title: Horace Mann and the public schools in the United States,
text: o " o X o° -^ * <> yJ^X c° v** /V*SK- : ***** f5ff\/^ ^ ^ Sj^/h* \ <f «v tev. 0* *s, *^7i* A <, 0* *o • HORACE MANN HORACE MANN PIONEERS IN EDUCATION HORACE MANN AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOL IN THE UNITED STATES BY GABRIEL COMPAYRE CORRESPONDENT OP THE INSTITUTE ; DIRECTOR OP THE ACADEMY OF LYONS; AUTHOR OP "PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO EDUCATION," "LECTURES ON PEDAGOGY," " A HISTORY OP PEDAGOGY," ETC. TRANSLATED BY MARY D. FROST NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS !"Lia«*HY of CONGRESS j i wo Co ole? Received 0C1 1 190f xxc! no; CO FY B. ' TLASfcA- COPYRIGHT, 1907, By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY. Published, September, 1907. CONTENTS AND SUMMAET Preface Preamble I. The life of Horace Mann previous to 1837. — His origin. — Poor and laborious childhood. — Preco- cious taste for reading. — The little library founded by Franklin. — The village school. — Mann revolts from the gloomy teachings of Calvinism. — Keen sentiment for the beauties of nature. — Family affections. — His tenderness for his mother. — His devotion to his sister. — His first marriage. — Despair caused by the loss of his wife. — His friend- ships. — Mann as a lawyer. — Mann as member of Congress, senator, politician. — His work for the amelioration of the treatment of the blind. — His campaign against intemperance. — Brilliancy of his public position and sadness of his private life. II. Horace Mann, secretary of the Board of Education of Boston (1837-1848). — Formation of the Board of Education. — Why Mann was chosen secretary of the Board. — His devotion to humanity and his love of children. — His faith in education. — Limited powers of the Board and of its secretary. — No effective authority. — No means of action ex- cept appeal to public opinion. — From the first day Mann sets to work. — Conventions. — First lecture tour. — Crusade against ignorance. — Not always an audience at his lectures. — The common school journal. — Mann acts by speech and pen. — The iv CONTENTS AND SUMMARY twelve annual reports. — Character of these reports, genuine scholastic manifestoes. — Their historical interest. — Their pedagogic value. — Tables show- ing the condition of Massachusett schools in 1837. — Analyses of the twelve reports. — How Mann pre- pared them. — Questions addressed to competent persons. — The seventh report. — Account of Euro- pean trip. — Favorable impression made upon Mann by German schools. — Somewhat excessive eulogy of German teachers. — Severe judgment on France. — Violent opposition encountered by Mann in his own country. — The non-sectarian school attacked by the American sectaries, as the French lay school was to be later. — Conflict with the Boston school- masters. — Reform of Boston schools. — Founda- tion of normal schools. — Necessity for professional training of teachers. — Pierce, master of the Lexing- ton Normal School. — School libraries. — Impor- tance of good books. — Other pedagogical innova- tions by Mann. — Lectures to teachers. — Graduated tables of the districts. — Mann's disinterestedness, his pecuniary sacrifices. — Results of his twelve years of labor. — He is elected representative from Massachusetts to the Congress at Washington. — Resigns his secretaryship 23 III. Mann's philosophy and general ideas. — No per- sonal philosophy. — Philosophical system borrowed from George Combe. — The author of The Constitu- tion of Man. — What attracted Mann in Combe's theories. — The reasons for his being a phrenologist. — The laws of the development of the mind, symme- try, and activity. — Mann's spirituality. — A strain of mysticism. — A Puritan without theology. — Faith in the immortality of the soul. — Moral psychology of Mann. — The higher faculties, conscience and the CONTENTS AND SUMMARY v feeling of responsibility. — Intellect subordinated to feeling. — Great ideas come from the heart. — Intellectual culture subordinated to moral culture. — Utilitarian tendencies. — Universal education a ^ social debt. — Mann's hesitation in regard to ob- ligatory school attendance. — His eloquence. — Qualities and defects of his style. — His political views. — The honest man and good citizen. — The perils of unenlightened universal suffrage. — Without education no safety 72 IV. Horace Mann, president of Antioch College (1853- 1859). — Mann elected governor of Massachusetts. — He prefers to assume the direction of Antioch College in Ohio. — His enthusiasm for this new work. — Dreams and reality. — Material difficulties. — Miserable accommodations. — Financial embarrass- ment. — Hostility of those about him. — His cour- age triumphs over all obstacles. — Organization of studies. — Selection of students. — Moral qualities preferred to intellectual gifts. — Innovations in pro- gramme and methods of instruction. — Principles of discipline. — Punishments to be avoided. — Pupils governed by appealing to their conscience. — Liberal regime. — Mann's moral authority. — What he had retained of the Puritanism of his ancestors. — His campaign against tobacco and alcoholic liquors. — Experiment in coeducation. — Failing health. — Financial ruin of the college. — Mann's final efforts. — His death 95 V. Mann's influence and the Spread of his Work. — What would distress Mann, were he to return to this world, in the present conditions.