Book..il:^^ii:! 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
SCHOOL-ROOM CLASSICS. XI 
 
 HORACE MANN 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM TORREY HARRIS, LLD. 
 
 n 
 
 COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION 
 
 SYRACUSE, N. Y. Z' ' '^ 
 
 
 C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
 1896 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by C. W. Bardeen 
 
 N^^ 
 
C. W. BARDEEN, SYRACUSE 
 
NOTE 
 
 This address was delivered before the National 
 Educational Association at its meeting in Buffalo, 
 1896, It is printed from a copy revised for us by 
 the author. 
 
HORACE MANN 
 
 The educational history of our country is 
 
 divided roughly into two epochs ^^^^^ ^^^ 
 
 — that of rural and that of urban city educa- 
 tion 
 
 education. This is also the strug- 
 gle that is going on now — to eliminate rural 
 methods and supplant them by urban 
 methods. For it often happens that a city 
 grows in population but is slow to avail itself 
 of the opportunity that a large population 
 and accumulated wealth afford for superior 
 methods of instruction. 
 
 The number of cities within the United 
 States containing 8,000 inhabi- increase in 
 tants and upwards was in 1790 ^^*^®^ 
 only 6 ; between 1800 and 1810 it increased 
 to 11 ; in 1820, 13 ; in 18j0, 2(5 ; in 1840, 
 44. In the fifty years between 1840 and 
 1890 it increased from 44 to 443, or ten times 
 the former number. The urban population 
 of this country in 1790 was, according to the 
 superintendent of the census, only one in 30 
 of the population ; in 1840 it had increased 
 (5) 
 
6 Horace Mann 
 
 to one in 12 ; in 1890 to one in 3, In fact, 
 if we count the towns on the railroads that 
 are made urban by their close connections 
 with large cities, and the suburban districts, 
 it is safe to say that now one-half of the 
 population is urban. 
 
 In sparsely settled regions a district of four 
 District Square miles will furnish only 
 
 schools twenty, thirty, or forty children 
 
 of school age ; and it follows as a matter of 
 course that the schools were small, their 
 annual sessions very short, the funds to pay 
 teachers scarce, the teachers themselves 
 poorly educated and not professionally 
 trained. For the first forty years of this 
 nation such was the condition of nine-tenths 
 of all the schools. By 1830 the growth of 
 cities began to be felt. 
 
 As villages grew, and after the railroad 
 Graded ^^^ Connected them to the large 
 
 schools cities, bringing them into con- 
 
 tact with urban life, graded schools began to 
 exist, and to hold an annual session of ten or 
 eleven months. This required the services 
 of a person whose entire vocation was teach- 
 ing. One of the chief defects of the rural 
 district school was to be found in the fact 
 
Professional Teachers 7 
 
 that the man who taught the winter school 
 took up teaching as a mere makeshift, de- 
 pending on his other business or trade (sur- 
 veyor or clerk or farmer, etc.) for his chief 
 support. There was small chance for the 
 acquirement of any knowledge of the true 
 methods of teaching. Another evil more 
 prominent than the former was the letting 
 down of standards caused by the low qualifi- 
 cations of the average committeeman. The 
 town as a whole could afford a school commit- 
 tee of high qualifications ; the average dis- 
 trict rarely. The tov/nship system therefore 
 attains a far higher standard of efficiency 
 than the district system. 
 
 When the village began to catch the urban 
 spirit and establish graded schools Professional 
 with a full annual session, there teachers 
 came a demand for a higher order of teach- 
 er, the professional teacher in short. This 
 caused a comparison of ideals and the most 
 enlightened in the community began an agi- 
 tation of the school question, and supervis- 
 ion was demanded. In Massachusetts, where 
 the urban civilization had made most pro- 
 gress, this agitation resulted in the forma- 
 tion of a state board of education in 1837 
 
8 Horace Mann 
 
 and the employment of Horace Mann as its 
 secretary (June, 1837). Boston had been 
 connected with Providence and Worcester 
 and Lowell by railroads before 1835, and in 
 1842 the first great trunk railroad had been 
 completed through Springfield to Albany, 
 opening to Boston a communication with the 
 great West by the Erie canal and the newly 
 completed railroad from Albany to Buffalo. 
 This was the beginning of the great urban 
 epoch m America that has gone on increas- 
 ing in intensity to this day. 
 
