even a child, 
 that there was neither pastry, fruit, cinnamon, 
 nor sugar, in the pie he was eating, by telling him 
 that pies are never made of such names as pastry, 
 cinnamon, etc." 
 
 "To neglect the names of letters is to destroy, 
 at once, one of the most important exercises of the 
 primary school; that is, oral spelling. That let- 
 ters must have names to aid us in referring to 
 them, no one will deny." 
 
 "If letters must have names, why should the 
 child be kept in ignorance of them? One of the 
 first inquiries of a child, on seeing a new object is, 
 'What is it?' 'What do you call it?' or, in other 
 words, 'What is its name?' Shall such inquiries 
 be silenced, when made respecting the alphabet?" 
 
 "Mr. Mann says: 'If b, is be, then be is bee, the 
 name of an insect; and if / is el, then el is eel, the 
 name of a fish;' that is to say, if the object named, 
 is the same as the name itself, then that name be- 
 comes the name of an insect, or of a fish. Sur- 
 prising! 
 
 "All printed names of objects are formed from 
 printer's ink. Bee is the printed name of an 
 object; and since the object itself is the same as 
 its name, it follows that this insect is only 
 printer's ink. It is, therefore, harmless, unless it 
 is that remarkable bee that has three stings; for 
 we are told that — 
 
 " 'No bee has two stings;' and that, 'one bee has 
 one more sting than no bee (and perhaps, this one) 
 has three stings. 
 
 "As for the eel, fit emblem of the logic that 
 caught it, we will leave it to hands best able to 
 retain it." 
 
 "Since the child cannot 'appreciate the remote 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 93 
 
 benefits' of learning the alphabet, must his caprice 
 govern those who can, and determine them to 
 abandon, even for a time, what they know is all- 
 important in teaching him to read? A child is 
 sick, and cannot appreciate the remote, or imme- 
 diate benefits of taking disagreeable medicine. 
 Will a judicious parent, who is fully sensible of 
 the child's danger, regard, for one moment, his 
 wishes, to save him from a little temporary dis- 
 quietude? A child has no fondness for the dry 
 and uninteresting tables of arithmetic. Shall he, 
 therefor^, be gratified in his desire to hasten on 
 to the solution of questions, before acquiring such 
 indispensable pre-requisites? We have been 
 accustomed to suppose that the responsibilities 
 of the teacher's profession, consist, mainly, in his 
 being required to fashion the manners and tastes 
 of his pupils, to promote habits of thinking and 
 patient toil, and to give direction to their desires 
 and aspirations, rather than to minister to the 
 gratification of their passion for pleasure." 
 
 "To gratify the child, should not be the teacher's 
 aim, but rather to lay a permanent foundation, on 
 which to rear a noble and well-proportioned super- 
 structure. If, while doing this, the teacher is suc- 
 cessful in rendering mental exertion agreeable, 
 and in leading the child from one conquest to 
 another, till achievement itself affords delight, it is 
 well ; such pleasure stimulates to greater exertion. 
 But if, to cultivate pleasure-seeking is his aim, he 
 had better, at once, abandon his profession, and 
 obtain an employment in which he will not en- 
 danger the welfare, both of individuals and 
 society, by sending forth a sickly race, palsied in 
 every limb, through idleness, a vain attempt 
 to gratify a morbid thirst for pleasure. 
 
 "The new system proposes to afford the child 
 pleasure in the exercise of reading words; yet, in- 
 stead of requiring him to exert, in the least, his 
 
94 HORACE 31 ANN, 
 
 mental faculties, in combining the elementary 
 parts of these words, the teacher gives merely the 
 result of his own mental processes, and exacts 
 nothing from the child, but a passive reception of 
 the sound, which is to be associated arbitrarily, 
 with the visible picture, pointed out to him." 
 
 "To this method of teaching we are opposed, for 
 the following reasons: 
 
 1st. — "Teaching whole words according to this 
 plan, to any extent whatever, gives the child no 
 facility for learning new ones. Every word must 
 be taken upon authority, until the alphabet is 
 learned. 
 
 2d. — "Since the alphabet must, at some period, 
 be acquired, with all its imperfections, it is but a 
 poor relief, to compel the child, at first, to asso- 
 ciate seven hundred different, arbitrary forms 
 with the ideas which they represent, and then to 
 learn the alphabet itself." 
 