— What would rejoice him, on the other hand. — Progress of education in the United States. — It has not ceased to conform to**' Mann's ideas. — The Boston Board of Education vi CONTENTS AND SUMMARY led to the creation of a central organ of school ad- ministration in all the States. — That progress has advanced slowly. — Present statistics of schools in the United States. — Increase of high schools. — Influence of Mann over his contemporaries. — His greatest disciple, Henry Barnard. — That France has been inspired by the ideas and example of Mann. — Horace Mann and Felix Pecaut . . . 123 BlBLIOGKAPHY 133 PREFACE " Without any question/ ' Americans say, "the noblest figure in the history of education in our country is that of Horace Mann." He owes this preeminence, not only to the brilliancy of his talents and the authority of his genius, but to the circumstances, the surroundings, in which his talents and genius were called upon to play their part. He may be said to have been "the right man in the right place," and we must add, also, "at the right time." The admiration so justly awarded to Mann by his countrymen has not been denied him abroad. Felix Pecaut, to speak of no one else, has said of him: "I wish that Mann's biography might be placed in the hands, not only of all professors, but of all their pupils." It is this biography which we offer here, in its essential features: the biography of a man admi- rable in many ways, for candor and purity of soul, for nobility of character, for his devotion to the cause of education and progress, for his kindness 3 4 PREFACE of heart no less than for the wealth of a marvel- lous intelligence, and, above all, for the extent of his activities and the greatness of his scholastic work. It is especially as a man of action that Mann was incomparable. Undoubtedly, it was his good fortune to appear at the right moment, just as a widespread movement was abroad, impelling all good citizens to forward the cause of popular education. But to him belongs the credit of accelerating this movement and of leading it with the ardor and enthusiasm of an apostle — one not merely devoted to his work, but passionately ab- sorbed in it. He was the eloquent orator of the cause of popular education, its preacher and trib- une, more concerned, moreover, with the moral con- duct of men than with pure science or theoretic speculation. "Call the astronomer from the heights of heaven," he cried to his countrymen; " bring the geologist from the depths of the earth; silence all political and religious controversies ; assemble all the wisdom, talent, and authority that you possess, and then begin to teach the people. 7 ' But he did not confine himself to arousing and enlightening public opinion by his ardent preach- ing, to conquering and inspiring it by his faith PREFACE 5 in progress and humanity; he was also a skilful organizer, a practical innovator, an indefatigable laborer for the reform of education in his country; and if he did not aspire to build up a theory, a philosophy of education, he did better still, — he created a school system. In that respect he was a great pedagogical founder, i Mann died fifty years ago, but his spirit is still alive and present in the public schools of the United States. And not in America only, but in Europe, and especially in France, scholastic institutions have been in- spired by his thought \ The recent history of the establishment of French lay schools recalls in more than one respect the organization of the American common school as Mann undertook and carried it into execution a half century ago. And this resemblance, this community of views upon educa- tion between the two republics, the younger of which has followed, somewhat tardily, perhaps, but with equal ardor, in the steps of her great sister, are sufficient to revive our interest in a study of the great American educator. Mann did not work for his own country alone, he labored for humanity, and, above all, for repub- lican humanity. He was working for republican principles when he wrote his great address on "The Necessity for Education in a Republic, " 6 PREFACE when he said, "In a republic, ignorance is a crime." He wrought for humanity, — he who, a few days before his death, addressed to his beloved pupils these last words, " Be ashamed to die before you have won some victory for humanity. " HORACE MANN The true life of Horace Mann, the life of an apostle of popular education, began in 1837, when he was already forty years of age. Appointed at that date secretary of the Boston Board of Education, to reorganize the school system of the State of Massachusetts, he entered upon his new functions with extraordinary ardor and in- tense energy. "life," he said, "assumes a value in my eyes which I never before suspected." Up to this time he had been a gifted lawyer and a man of