 Horace Mann came to the head of educa- 
 tion in Massachusetts just at the 
 MaS?Ieari- beginning of this epoch of rail- 
 iestwork ^^^g^^g ^^^ ^^^ growth of cities. 
 
 He attacked with unsparing severity the 
 
 evils of the schools 
 as he found them, 
 these evils being 
 chiefly the sur- 
 vivals of the rural 
 school epoch. 
 The school dis- 
 trict system, in- 
 t reduced into 
 
 Connecticut in 1701, into Rhode Island about 
 
Graded Schools 9 
 
 1750. and into Massachusetts in 1789, was 
 pronounced by Horace Mann to be the most 
 disastrous feature in the whole history of 
 educational legislation in Massachusetts. 
 Side by side with the new impulse given to 
 education in villages, no doubt the district 
 system seemed very bad. Its evils were 
 manifest in the opposition to central graded 
 schools which were needed in the populous 
 villages, but which would break up the old 
 district lines. Local power is never given 
 up to a central power without a struggle. 
 The stubbornness of this contest on the part 
 of local committeemen was continued long 
 after the adoption of the township system in 
 Massachusetts and elsewhere. The district 
 fought for its ^^ rights" through its repre- 
 sentatives on the town board, thereby post- 
 poning the feasible consolidation of districts 
 and the formation of properly classfied 
 schools. 
 
 Let us dwell a moment on this advantage 
 of consolidated or '^union" Graded 
 
 schools as called in New York schools 
 
 State and the West. In the rural school, 
 isolated as it was, all grades of pupils from 
 
10 . Horace Mann 
 
 the lowest primary up to the secondary came 
 together under one master, who had to give 
 indlTidual instruction to each, finding only 
 five minutes or a little more for such lesson. 
 Under such circumstances he could not well 
 manage over twenty or thirty pupils. 
 
 In his classes, each formed of one pupil 
 Larger ^^ those branches other than read- 
 
 classes jjjg ^-^^ spelling, he might have 
 
 done better teaching had he had two pupils 
 instead of one. For the child learns almost 
 as much from paying attention to the efforts 
 of his classmate to recite as from his own. 
 A skilful teacher can make recitation by an 
 entire class of twenty or thirty pupils of 
 even grade of advancement far more instruc- 
 tive to each pupil than a private tutor can 
 make the same lesson to his one pupil. The 
 other pupils of the class furnish a sort of 
 bridge between the teacher's mind that sees 
 (or should see) the topic under discussion in 
 its relations to all human learning, and the 
 individual pupiPs mind that sees the topic 
 in its barest outlines and has scarcely learned 
 ts relations to other topics. For each pupil 
 gets some one-sided view of it for him- 
 
Economy of Effort 11 
 
 self in preparing his lesson, and sees in the 
 class exercise (which we call '^ recitation*' 
 in our American school-technique) many 
 other one-sided views presented by his fel- 
 low pupils, who are not likely to repeat his 
 one-sided view, but to have others equally 
 distorted of their own. 
 
 Suppose two ungraded schools to be united 
 in one and divided again accord- Longer 
 ing to grade ; the thirty pupils recitations 
 youngest, and in lowest elementary studies, 
 taken by one teacher and the other thirty 
 pupils taken by the other teacher. One half 
 of the number of classes is saved by consoli- 
 dation and each teacher has twice as much 
 time for each class exercise or recitation. 
 He can find more time to go into the merits 
 of the subject when he has ten minutes in- 
 stead of five minutes. 
 
 In a populous village, a school of five hun- 
 dred pupils is collected. There Economy of 
 
 is a teacher for each fifty pupils, ®^°^^ 
 making ten in all ; for nearly twice as many 
 pupils can be taught by each teacher in a 
 well-graded school as in an ungraded school. 
 Each of these ten teachers divides his fifty 
 
12 Horace Mann 
 
 pupils into two classes according to advance- 
 ment, and classes average a half year's differ- 
 ence in their intervals of progress from the 
 classes above or below. He haa thirty 
 minutes for each recitation. It is now pos- 
 sible to promote a bright pupil, who is not 
 finding enough to do in the tasks set for his 
 class, to the nexc class above. For he can 
 soon make up what he has omitted by the 
 leap from one class to another. Bo, too, a 
 pupil who is falling behind his class can take 
 up his work with the next class below and 
 find it better suited to his powers. 
 