 3d. — "Another objection to converting our 
 language into Chinese, arises from the change 
 which must inevitably take place in the modes of 
 associating the printed word with the idea which 
 it represents, when the child is taught to regard 
 words as composed of elements. Children, at 
 first, learn to recognize the word, by the new 
 method, as a single picture, not as composed of 
 parts; and for aught we know, they begin in the 
 middle of it and examine each way. It is not 
 probable that they proceed invariably from left 
 to right, as in the old mode. However that may 
 be, an entire change must take place when they 
 begin to learn words,, as composed of letters. 
 The attention, then, is directed to the parts of 
 which words are composed. While the eye. is 
 employed in combining the visible characters, the 
 mind unites the powers which they represent, and 
 the organs of speech are prompt to execute what 
 the eye and the mind have simultaneously pre- 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 95 
 
 pared for them. The mode of association in a 
 symbolic language, if we mistake not, is this : The 
 single picture is associated arbitrarily, yet 
 directly, with the idea; the idea is then associated 
 with its audible sign; this sign, being familiar to 
 the child, is readily uttered. In a phonetic lan- 
 guage, it is different. The attention being 
 directed to the letters and their powers, the child 
 is conducted immediately to the audible sign; this 
 when uttered, or thought of, suggests the idea. 
 Whether or not these are the correct views, is 
 immaterial to the argument. All that is claimed 
 is, that a change takes place in the modes of asso- 
 ciation, as soon as the child begins to combine 
 letters into words. It is of this change we com- 
 plain. All will acknowledge the importance of 
 forming in the child, correct habits of association, 
 such as will not need revolutionizing at a subse- 
 quent period in life." 
 
 4th. — "The new system fails to accomplish the 
 object which it proposes. The main design of 
 this mode of teaching seems to be, to escape the 
 ambiguity arising from the variety of sounds 
 which attach to some of the letters, as well as 
 from the variety of forms by which the same 
 sounds may be represented. 
 
 "The defenders of this system seem to forget, 
 since these anomalies are elementary, that they 
 must be carried into the formation of words. 
 Thus, we can represent a single elementary sound, 
 first by a, then by ai, and again, by ei; hence, we 
 can form three different words ; as vane, vain, vein. 
 In a similar manner we have, rain, reign, rein; 
 wright, zvrite, right, rite; and hundreds of others. 
 It will be seen at once, that it must be as difficult 
 for a child to attach the same sound to four differ- 
 ent pictures called words, as to four different pic- 
 tures called letters. Hence, it is plain, that we 
 have 'harlequins among words; as zvell as among 
 
96 
 
 HORACE MANN, 
 
 letters. The only difference is, that the former are 
 more numerous, yet the legitimate offspring of the 
 latter. We have miasqueraders,' too, among 
 words. Let the sound represented by the four 
 letters, r-i-t-e, fall upon the child's ear, and he may 
 think, either, of a ceremony, of making letters 
 with a pen, of justice, or of a workman. Again, 
 let either the printed or spoken word pound, for 
 example, be given; and he may think of an en- 
 closure for stray cattle, of striking a blow, of cer- 
 tain weights, as avoirdupois, apothecaries', or 
 Troy weight, and also, of a denomination of 
 money." 
 
 5th. — "It introduces confusion into the different 
 grades of schools. 
 
 "The elements must be taught somewhere. If 
 neglected in the primary schools, they must be 
 taught in the grammar schools. And thus the 
 order of things is reversed, and disarrangement 
 introduced into the whole school system. The 
 teacher who is employed, and paid, for instructing 
 in the higher branches, is compelled to devote 
 time and attention to the studies appropriately 
 belonging to the schools of a lower grade." 
 - "Two children, in like circumstances, in every 
 respect, commence learning to read; the first 
 learns some seven hundred different words, as he 
 would so many different letters; having acquired 
 no more ability to learn the seven hundred and 
 first, than he had at the beginning ; afterwards he 
 learns the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, in- 
 cluding all the 'harlequins' and 'masqueraders,' 
 and finally the art of combining the letters into 
 words. The other learns first, the letters; then, 
 the art of combining them; and finally makes use 
 of this knowledge, to acquire. his seven hundred 
 words. Now by what rule of arithmetic, or of 
 common sense, it is ascertained that the former 
 will advance more rapidly than the latter, is to us 
 entirelv unknown." 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 97 
 
 "The main question at issue, we are constrained 
 to answer in the negative. The arguments ab- 
 duced in its support are, as we believe, incon- 
 clusive. The plausibility of some arises from 
 considerations wholly irrelevant ; others are falla- 
 cious; and others still, are based upon false 
 premises. 
 