influence in politics, he was now to become an educator. After pleading before the bar of his country in hundreds of private causes, nearly all of which he won, he was about to take in hand the great cause of humanity at large, — of universal education. The public school became his idol; "the greatest discovery," he called it, "ever made by man." During the twelve years that he held this position, he multiplied speeches and pam- phlets; he expended his strength in conventions and newspaper work. In answer to his appeals 7 8 HORACE MANN schools sprang into being where there had been none before, and those already existing set about reforming their methods; school committees re- vived their lukewarm zeal; a generous ardor took possession of his countrymen, kindling their blood and arousing them from their inertia. It was, in short, a renaissance, a resurrection, a revival of the American public school. It was even more than this, — it was an actual creation, a new and almost final reorganization of the system of public education, as the United States has maintained and developed it, for over half a century. But before showing what Horace Mann accom- plished, we must relate briefly how he was fitted by education and character for this great work. The Life of Horace Mann previous to 1837 Nothing in Mann's family and antecedents, nor in his childhood and youth, gives promise of the high destiny to which he was called, — that of a hero of education; nothing, unless it be a pre- cocious will power and a feverish ardor for knowl- edge. Born on a farm in Norfolk County on the 4th of May, 1796, twenty years after the Declara- tion of Independence of the United States, here he lived until his twentieth year, engaged in the labors of the farm. "My childhood was not a happy one," he often said later. The death of his father in 1809, when he was only thirteen years old, im- poverished this humble household still more. He was obliged to work harder than ever to support the family, — a task in which his mother set him the example. "She was," we are told, "one of those sober, sensible, energetic New England women who bring to the dull, ceaseless routine of domestic drudgery the will and courage of actual heroines." Horace Mann educated himself by his own per- 9 10 HORACE MANN sonal efforts amid the solitude of the country and by daily intercourse with nature. His taste for reading developed early, and a fortunate cir- cumstance contributed to it. The little town of Franklin, one of those raw, newly built American towns which seem to have sprung from the soil like mushrooms, poor as it was in resources of every kind, possessed the embryo of a library, which it owed to the generosity of the great American for whom it was named. Franklin has somewhere related that he first thought of presenting a bell as an appropriate godfather's gift to the new- born hamlet. He changed his mind, however, on reflecting that the people of that region, as he knew them, preferred sense to sound, and he accord- ingly sent them a collection of books. Mann profited by this decision; on such trifles do human affairs depend. If Franklin had been a less judicious benefactor of the town to which he stood sponsor, Mann's lot might have turned out quite differently. He might have vegetated, ignorant and obscure, in his native village and never have been able to say in later life: "If it were in my power, I would scatter books broadcast over the land, as the sower scatters grain in the furrows of the field." The supply of books pre- sented by Franklin, chiefly works of theology and HORACE MANN 11 ancient history, were, it is true, soon exhausted, but not before they had kindled the sacred fire in Mann's soul. In order to purchase others, the boy spent the small sums which he could earn with his own hands by weaving straw during the long winter evenings and selling his basket work. It was his solitary reading which turned the little rustic into a well-informed youth. The town- ship of Franklin boasted, indeed, a school, which Mann attended when he could be spared from the w T ork of the farm; that is to say, about eight or ten weeks of the year. But what a school! Mere mechanical teaching of the three R's, a simple exercise of memory, without the slightest appeal to the intelligence; a school, in short, which awaited, like so many others, the reforms which Mann was to introduce at a later day. The village church, in the quality of its religious instruction, was worth even less than the school. It was conducted by a fanatical preacher, Dr. Evans, an extra- or hyper-Calvinist, as Mann called him, whose only aim was to terrorize his flock by dismal pictures of future punishment in the next world. The youthful Mann, with the docility of his childish imagination, trembled and shud- dered like the rest under these terrifying threats of eternal perdition. But an event was to occur, 12 HORACE MANN which completely revolutionized his ideas. At the age of twelve he lost a brother whom he tenderly loved, and in the anguish of his grief the boy learned to reflect. Guided by his heart, sustained by his growing reason, he was seized