 It was an iti^is^ht into this principle that 
 Martin ^^^ Martin Luther to insist on 
 
 Luther grading the schools. The Jesuits, 
 
 who were the first to seize 6n the chief 
 weapon of the Protestants — namely educa- 
 tion for the people — and turn it against them 
 in the interest of the Catholic church, formed 
 a school system in 1590 and also took much 
 pains with grading and classification. 
 
 Horace Mann's efforts did not at once 
 coQsoiida- abolish the district system in 
 dftrf^ts Massachusetts, but it prevailed 
 to consolidate districts in popu- 
 lous sections of the State. His school re- 
 
Consolidation of Districts 13 
 
 ing of school funds by taxation ; the creat- 
 ports were widely read outside of the State 
 and spread the agitation of the school ques- 
 tion into Rhode Island, Connecticut and New 
 York and elsewhere. Connecticut succeed- 
 ed in abolishing her district system in 1856, 
 but Massachusetts clung to it until 1869, 
 when she got rid of it. In this action she 
 was followed by Maine in 1872. And this is 
 what the State superintendent of Maine says 
 of the evils of the district system, in an able 
 summary : 
 
 '^ First, the school moneys were inequably 
 divided, some districts receiving much more 
 than they could profitably expend, others 
 much less than was absolutely needed ; 
 second, poor schoolhouses in remote and 
 sparsely settled district? ; third, short schools, 
 or poor ones, if the agent attempted to 
 lengthen them by hiring cheap teachers. 
 Little money, poor schoolhouses, short 
 schools are the necessary attendants of this 
 system.'^ 
 
 Horace Mann extended his criticisms and 
 suggestions to the examination of teachers 
 and their instruction in institutes ; to the 
 improvement of school buildings ; the rais- 
 
1-^ Horace Mann 
 
 ing of a correct public opinion on school 
 questions ; the care for vicious youth in ap- 
 propriate schools. He discarded the hide- 
 bound text-book method of teaching and 
 substitued the oral discussion of the topic in 
 place of the memorizing of the words of the 
 book. He encouraged school libraries and 
 school apparatus. 
 
 Horace Mann's influence aided in found- 
 The first nor- ^^S ^^^ fi^st normal school in the 
 xnai school ^^^^^^ g^^^^g ^^ Lexington (after- 
 wards removed to Framingham), and a 
 second one at Barre, both in 1839, and a 
 third one at Bridgewater in the fall of the 
 next year. 
 
 Inspired by the example in Massachusetts, 
 
 Connecticut was 
 
 aroused by Henry 
 
 / m Barnard, who car- 
 
 / '^ j,jg^ through the 
 
 legislature the act 
 organizing a State 
 board of commis- 
 sioners, and became 
 himself the first 
 secretary of it 
 (1839). In 1849 Connecticut established a 
 
Massachussetts in 1839 15 
 
 normal school. In 1843 Mr. Barnard went 
 to Ehode Island and assisted in drawing up 
 the State school law under which he became 
 the first commissioner, and labored there 
 for six years. 
 
 These were the chief fermenting influences 
 in education that have worked a wide^change 
 in the management of schools in the Middle 
 and Western States within the past fifty years. 
 
 Let us consider some of those points more 
 in detail and get a little closer to Massachu- 
 the personality of the hero whom «^"« ^^ ^^^ 
 we commemorate. 
 
 There had been in Massachusetts from 1789 
 to 1839 — a period of fifty years — an appar- 
 ent retrogression of education. 
 