 "On the contrary, the -reasons brought against 
 the change, and in favor of the prevailing system, 
 are of paramount importance. Therefore, as con- 
 scientious and faithful servants in the cause of 
 education, we feel bound to adhere to the path of 
 duty, rather than yield to the opinions even of 
 those who are high in authority." 
 
 The "Reply" of Mr. Mann deals with the ques- 
 tion in this way: — 
 
 "There are several reasons why I shall not at- 
 tempt a lengthened reply to this part of the 'Re- 
 marks.' The first is, that, from beginning to end, 
 it is an arrant misrepresentation of the system it 
 professes to impugn. I have never advocated, or 
 known, or heard of, nor have I met any person 
 who has ever advocated, or known, or heard of, 
 any such mode of teaching the English language 
 to children, as the 'Remarks' assail." 
 
 "It would be useless to consider, in detail, those 
 arguments which are brought to overthrow a sys- 
 tem which nobody upholds. Besides, the plain, 
 common-sense views which belong to this subject, 
 are turned into metaphysics, by the 'Remarks,' 
 and treated with division and subdivision, that 
 bewilder instead of elucidating. The subject is 
 ground down, and pulverized into impalpability, 
 —beyond microscopic vision. Had it been the un- 
 aided production of a single mind, the subtlety 
 and evanescence of its refinements might have 
 been less; — now, I know not how otherwise to 
 describe it than as the doctrine of metaphysics 
 applied to the almost endless anomalies of the 
 
98 HORACE MANN, 
 
 alphabet. An attempt to individualize the 
 atomical parts of this section, and to give an 
 answer to each, would be like attempting to beat 
 back a league-square of sea-fog, by hitting each 
 particle with the sharpened end of a rod. I shall 
 content myself, therefore, with endeavoring to 
 find some nuclei rarified into less metaphysical 
 tenuity than the general mass, and striking at 
 them." 
 
 "By the 'old method,' the names of the letters, — 
 the A, B, C, as they have been immemorially 
 called, — were first taught. After these letters, 
 came tables of ab and eb, of bla and ble, of ska, 
 ske, of bam, flam, etc., etc., an almost endless cata- 
 logue, and doleful as endless." 
 
 "By the 'old system/ when the child could 
 master the alphabet at sight, and could read these 
 names of nothing, by spelling them, he was put to 
 the reading of short sentences. Then, and not till 
 then, was any order or beauty evolved to his 
 vision, out of night and chaos. From inquiries 
 made, I know not of how many teachers, I learn 
 that it has taken children, on an average, at least 
 six months to master the alphabet, on this plan, 
 even when they went to school constantly. In 
 country districts, where there are short schools 
 and long vacations, it has generally required a 
 year, and often eighteen months, to teach a child 
 the twenty-six letters of the alphabet; when the 
 same child would have learned the names of 
 twenty-six playmates, or of twenty-six interesting 
 objects of any kind, in one or two days. And the 
 reason is obvious. In learning the meaningless 
 letters of the alphabet, there was nothing to at- 
 tract his attention, to excite his curiosity, to de- 
 light his mind, or to reward his efforts. The life, 
 the zest, the eagerness with which all children, ex- 
 cept natural-born idiots, seek for real objects, ask 
 their names, or catch them without asking, never 
 
TEE EDUCATOR. 99 
 
 enlivened this process. The times of the lessons 
 were seasons of suspended animation. The child 
 was taught not to think. His eyes and mind were 
 directed to objects as little interesting as so many 
 grains of sand. For the time being, he was 
 banished from this world into the realms of 
 vacuity. By the letters and abs, no glimmer of an 
 idea was excited in the child's mind, and when he 
 was put into words and short sentences, he found, 
 as the general rule, that the letters had all 
 changed their names, without any act of the 
 Legislature. Were the common objects of na- 
 ture or of art, — animals, trees, flowers, fruits, 
 articles of furniture and of dress, implements of 
 trade, etc., etc., learned as slowly as this, an indi- 
 vidual would hardly be able to name the objects 
 immediately around him during the first century 
 of his existence; and antediluvian longevity would 
 find him inquiring the names of things now 
 familiar to a child. But all who have arrived at 
 middle life, and been educated in this community, 
 know bitterly what the 'old method' means. 
 