by an instinct of rebellion; he said to himself that it was not possible that his beloved brother should have to endure eternal punishment in another world; that the God he worshipped was not a monster of cruelty. He had reached a moment of moral crisis, almost such a night as Jauffray describes. "I remember, as if it were yesterday," he said long after, "the day, the hour, the place, the circumstances, in which I broke the chains which had bound me." From that hour dated for Mann the awakening of mind which was to lead to a sincere but very broad religious faith, moral rather than theological, and free from servitude to dogmas, of which some one has said: "What would be called religion in others, was morality in Mann." Mann's early education had been acquired a little at random, like that of Rousseau, but in the absolutely pure and innocent atmosphere of country life. It was from a wandering professor that he learned the rudiments of Latin. An ardent reader, he was at the same time a fervent worshipper of nature ; he loved to watch a glorious HORACE MANN 13 sunrise, and at night stretched out on a grassy meadow to " feast his eyes on the starry heavens.' 7 He had an intense natural love of beauty, and later, when he had become a pedagogue, he did not conceal his distrust of a purely bookish educa- tion. "It is a great mistake/ 7 he said, "to be a slave to books. The secret of education is not love of books, but love of knowledge. 77 A poet lay dormant in him — he himself has said so — a tender enthusiastic poet who reveals himself in his flights of oratory and in his literary style, whether by dazzling wealth of imagery or by the lyrical expression of noble sentiments. Proud and high-souled, he was at the same time the most sensitive of men, uniting rare energy with deep tenderness of nature. When in his later life he was called upon at times to reprimand an unruly pupil, it was with difficulty that he could restrain his tears. In his family relations he showed the most exquisite delicacy of feeling; while his frankness and tenderness of nature gave infinite charm to his friendship. For thirty years he lived with his mother, taking care to shield her from all knowledge of his griefs and perplexities lest they should sadden her, and seeking by every means in his power to make 14 HORACE MANN her life tranquil and happy. "The most exquisite emotion I have ever felt," he writes, "was in observing my mother's face brighten and her step grow lighter on hearing something good said of me, and to feel that this change in her bearing proceeded from a secret well-spring of pleasure which I had touched in her heart." One of the joys of his life was to return to Frank- lin and revisit the scenes of his childhood. He often made pilgrimages thither, and saw with emotions of melancholy the paternal roof, which had passed into strangers' hands. "Here lived my father whom I dimly remember and my mother whose memory is so much a part of me, and of whom I can say that if there is any good in me, I owe it to her." Two noble filial souls have expressed the same sentiments in kindred language at an interval of fifteen centuries. "From my father," said Mar- cus Aurelius, "I inherit modesty; to my mother I owe my piety." Mann carried into his friendships the same ten- derness as into his family ties. The list is long of the distinguished men with whom he held fra- ternal relations. Let us name first Dr. Howe, who has been called the Lafayette of Greek inde- pendence, having served as surgeon-in-chief to HORACE MANN 15 the Greek army and navy during the revolution of 1822, and who, on his return to America, de- voted himself to founding and developing institu- tions for the blind, the deaf and dumb, and the feeble-minded. (It was he who educated the famous deaf, dumb, and blind girl, Laura Bridgman.) Channing, the celebrated leader of the Unitarian body, to which Mann himself belonged, 1 was also among his friends, as was Theodore Parker, the only preacher whom he enjoyed hearing, and who once wrote to him: " Spare your strength; remember that if you kill yourself, it will take the Lord a long time to give us another Horace Mann." To this list belongs also George Combe, the philosopher, of whom Mann was the disciple as well as friend, and many more to whom he was bound by community of sentiments and an equal enthusiasm for the cause of popular education. Edward Everett, who had been appointed governor of Massachusetts, actively seconded his efforts, as did Senator Sumner and the mayor of Boston, Josiah Quincy. 1 The sect of Unitarians, whose origin we must seek in the England of the seventeenth century, is the most liberal of Amer- ican religious bodies. Its followers admit revelation without accepting all its dogmas. There are no less than 600 Unitarian congregations in America at the present day. 16 HORACE MANN For his sister Mann cherished the warmest affection and a devotion of which he gave proof by coming to her aid in a serious crisis and saving her husband, a merchant who had failed in business, from financial ruin. She remained all her life the intimate confidante of his thoughts. What shall be said of his worship of her whom he had chosen as the companion of his life, and who was suddenly snatched from him by death after two brief years of perfect happiness? He had married her in 1831 after an engagement of ten years. Her loss left in his heart a wound that was long in healing. In his first grief he wrote: "My whole life was centred in the home which she brightened by her presence. 