 This apparent retrogression — on the whole 
 a healthful movement — was due to the in- 
 crease of local self-government and the de- 
 crease of central, especially parochial au- 
 thority. It was a necessary and on the 
 whole a healthful movement. The central 
 power had been largely theocratic or eccle- 
 siastical at the beginning. But the reaction 
 against ecclesiastical control went too far in 
 the direction of individualism. The farth- 
 
16 Horace Mann 
 
 est s^ing of the pendulum in this direction 
 was reached in 1828, when the districts ob- 
 tained the exclusive control of the schools 
 in all matters except in the item of examin- 
 ation of teachers. The public schools dimin- 
 ished in efficiency, and a two-fold opposition 
 began some years before 1828, which took, 
 on the one hand, the shape of an attempt to 
 remedy the deficiency of public schools by 
 the establishment of academies ; and, on the 
 other hand, that of a vigorous attack by edu- 
 cational reformers, such as Horace Mann 
 and his devoted contemporary, James G-. 
 Carter. The establishment of a State board 
 of education, and the appointment of Horace 
 Mann as its secretary, therefore mark an 
 era of return from the extreme of individual- 
 ism to the proper union of local and cen- 
 tral authority in the management of schools. 
 Horace Mann's function at this very im- 
 An educa- portant epoch was that of educa- 
 tional tional statesman. We must not 
 
 fit" A lg sm 8J1 
 
 permit our attention to be dis- 
 tracted from this point if we would behold 
 the greatness and beneficence of his labors. 
 Pestalozzi was essentially an educational 
 missionary, a teacher of pupils in the first 
 
An Educational Statesman 17 
 
 grade of the elementary school. Horace 
 Mann was equally an educational missionary, 
 for he consecrated himself religiously to the 
 task of promoting the school education of the 
 people. Other people, all people, select 
 vocations in which they are to work and earn 
 a livelihood. But the missionary consecrates 
 his whole life to a chosen work, not for what 
 it will return to him in wealth or honor, but 
 for the intrinsic worth of the object to be 
 accomplished as a good for the human race. 
 
 The enthusiasm of Horace Mann shone 
 out of his soul in his praise of the act of the 
 Massachusetts legislature establishing the 
 State Board of Education in 1837 : '' This 
 board I believe to be like a spring, almost 
 imperceptible, flowing from the highest 
 tableland, between oceans, which is destined 
 to deepen and widen as it descends, diffus- 
 ing fertility and beauty in its course, and 
 nations shall dwell upon its banks. It is 
 the first g:reat movement towards an organ- 
 ized system of common education, which 
 shall at once be thorough and universal/' 
 
 It was he that was to succeed in making 
 that State Board of Education the boslta of 
 fertilizing spring that he de- education 
 
18 Horace Mann 
 
 scribes. Ifc was a board with limited powers. 
 It could not found schools, nor direct or 
 manage them after they were founded. It 
 should only collect information and diffuse 
 it. It could persuade the people but not 
 command them. In a nation founded upon 
 the idea of local self-government, it was a 
 very great achievement to show what can be 
 accomplished by a board that cannot coerce 
 but only persuade. This is the point of 
 view to see Horace Mann's greatness. One 
 thinks of the potency of Peter the Hermit 
 preaching a crusade. It was a crusade that 
 Horace Mann preached in his twelve reports 
 and in his hundreds of popular addresses, 
 and in his thousands of letters, written with 
 his own hand. 
 
 The 1st report of Horace Mann as secre- 
 Mann'8 ^^^^ ^^^ made in 1837, and con- 
 
 !^®ilt *ains the best statement ever made 
 
 reports 
 
 of the duties of school committees, 
 especially in the selection of teachers. It 
 sets forth the apathy of the people regarding 
 the schools and regrets the employment of 
 incompetent teachers. (48 pp.) 
 There was a supplementary report on 
 
His Twelve Reports 19 
 
 school-houses which discussed the matter of 
 ventilation and warming, the proper kind of 
 desks, the location of the building, the light- 
 ing of the room, the play-grounds, and the 
 duties of the teacher in regard to light and 
 ventilation. (60 pp.) 
 
 In the 2d report, 1838, there is much dis- 
 cussion of the method of teaching reading, 
 whether by letters or by the word method. 
 A just criticism is made upon the character 
 of the school reading books. (60 pp.) 
 