 "By the 'new method,' a book is used which con- 
 tains, short, familiar words, which are the names 
 of pleasant objects or qualities, or suggest the 
 idea of agreeable actions. A simple story is told, 
 or some inquiry is made, in which a particular 
 word is used, and when the child's attention is 
 gained and his interest excited, the word is shown 
 to him, as a whole. He is made to speak it, and is 
 told that the written or printed object means 
 what we mean when we speak the word ; and that 
 if he will learn words, he can read such stories in 
 books as he has heard, or speak to people a hun- 
 dred miles distant from him, or that he can do 
 some other of the hundred wonderful things 
 which belong to reading, and which even a child 
 can be made to understand. Words are shown, 
 which excite pleasant images when spoken, and 
 
100 HORACE MANN, 
 
 after a little while, if the instruction is judiciously 
 managed, the child comes to look upon a book as 
 a magic casket, full of varied and beautiful treas- 
 ures, which he longs to see. Pleasant associa- 
 tions with the book, the school, and the teacher, 
 are created. The idea that every word has a sig- 
 nification is kept perpetually before his mind, 
 until he looks habitually for a meaning in printed 
 words, as much as he does in those spoken ones, 
 which are addressed to him. His mind is kept in 
 an active, thinking state. The time never is, 
 when he looks at the words in a book without 
 going out, in imagination, to things, actions, or 
 relations, beyond the book. He is not stultified 
 as he is when compelled to look at letters and 
 particles, for a year, which are almost nothing in 
 themselves and suggest nothing beyond them- 
 selves. After a number of words have been 
 taught in this way, — more or less, according to 
 the capacities of the child, but ordinarily, I should 
 say, less than a hundred, — some of the letters are 
 pointed out. In subsequent lessons the attention 
 is turned more and more to the letters, until all 
 are learned." 
 
 There is no occasion to quote from the forty 
 pages devoted to this subject in the "Rejoinder of 
 the Masters, 1 ' nor from the almost equal space 
 given to it in the "Answer" of Mr. Mann. It now 
 becomes little more than a personal quarrel be- 
 tween the two forces as to which has outraged and 
 misrepresented the other most brutally or skill- 
 fully, as you please, and with that we have no con- 
 cern. The three presentations here made show 
 the relative positions of the contestants. In this 
 phase of the discussion, Mr. Mann is at his best 
 and the masters are at their worst and it is due 
 Mr. Mann, in a study of his life, that the section 
 chosen should be that in which he appears to 
 advantage. It has been said with much plainness 
 
THE EDUCATOR. 1Q1 
 
 in these pages that he was not creditably repre- 
 sented in the personal issues raised; it is only fair 
 that the professional side be presented, for in that 
 he had every advantage. 
 
 Time has placed him upon the educational 
 throne. In the grounds in front of the State 
 House stand two statues — one of Daniel Webster 
 and the other of Horace Mann, the only person 
 in Massachusetts whose antagonism in speech and 
 politics led to Mr. Webster's thorough discomfiture. 
 Their differences are forgotten, and admirers of 
 the statesman-orator and of the statesman-edu- 
 cator honor them equally. Mr. Mann's statue is 
 in the most commanding spot in the city of Boston 
 where his fame is at its height and the Boston 
 masters of half a century have been rearing im- 
 mortal monuments to the wisdom and devotion 
 of the greatest educator of his time. Nowhere 
 are his praises sung more spiritedly in this 
 memorial year than by the schools in which chil- 
 dren are ennobled and inspired intellectually and 
 morally by the Boston masters and their corps of 
 assistants. As the statues of Webster and Mann 
 stand side by side, placed there by the same au- 
 thorities, admirers of both, so the Boston schools 
 of to-day are monuments to Mr. Mann and the 
 masters who are alike respected for their service. 
 The men of Massachusetts in this hour of her 
 commercial, educational and civic grandeur are 
 the "next generation," 
 
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