1 She imparted to me renewed strength for my work and inspired me with fresh motives for courageous activity. I should never end if I attempted to describe the revelation of moral beauty that flowed from her life and the grace of feeling which sprang like a deli- cate flower from the adamant of her virtues." The public-spirited citizen was in no respect inferior to the son, brother, and husband. As a lawyer Mann made it a rule to accept only just causes and to plead only for the truth ; as a mem- 1 Mann's first wife was the daughter of Dr. Messer of Brown University, where he had been a student. HORACE MANN 17 ber of the legislature and senator he rose above party politics, speaking only in behalf of public interests and great philanthropic causes. In 1816, at the age of twenty, Mann had become a regular student at Brown University, a small college founded in 1764 in the city of Providence. In order to pay his matriculation fees, he gave lessons as a tutor during the vacations, thus follow- ing a custom still prevalent among the poor students of American colleges, some of whom are reduced to the necessity of paying their way by seeking service as hotel waiters and the like during the summer. At Brown, Mann studied law, and dis- tinguished himself at once among his companions. His masters bore witness that he was the best stu- dent in the university and, at the same time, the best whist player. One trait already characterizes Mann's turn of mind and natural trend of thought, — he chose for his last scholastic thesis the following subject: "On the Progressive Character of the Human Race." It is this belief in progress, in the indefinite de-\ velopment of the moral and intellectual faculties \ of man, which was to be the watchword of his^ whole life and the motive of all his actions. 1 1 Another of Mann's youthful writings was entitled " On the Duty of every American toward Posterity." 18 HORACE MANN On the conclusion of his studies and after having held for some time a professorship of Latin and Greek literature at Brown University, Mann settled in Dedham, a small Massachusetts town, where he entered upon the practice of the law, pleading cases before the Norfolk and Boston bars. He was already in full possession of his oratorical powers. He was, according to the testimony of his biographers, a redoubtable orator, with a terrible power of sledge-hammer retorts, which he hurled at his adversaries like bombshells thrown into an enemy's camp. On the occasion of the national holiday, the 4th of July, 1824, Mann delivered an address which attracted the notice of John Quincy Adams, 1 future President of the United States, the same whom Mann was to succeed twenty- five years later as member of the House of Representatives. His reputation grew from year to year, until he had become the most highly esteemed lawyer in that region. It was in 1827 that the confidence of the electors of Norfolk County called him to a seat in the State legislature of Massachusetts. 1 John Quincy Adams was President of the United States from 1825-1829. A few years after the expiration of his term as Presi- dent, he was elected member of Congress from Massachusetts and continued to be elected until he died. HORACE MANN 19 In 1830 he was elected State senator, then presi- dent of the Senate in 1836. The part he took in political assemblies was always a brilliant one. He preached as often as possible what he called his " gospel of temperance and education.' ' But his idealism did not divert him from a due concern for the material interests of his country. His two first speeches in Con- gress were respectively upon religious liberty and upon railroads. But the subjects which chiefly occupied his energies at this period, when he was in the habit of working sixteen hours a day, were the establishment of a lunatic asylum and the campaign against intemperance. After five years of constant effort Mann obtained from the House a vote for necessary funds to erect a commodious and suitable building, the Worcester asylum, where two hundred and thirty insane patients were to be received, treated with gentleness and humanity, and employed in agricultural pursuits. "We have overthrown the dungeons of inhumanity," he ex- claimed, on accomplishing this work; "the out- works are stormed at least, and some of the unhappy prisoners can now enjoy the beauty of the physical world, and before long I hope they will share the benefits of the moral world." In this humani- tarian enterprise Mann was not merely a promoter, 20 HORACE MANN but, charged with organizing it personally, he gave proof of those administrative talents which he was to display some }^ears later in his scholastic campaign. Let us add that he found excellent