 In the 3d report, 1839, he discusses the 
 responsibility of the people for the improve- 
 ment in common schools, the employment 
 of children in manufactories, the importance 
 of libraries, and the kind of books needed, 
 the effect of reading on the formation of 
 character ; and recommends strongly the 
 establishment of school-district libraries. 
 (52 pp.) 
 
 The 4th report, 1840, points out the de- 
 sirability of union schools for the sake of 
 grading and classifying the pupils, and 
 cheapening the cost of instruction. It shows 
 the value of regularity and punctuality in 
 attendance. (40 pp.) 
 
20 Horace Mann 
 
 The 5th report, 1841, has a world-wide 
 fame for its presentation of the advantages 
 of education, the effect of it upon the for- 
 tunes of men, the production of property, 
 the multiplication of human comforts and 
 all the elements of material well being. He 
 showed how education awakened thought, 
 increased the resources of the individual, 
 opened his eyes to the possibility of combi- 
 nations not seen by the uneducated. The 
 circular letter which he prepared making 
 enquiries of manufacturers and men of busi- 
 ness, is the most suggestive letter of its 
 kind. This report deserves to be published 
 in a pamphlet and placed in the hands of 
 the people of every generation. (37 pp.) 
 
 In his 6th report, 1842, he presents the 
 subject of physiology and its importance as 
 a branch to be taught in the schools. (100 
 
 PP-) 
 
 The 7th report, 1843, records his observa- 
 tions in European schools, and starts endless 
 questions regarding the methods of organi- 
 zation and instruction, bringing into light 
 the questions of corporal punishment and 
 the overcultivation of the memory of words. 
 
His Ttvelve Reports 21 
 
 He describes in an eloquent manner the 
 evils of a partial system of education, and 
 treats in a judicial manner the advantages 
 and disadvantages of the schools that he 
 found in Scotland, Prussia, and Saxony. 
 (190 pp.) 
 
 In the 8th report, 1844, he treats of the 
 employment of female teachers and of the 
 method of conducting teachers' institutes, 
 teachers' associations, and the study of vocal 
 music. (30 pp.) 
 
 In his 9th report, 1845, he discusses the 
 motives to which the teacher should appeal ; 
 describes the school vices to be avoided ; 
 points out the transcendent importance of 
 moral instruction ; and shows how obedience 
 should be secured by affection and respect, 
 and not by fear. He treats of the dangers 
 of truancy and the prevention of whisper- 
 ing, and a variety of practical difficulties 
 that meet the teacher in the school-room. 
 He shows how to avoid the evils of emula- 
 tion, and commends the system of instruc- 
 tion by induction instead of deduction, and 
 the importance of substituting investigation 
 for memorizing. (104 pp.) 
 
22 Horace Mann 
 
 The 10th report, 1846, gives the history 
 of the common-school system in Massachu- 
 setts, and shows the relation which educa- 
 tion holds to the future generations of the 
 commonwealth. (35 pp.) 
 
 The 11th report, 1847, makes a strong 
 presentation of the power of the common 
 schools to redeem the State from social evils 
 and crimes. There is a circular letter of in- 
 quiry with regard to the effect of education 
 in the prevention of vice and crime. The 
 letter of 1841 had inquired regarding the 
 effect of education upon thrift and industry ; 
 replies obtained to the letter of 1847 gave 
 encouraging facts and opinions in regard to 
 the moral effect of school education. The 
 report continues to discuss the qualifications 
 of teachers and the methods of securing 
 regular attendance of children, and paints a 
 picture of the effect of universal education : 
 
 ''Every follower of God and friend of 
 human-kind will find the only sure means of 
 carrying forward the particular reform to 
 which he is devoted in universal education. 
 In whatever department of philanthropy he 
 may be engaged he will find that depart- 
 
Controversy with the 31 Schoolmasters 23 
 
 ment to be only a segment of the great circle 
 of beneficence of which universal education 
 is the centre and circumference/' (80 pp.) 
 
