Horace Mann Statue

Horace Mann was born on May 4, 1796 in Franklin, Massachusetts, near the Rhode Island border. The younger son of a humble New England farmer, Mann received intermittent instruction at public schools growing up, but took advantage of the town’s library and read voraciously. Despite their financial situation, his family later secured for him a tutor, who taught him Greek and Latin. At the age of twenty, Mann enrolled at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, graduating in 1819. After, he briefly read law under a lawyer in Wrentham, Massachusetts and taught at Brown for a year before studying at Litchfield Law School in Connecticut. In 1823, Mann gained admission to the bar. He then settled in Dedham, Massachusetts and established a legal practice. 

A few years later, Mann won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, the lower chamber of the Massachusetts General Court. While there from 1827 to 1833, he advocated for reform of the treatment of the mentally ill, spearheading the establishment of a state hospital for the insane. It was the first of its kind in not only the commonwealth, but also the country. In 1833, Mann vacated his seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and relocated to Boston. Two years later, he returned to the Massachusetts General Court, this time as a senator. 

During his time in the upper chamber of the state legislature, Mann helped to create the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. He then resigned his senate seat to become the body’s first secretary. At the time, towns and villages throughout the commonwealth controlled their public schools entirely. Calvinist doctrine heavily influenced the curriculum, which varied widely from school to school, and teachers received no formal training. Moreover, schools required pupils to pay for instruction. Believing education to be a great equalizing and acculturating force essential to a functioning democracy, Mann oversaw the creation of a system of normal schools for the training of teachers. He also collected statistics on the commonwealth’s public schools, helped compile a list of board-approved textbooks, and asked local districts to make their schools tuition-free by funding them through taxes. Although his reform measures encountered strong pushback from various groups at the time, Massachusetts and other states gradually adopted them, eventually leading to the U.S. public school system of today.

After serving as secretary of the commonwealth’s board of education for eleven years, Mann resigned in 1848 to fill the vacancy in the U.S. House of Representatives created by the death of John Quincy Adams, former President of the United States. During his time on Capitol Hill, the Whig politician earned a reputation as a strong opponent of slavery. In 1852, Mann declined to run for reelection and the following year became president of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He held the position until his death on August 2, 1859 at the age of sixty-three. His remains were interred in Providence’s North Burial Ground. 

On July 4, 1865, less than six years after Mann’s death, a large crowd gathered in front of the main entrance of the Massachusetts State House in Boston for the dedication of a statue in his honor. Designed by artist Emma Stebbins, the bronze sculpture depicts Mann dressed in a suit and draped in long robes. He stands clutching a book at his chest with his left hand, while he openly extends his right. Nominal donations from schoolchildren and teachers across Massachusetts largely funded the sculpture. The commonwealth provided the granite base on which it rests. 

Cremin, Lawrence A. "Horace Mann." Encyclopædia Britannica. Web. 27 May 2021 <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Mann>.

"Dedication of the Statue of Horace Mann." The Liberator, July 7, 1865 <https://www.newspapers.com/clip/3763699/the-liberator-boston-july-7-1865/>.

"Horace Mann, (sculpture)." Art Inventories Catalog. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Web. 27 May 2021 <https://siris-artinventories.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=ariall&source=~!siartinventories&uri=full=3100001~!22342~!0#focus>.

"Mann, Horace." Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present. United States Congress. Web. 27 May 2021 <https://bioguideretro.congress.gov/Home/MemberDetails?memIndex=M000102>.

Peterson, Paul E. Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010.