associates to aid him; among others a woman, "the adorable" Miss Dix, to whom he paid this signal homage : "If Queen Victoria in one of her triumphal progresses through her states were to encounter this more than sovereign American woman on one of her charitable progresses, it is the former, not the latter, who ought to bend the knee and kiss the other's hand. Yes, the empress of so many millions of mankind should bow before this angel from heaven, sent down for the salvation of poor insane men and women." Mann was no less fortunate in his struggle against intemperance. Himself one of the most temperate of men, I do not know whether he had sworn to his mother, like Lincoln, never to touch intoxicat- ing liquors, but he did, in fact, abstain from doing so, lamenting that he found so few imitators. To plant a school near every dwelling and to re- move the saloon, such was his plan. "How many thousands of drunkards would never have become so if the saloon had been five miles away from their home!" HORACE MANN 21 In 1832 Mann proposed a law forbidding the public sale of intoxicating liquors, at least on Sundays. The project received but two favorable votes, including, no doubt, his own. But he was not the man to let himself be discouraged by a first failure ; and thanks to his tenacity and his eloquence, the law was passed in 1837 by two hundred and forty votes to seventeen in the House of Repre- sentatives and twenty-three to six in the Senate. Thus fortune smiled on Mann's political career; he had become a power in the Massachusetts legis- lature, but beneath this brilliant surface, his private life held much of sadness. Since 1833 his home had been desolate, and he had never become rec- onciled to his loss. In the private journal to which he was accustomed to confide every evening the events of his life and his inmost thoughts, he speaks sadly of "days devoid of consolation and sleepless, tearful nights." Poverty had pur- sued him even amid his successes at the bar and in the House. Who could have imagined that for a period of six months the brilliant statesman, the busy lawyer, had only the means of dining once in two days. At this time he denied himself and incurred heavy debts in order to help his brother- in-law, who had failed. His health, which had been undermined by labor and privations, grew 22 HORACE MANN daily worse, so that his friends at one time de- spaired of his life; and this man of forty-one years, who appeared to be broken down and utterly crushed, was about to recover his strength and energies at the call of an inner voice which sum- moned him to act in behalf of humanity, — in behalf of education for the people. He was about to devote himself exclusively to the cause of educa- tion and to enter upon a campaign in favor of schools, — a campaign of twelve years full of sacri- fices and efforts, the noblest, assuredly, which the annals of education have to offer us. II Horace Mann, Secretary of the Boston Bureau of Education On the 20th of April, 1837, Mann, in his capacity of president of the Massachusetts Senate, signed an official act relating to public schools which was to decide the future course of his life. By this act a board of education was established, whose primal object was to study and investigate the moral and material condition of the schools in order, subsequently, to discover and apply the best methods of improving them, the board being thus both an examining and a reforming body. A few months later Mann was appointed its secretary, and this modest title was to enable him to become for a long period the capable and indefatigable agent for the reorganization of the school system of his country. 1 It was a great change in his life ; he now became the advocate for all men. "Let my new clients, 1 Channing, the leading Unitarian divine, wrote to him: " I hear that you are about to devote yourself to the cause of education in our Republic. I rejoice over it." 23 24 HORACE MANN the rising generation, come to me/' he said. From the outset he had traced for himself a line of moral conduct, — "May God grant me to subdue my ego- tism and give me wisdom of mind and kindness of heart," — and at the same time he set before himself a course of action which he was to carry out as faithfully as the former. He sketched it in these terms in a letter to his sister: "If I can be the instrument of a reform which will settle how schools can be better taught, what are the best books, the best plans of study, the best methods of education; if I can discover by what means a child who does not speak, who does not think, who does not reflect, can surely become by means of education a noble citizen, ready to fight for the right and die for it, may I not flatter myself with the hope that I have not labored in vain?" And with that power of imagination which made the most distant events present to him, which showed him the future as if it already ex- isted, he dreamed of the harvest while he was sowing the seed. No one has spoken of childhood more tenderly than he: "How engaging children are in their happy unconsciousness ! Ignorant, when they must have knowledge in order