Horace Mann was an American education reformer credited with founding the Common School Movement, which was instrumental in the development of a uniform system of public education. He is also credited with help the teaching vocation to transition to a profession that would come to be revered in later years.
Horace Mann was born, in 1796, to a poor farming family in Massachusetts. His experiences tremendously impacted his approach to education in the future. Because his family was poor, his educational opportunities were limited. Like many kids in rural America during this time, Mann was educated in a one-room schoolhouse. These one-room schoolhouses often lacked the funding necessary for even physical maintenance and academic resources.
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He was not only intelligent, he was also determined. Through a dedicated effort, Mann gained admittance to Brown University at the age of 20. While at Brown, Mann began to hone the skills that would be necessary for his future as a social reformer. At Brown, Mann focused on law and politics. He increased his interest and spoke out on the importance of education as a vehicle for social advancement.
He preached the importance of a government that truly represented the needs of the people. It is these values that led Mann to pioneer the fight for quality education. For Mann, education was a means of social justice and the great poverty equalizer.
After graduating from Brown, Mann would go on to serve the government in various ways. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1827 and served until 1833. He joined the Massachusetts Senate in 1835 and served until 1837. In 1837, he became the secretary of the newly formed Massachusetts State Board of Education.
He went on and serve at a national level as a member of the House of Representatives in the late 1840s and early 1850s. His newly found platform as a member of the State Board of Education would help him propel his theories about education reform into a public