Horace Mann High School - Horace Manual Yearbook (Gary, IN)

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State House. Boston, Massachusetts Horace Mann Memorial Statue the little t ed Sck ool ...JdouM A small, square room, with walls and ceiling so poorly constructed that rain and snow came in unhindered — shivering children, weary dunces with pointed caps, gathered around a choked and smoking stove, a hickory stick attached to a heartless master perched behind a high formidable desk — these are symbols of the little red school house of one hundred years ago. Happily today we are far enough removed from this state of affairs to smile. In the early nineteenth century a few idealistic citizens realized that education needed expansion and democratization: but the public in general was apathetic, even hostile to tax-supported schools. Horace Mann was a lawyer, not an educator. Many social reforms claimed his time and effort: however, he felt that the very survival of democracy itself depended upon schools where ‘‘more and more of the children of the commonwealth are educated together under the same roof, on the same seats, with the same encouragements, rewards, punishments, and to the exclusion of adventitious and artificial distinctions.” Therefore in 1837 when the Secretaryship of the newly created State Board of Education was offered him, he renounced a lucrative law practice and a promising political career to accept an obscure post with a meager salary. During the next twelve years he lalx)red unceasingly to weld together the disorganized school

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t ' ' r doing something for the benefit of mankind.” All my boyish castles in the air had references to ofJ4c or n ann Birthplace of Horace Mi

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districts of Massachusetts; to arouse public and parents to the need for sanitary, com¬ fortable schools and for well-trained teachers, free from [xilitical interference. As to the latter, he was really concerned. He conducted county teachers’ meetings where new ideas and methods of instruction were discussed. For example, he showed the absurdity of teaching children to spell words like procrastination, p-r-o-, pro, c-r-a-s-, eras, t-i-n-, tin, and so forth, when most of the poor little pig-tailed darlings didn’t know what the word meant. He served the Board of Education for twelve years, and then, as his more ambitious friends would have put it, “he came to his senses ” and entered once more into political life. A few years later, however, he rejected the proffered nomination for Governor of Massachusetts to become President of Antioch College that he might renew work which contributed so vitally to the progress of education. At Antioch he established an institution of higher learning open to all with no discriminations against sex, creed, or race. This was the man who has been called “The Father of the American Public School.” For one hundred years education has moved steadily in the direction which he indicated and today, as we see it a century along its path, his plans and ideas are still discernible. His life of service is a symbol to us of the challenge which he has expressed so effec¬ tively: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.” wuse Early picture of Antioch College