to live ; absorbed in the present, when they are embarked for eternity; blind in the midst of perils; as unconscious of the noble enthusiasms and ardent passions which slumber in their breasts as the cloud is of the storm and thunder it hides in its bosom, — such are these cherished beings whose future is in our hands. . . ." Let us quote one more charming passage : "How did this fair child come to us so full of music and poetry ? Who put a whole dancing-school into his steps? At the least sound which arouses his gayety, he seems to throw off the law of gravita- tion ; he floats, he glides as if his body were a light feather and his soul a breeze playing with it. The child is the greatest of miracles ! . . ." How many times before becoming secretary of the Board of Education had Mann addressed to his countrymen moving appeals in behalf of instruction, such as he was about to renew un- ceasingly until he had brought them to feel as he did, until he had made them realize the importance of education, until he had carried them with him, 26 HORACE MANN so that all should resolve to shed light and truth upon mankind "as God sheds sunshine and rain upon the earth ! " "How is this?" he cried. "If some one should bring you word to-morrow that he had found a coal mine which would bring in ten per cent, would you not hasten to invest in it? And yet here are men who might bring you in forty or fifty per cent, and you leave them grovelling in ignorance. You know how to make use of plants and animals, you can produce wheat from herd's- grass and turn the jackal into a dog; . . . and you have children of whom you can make nothing ! "You build hospitals, you establish law-courts. Why? To punish people for the ignorance which has made them criminals ; to harbor poor wretches who have failed here below for lack of instruction. But are you not yourselves -the unconscious authors and accomplices of these evils which you vainly seek to prevent or to cure? Build schools then; you will thus abolish ignorance, crime, and misery. You will quench hatred and make the happiness and greatness of the nation through the prosperity and morality of each of its citizens." The aim which Mann was pursuing by his personal efforts he had long since proposed to his countrymen. He had dreamed of it during his thoughtful child- HORACE MANN 27 hood on the shores of the ocean, during his youth at Brown University when he delivered essays on human progress, in his manhood when he sat in the legislature. But at the moment when he was himself intrusted with the accomplishment of his dream, anxiety mingled with his enthusiasm. Men of ability are apt to distrust their own talents and powers. Should he prove capable of carry- ing on so great a mission and succeeding in an enterprise which was partly technical ? "I tremble, " he writes in his diary, "at the idea of this task which has fallen to me." His adversaries re- proached him, in fact, with a lack of scholastic experience. He had been, it is true, a tutor in Providence and a member of the school committee in Dedham. But these were slender qualifications beside the professional claims of his competitor for the office, Professor Carter, a teacher of long experience. The governing powers of Massachu- setts must have been fully persuaded of the pre- eminence of Mann's moral qualities when they chose him in preference to such a candidate. They had divined what miracles were to be expected from his untiring devotion and from such rare nobility of soul united with such admirable energy. Mann amply justified their confidence, and af- forded one more proof that it is not always one 28 HORACE MANN of the trade, a professional, but on the contrary, an outsider who most frequently accomplishes the great reforms in education. That which added to the difficulties of Mann's work was the nature of the duties intrusted to him. Neither he nor the Board was invested with any executive power. He did not have that actual authority over schools and instructors which the State of New York, for instance, con- ferred on its superintendent of schools, an office created in 1835. The Boston Board deliberated, gave advice, expressed its wishes, but did not direct in school affairs. But the worth of institutions depends upon the men who form part of them. With a leader like Mann, who was its soul, the Board of Education exercised a decisive action, an ex- traordinary influence, over the school districts of Massachusetts and later of the whole Union, such as ministers of public instruction in other countries might have reason to envy. The following detail clearly shows how conscientiously Mann proceeded to fulfil the duties of his position. Before setting to work he entered upon a sort of pedagogical retreat, devoting a certain time to retirement and meditation. For several weeks he shut himself up in company with books on education; he read HORACE MANN 29 and pondered over Miss Edgeworth's Practical Edu- cation and The Necessity for Popular Education by Dr. James Simpson. He took great pleasure in this reading, which he pronounced "delight- ful," and which furnished him with a store of new