 The 12th and last report of Horace Mann 
 presents anew the capacity of the common 
 school system to improve the pecuniary con- 
 dition and elevate the intellectual, moral, 
 and religious character of the common- 
 wealth, repeating with new force the argu- 
 ments brought forward in previous reports. 
 He shows the importance of religion and the 
 reading of the Bible in the common school ; 
 shows the importance of health and the ne- 
 cessity of providing for physical training in 
 the school-room ; sets forth the necessity of 
 the schools for the political education of tho 
 citizens. His devices to show the use of in- 
 telligence gained in the schools to the me- 
 chanic, the merchant, and the farmer, seem 
 inexhaustible. (120 pp.) 
 
 As a consequence of the seventh report, 
 which sets forth the advantages controversy 
 of the schools of Germany, there ^^00?^ ^^ 
 arose the famous controversy with masters 
 the thirty-one Boston schoolmasters. 
 
 In studying the records of Massachusetts 
 
24 Horace Mann 
 
 one is impressed by the fact that every new 
 movement in education has run the gauntlet 
 of fierce and bitter opposition before adop- 
 tion. The ability of the conservative party 
 has always been conspicuous, and the friends 
 of the new measure have been forced to ex- 
 ert all their strength and to eliminate one 
 after another the objectionable features dis- 
 covered in advance by their enemies. To 
 this fact is due the success of so many of the 
 reforms and improvements that have pro- 
 ceeded from this State. The fire of criti- 
 cism has purified the gold from the dross in 
 a large measure already before the stage of 
 practical experiment has begun. In review- 
 ing this long record of bitter quarrels over 
 new measures that have now become old and 
 venerable because of their good results in all 
 parts of the nation, we are apt to become 
 impatient and blame too severely the con- 
 servative party in Massachusetts. 
 
 We forget that the opposition helped to 
 Tried as perfect the theory of the reform, 
 by fire ^mj ^{^ much to make it a real 
 
 advance instead of a mere change from one 
 imperfect method to another. Even at best 
 
Use of Text-Books 25 
 
 educational changes are often only changes 
 of fashion, the swing of the pendulum from 
 one extreme to another, and sure to need 
 correction by a fresh reaction. Again, it is 
 patent in Massachusetts' history that the de- 
 fects of old methods were in great part 
 remedied by the good sense and skill of many 
 highly cultured teachers who still practised 
 them, and henee the wholesale denunciation 
 of the old methods was felt to be unjust. 
 The best teachers resented the attack on their 
 methods. It seemed unfair, because it 
 charged against the method all the mistakes 
 committed by inexperience and stupidity ; 
 and, because, too, it claimed more for the 
 new device than could be realized. The old 
 was condemned for its poor results in the 
 hands of the most incompetent; while the 
 new was commended as the ideal, without 
 considering what it would become in the 
 hands of unfaithful teachers. 
 
 Take as an instance of this the use of 
 text-books. Everyone will admit ^g^ ^^ 
 that what is called the *' slavish text-books 
 use'' of such means is a great evil. The 
 memorizing of words and sentences without 
 
26 ' Horace Mann 
 
 criticism and reflection on their meaning is 
 a mechanical training of the mind and fit 
 only for parrots. But, on the other hand, 
 the proper use of the printed page is the 
 greatest of all arts taught in the school. 
 How to get out of printed words and sentences 
 the original thought and observation recorded 
 there — how to verify these and critically go 
 over the steps of the author's mind — this is 
 the method of discovery and leads to the 
 only real progress. For real progress comes 
 from availing oneself of the wisdom of the 
 race and using it as an instrument of new 
 discovery. That other method sometimes 
 commended of original investigation with- 
 out aid from books forgets that mankind 
 have toiled for long thousands of years to 
 construct a ladder of achievement, and that 
 civilization is on the highest round of this 
 ladder. It has invented school education in 
 order that its youth may climb quickly to 
 the top on the rounds which have been added 
 one by one slowly in the lapse of ages. The 
 youth shall profit vicariously by the thought 
 and experience of those who have gone 
 before. For the child of the savage tribe 
 there is no such vicarious thinking and liv- 
 
Defects of the Oral Method 27 
 
 ing ; he begins practically at the bottom of 
 this ladder and with no rounds on which he 
 may climb. 
 
