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

Page 9 text:

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

Page 8 text:

One OJ ' undrecl e ' eari

Page 10 text:

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