ideas. He convinced himself more and more fully that the educational mission on which he had entered was the one that best suited his tastes, feelings, and principles. This period of retirement and reflection was not of long duration, however. Mann received his appointment as secretary on the 30th of June, 1837. By the 28th of August of the same year he had opened the campaign with his first lecture tours. It was a brilliant beginning. In each of the fourteen counties of Massachusetts, Mann assembled conventions of all the friends of education, teachers, members of school committees from the three hundred districts in the State, leading members of the community; in short, all who were eager to listen to the burn- ing words of the great educator. Mann well knew that his first mission was to win souls, to arouse good-will, to create a current of opinion, to com- municate to others the enthusiasm with which he was himself possessed. It was at this price only that he could hope for success. He must obtain the moral support of all those interested 30 HORACE MANN in the reform of schools, rouse from their torpor the old school committees, whose origin dated back to the seventeenth century. He must also secure the material support of wealthy citizens, from whom he solicited donations while awaiting the moment when these private liberalities should arouse the emulation of the State, from which he hoped later to obtain funds to endow the various scholastic establishments which he proposed to found. On the one hand, he must influence public opinion to desire and demand the necessary reforms; on the other hand, he must induce the legislatures of the country to vote for them and carry them into execution. A minister of education would have been able to draw up orders and sign decrees; Mann could only call conventions and draw up reports. His position -can be defined by saying that he was before all, not a philosopher, not a practical instructor, but a soldier, a tribune of education, a missionary who journeyed from town to town, from village to village, spreading his ideas and his faith, a Peter the Hermit preaching a cru- sade against ignorance. On his lecture tours Mann lavished his eloquence like an American Jean Mace, — a Jean Mace of greater powers as an orator and loftier flights. He often addressed different audiences for twenty-five successive days. HORACE MANN 31 In that free American democracy which contains so many kings, — railroad kings, petroleum kings, and the rest, — Mann was the lecture king. We have since seen presidential candidates in the United States multiply themselves to a still greater extent, and under the spur of ambition pour forth an even greater number of speeches, but in the matter of scholastic addresses, disinterested speeches in the cause of education, Mann undoubtedly holds the record, not for his own country alone, but for the whole world. We must not imagine, however, that he met with constant success in these oratorical cam- paigns, which he carried on with so fine an ardor. His annual lecture trip was not invariably a tri- umphal progress. On one occasion he had an audience consisting of three ladies; another day, a humiliating day, he found himself alone ! He owns sadly that political speeches would have been better attended. "Politics," he added, "are the only god of this people." And he adds jestingly, "If a mob collects anywhere, instead of reading the riot act to disperse it, one has only to announce a lecture on education; that will be sufficient — not a soul will remain." Let us add that Mann, although a born orator, never addressed an audience without fear and 32 HORACE MANN trembling. He had, moreover, to contend against physical weakness. On the eve of delivering three or four lectures in succession, he writes in his diary, "Alas for my poor body!" He carried on this propaganda with his pen as well as by speeches; he began publishing in 1838 a scholastic newspaper called the Common School Journal, which he continued to conduct for ten years. He there set forth in detail his views on special questions relating to teaching and educa- tional methods. He thus led the way for all the pedagogical journals which have since flourished in the United States; notably, the Journal of Edu- cation which Barnard, the Horace Mann of Con- necticut, edited for thirty-one years. But it was, above all, by the publication of his reports that Mann exercised a marked influence on public opinion. The twelve statements which he drew up year after year are a genuine pedagogical monu- ment. They occupied about a thousand pages in the edition of his works. Issued in a large edition, about twenty thousand copies, they were circulated in all directions, read in remote hamlets as well as in great cities; people learned from them what schools were and what they ought to be. Officially addressed to the Board of Educa- tion, they were in reality destined for the people, HORACE MANN 33 whom it was urgent to instruct as to the importance of education. In short, they were veritable scho- lastic manifestoes summoning public opinion to provide instruction for the people. 