 Now there was in Massachusetts and else- 
 where much excellent teaching in the acad- 
 emies and common schools — teaching which 
 trained the pupil to criticise and verify in- 
 stead of to accept the statements of the book 
 with blind credulity. The good teachers 
 knew that their methods were good, and felt 
 indignant to hear them caricatured and an 
 inferior method recommended as a substitute. 
 
 For the merely oral method does not pos- 
 sess in it the capability of pro- Defects of the 
 ducing the independent scholar, ^rai method 
 who can be trained holding him responsible 
 far mastering critically the printed page, and 
 making alive again its thoughts and per- 
 ceptions. 
 
 It was a sense of something valuable in 
 the old method that was not touched by the 
 criticisms of Horace Mann, that led to the 
 reply of the Boston masters. 
 
 Here we come to the closer view of the 
 character of Horace Mann. He ^ Hebrew 
 was like so many of the great men prophet 
 of the Puritans modelled on the type of the 
 
28 Horace Mann 
 
 Hebrew prophets. The close and continu- 
 ous study of the characters portrayed in the 
 Old Testament, the weekly sermons, most of 
 which were studies of those characters, had 
 educated all Puritans to see ideals of charac- 
 ter in ancient leaders who devoted them- 
 selves to a cause and withstood popular 
 clamor, fiercely denouncing whatever form 
 of idol worship they saw among their coun- 
 trymen. 
 
 The ideal of a strong, serious-minded, 
 independent manhood, unswerved by per- 
 sonal interest, thoroughly patriotic, and de- 
 voted to the public interest, it draws its sup- 
 port from a sense of righteousness that gives it 
 a backbone co-terminous with the axis on 
 which the universe revolves. So long as 
 this character is recognized and respected, 
 and has in the main the support of the com- 
 munity, small and great, it stands firm like 
 an oak, and thrives on the hostility of the 
 elements in the society that it opposes. 
 
 But this species of character, modelled on 
 the Hebrew prophet, it should be said, is far 
 more likely to be an inward tragedy than a 
 genuine historical one. The average man 
 
A Hebrew Prophet 29 
 
 puts on the air of a censor of his age or his 
 community, and develops an overweening 
 egotism ; or he poses as an unappreciated 
 genius for poetry, or philosophy, or philan- 
 thropy, or statesmanship, or theology, or 
 ethical purity of character. 
 
 The pathway of history for eighteen cen- 
 turies is strewn with wrecked individualities 
 of men who have become fanatics or cranks 
 through the demoniac possession of a single 
 idea ; and the self-delusion — a suggestion of 
 the evil one — that they are exceptionally 
 wise and gifted above their fellow- men : that 
 they, in short, are right and the world all 
 wrong. 
 
 It is saved from being a tragedy in Horace 
 Mann and in other great men before and af- 
 ter who have personified this Hebrew prophet 
 type of reformer, by the greatness of the 
 cause they have espoused and by their self- 
 sacrificing devotion to it. 
 
 The Great Teacher gave the one prescrip- 
 tion to ward off the fatal disease that attacks 
 this Hebrew individualism, and that pre- 
 scription is humility and self-abasement. Its 
 intellectual rule is the measure by service of 
 
30 Horace Mann 
 
 one's fellows : Be their servant if you would 
 rule over them. 
 
 But we have from this ideal the most im- 
 DeTeiopment P^rtant fruition of all human 
 of iiidi- history : namely, the develop- 
 
 ment of individualism and the 
 formation of a set of institutions to nur- 
 ture it. 
 
 We have characters that are so strong that 
 they can withstand any amount of opposi- 
 tion from their fellow-men and still stand 
 erect without fear. '' One with God is a 
 majority.'' 
 
 Thus Horace Mann was entrenched in his 
 Fundamental fundamental principle, and on 
 principle ^11 occasions returned to it to 
 rally his strength. In his own words he de- 
 scribes his conviction, and at the same time 
 lays down the details of his policy and meth- 
 ods of winning success : 
 
 " The education of the whole people, in a 
 republican government, can never be at- 
 tained without the consent of the whole 
 people. Compulsion, even if it were desir- 
 able, is not an available instrument. En- 
 lightenment, not coercion, is our resource. 
 
Fundamental Principles 31 
 
 The nature of education must be explained. 
 The whole mass of mind must be instructed 
 in regard to its comprehension and endur- 
 ing interests. We can not drive our people 
 up a dark avenue, even though it be the 
 right one ; but we must hang the starry- 
 lights of knowledge about it, and show them 
 not only the directness of its course to the 
 goal of prosperity and honor, but the beauty 
 of the way that leads to it. 
 
 "In some districts there will be but a 
 single man or woman, in some towns scarcely 
 half a dozen men or women, who have 
 espoused this noble enterprise. But whether 
 there be half a dozen or but one, they must 
 be like the little leaven which a woman took 
 and hid in three measures of meal. Let the 
 intelligent visit the ignorant day by day, as 
 the oculist visits the blind man and detaches 
 the scales from his eyes, until the living 
 sense leaps in the living light. 
 
 *' Let the zealous seek contact and com- 
 munion with those who are frozen up in indif- 
 ference, and thaw off the icebergs wherein they 
 lie imbedded. Let the love of beautiful child- 
 hood, the love of country, the dictates of 
 
32 Horace Mann 
 
 reason, the admonitions of conscience, the 
 sense of religious responsibility be plied, in 
 mingled tenderness and earnestness, until 
 the obdurate and dark mass of avarice, ignor- 
 ance, and prejudice shall be dissipated by 
 their blended light and heat." 
 
 He preached the same doctrine regarding 
 
 Education ^^® right of the state to educate 
 
 t>y the at public expense that James G. 
 
 Carter had preached. It is stated 
 
 in these simple propositions : 
 
 1. ''The successive generations of men 
 taken collectively constitute a great com- 
 monwealth." 
 
 2. ''The property of the commonwealth 
 is pledged for the education of all its youth 
 up to such a point as will save them from 
 poverty and vice and prepare them for ade- 
 quate performance of their social and civil 
 duties." 
 
 3. " The successive holders of this prop- 
 erty are trustees bound to the faithful exe- 
 cution of this trust by the most sacred obli- 
 gations ; and the embezzlement and pillage 
 from children and descendants have not less 
 of criminality and far more than the same 
 
What He Accomplished 33 
 
 offences when perpetrated against contem- 
 poraries/^ 
 
 The net result of Mr. Mann's labors in his 
 bright career as educational what he 
 statesman is put tersely by Mr. •coompUihed 
 Martin in these words : 
 
 '^ In the evolution of the Massachusetts 
 public schools during these twelve years of 
 Mr. Mann's labors : 
 
 '^ Statistics tell us that the appropriations 
 for public schools had doubled ; that more 
 than $2,000,000 had been spent in providing 
 better schoolhouses ; that the wages of men 
 as teachers had increased 62 per cent, of 
 women 51 per cent, while the whole number 
 of women employed as teachers had increased 
 54 per cent ; one month had been added to 
 the average length of the schools ; the ratio 
 of private school expenditures to those of 
 the public schools had diminished from 75 
 per cent to 36 per cent ; the compensation 
 of school committees had been made com- 
 pulsory, and their supervision was more gen- 
 eral and more constant ; three normal 
 schools had been established, and had sent 
 out several hundred teachers, who were mak- 
 
34 Horace Mann '*- 
 
 ing themselves felt in all parts of the State,'' 
 (Martin's Education in Mass., p. 174). 
 
 In conclusion I suggest again the thought 
 Missionary ^^ ^^- ^^^^ ^8 a character in- 
 2**1 spired with missionary zeal to re- 
 
 form society by means of the school system. 
 It was this missionary zeal that led him to 
 advocate in the Massachusetts legislature the 
 first insane asylum, and secure its establish- 
 ment — to favor the establishment of asyl- 
 ums for deaf, dumb, and blind ; to secure 
 normal schools, humane school discipline, 
 methods of instruction that appeal to the 
 child's interest and arouse him to self -activ- 
 ity, and finally to devote the evening of his 
 life to the Antioch college experiment. 
 
 It is this missionary zeal for the school 
 that works so widely and in so many follow- 
 ers to-day ; what enthusiastic teacher is not 
 proud to be called a disciple of Horace 
 Mann ?