Ipswich High School - Tiger Yearbook (Ipswich, MA)

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at that time no one thought of in- teresting a child in his schoolwork ; it was merely drilled into him in large doses until he was big or old enough to go out and go to work. Therefore, when Horace Mann accepted his position as Secretary of the Board of Education, he ac- cepted with it the task of remedy- ing these conditions and meeting others like them. He realized the importance which education plays in the life of all people and especial- ly in the lives of those who belong to and make up a democracy. It was this idea which spurred him on to give up a good law ' prac- tice for a position paying less than $1500 a year; to sell a fine library and devote the proceeds to educa- tion ; to work, work, work until he had exhausted his strength, feeble at best, and then to rest only until he could once more stand on his feet, ready to continue his reforms. His first conviction was that there could be no good or fine teaching done until the teachers themselves were trained. He therefore went about the country, lecturing and campaigning in an effort to build up a public sentiment which would make possible a legislative appro- priation for the founding of a Nor- mal school. He gave lectures in every corner of the state, often hav- ing seven lectures a week, each in some remote spot. However, these efforts at first met with little inter- est. In this connection it is inter- esting and to the credit of Ipswich to note that he records in his Jour- nal in 1838: “I went to Ipswich and preached my preachment to a pret- ty full house.” In other places he remarks that in larger towns there were sometimes only ten listeners! At last, in 1839, the first of his dreams came true; the state legis- lature appropriated $10,000 to be put with $10,000 of private contri- butions for the purpose of erecting a Normal School. The place decid- ed upon was Lexington and the principal chosen was Rev. Cyrus Pierce. Such a school was indeed an innovation and at the time was regarded as a truly novel, if not unwise, experiment, for being a girls’ school, it ran up against all sorts of snags, from timid parents who were afraid to trust their daughters away from home, to Vic- torian moralists who frowned upon such procedures. The school pros- pered however, and soon two more were founded : one at Barre in 1838, and one at Bridgewater in 1839. Another means by which Horace Mann obtained support for his ideas was through his twelve annual re- ports to the Board of Education. The first met with considerable crit- icism, but as time went on, his ideas as formulated in these reports be- came more generally accepted. At present, the original documents are of inestimable worth, quite in keep- ing with the man who wrote them. It was at this time, about six years after he began his duties as Secre- tary of the Board of Education, that Horace Mann married again (his first wife having died two years af- ter their marriage in 1830). He sailed for Europe for a rest, but he did not relax even there, for with his unceasing quest after education- al improvement, he visited schools in all the European countries, and on his return published a report on the German manner of teaching 18

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A TRIOLET The hillsides are green For springtime has come A bluebird is seen where The hillsides are green ; Over all lies a lush green sheen, Where pin points of flowers grow. The hillsides are green, For springtime has come. Charlotte Curtis, ’37. GRADUATION ESSAYS. Our Debt to Horace Mann by Margaret Hubbard N early one hundred years ago this evening, on June 30, 1837, Horace Mann, Speaker of the House of Representatives in Boston, ac- cepted the post of Secretary of the newly created Board of Education in Massachusetts. He held this po- sition for eleven short years and in that time accomplished deeds and instituted reforms which caused him to be gratefully remembered and honored to-day as America’s first pioneer in the cause of good public school education. Until 1837, the condition of the public schools in Massachusetts, al- though not actually appalling, was extremely poor when judged by our standards and rather low when judged by the standards of those times, especially when we realize that New England was even then considered the center of learning in the United States. The main obsta- cle to fair and liberal teaching was the narrowness, pettiness, and ig- norance of the teachers. Often they were so untrained and underpaid that they knew scarcely more than their pupils. Their textbooks were old, and their methods of teaching were often out of date. In addition. teachers at that time also, especial- ly in rural districts, though serving at a great sacrifice of money and social prestige, were scorned and looked down upon by members of other professions and by society in general. Such a condition obviously did not redound to the advantage of the pupils under their supervi- sion. The buildings, which constituted another source of offense in early nineteenth century education, were unventilated, unsafe, dirty, and al- most without light except for a few dingy windows. It is said that the floors of barns at that time were washed more frequently than those of schoolrooms. Furthermore, the management of the schools was en- tirely under the control of the local trustees who very often allowed their personal feelings, their greed for gain, and their narrow religious sectarianism to get the better of all good educational instincts. Everyone who could afford to sent his children to private schools. Those who were poor, of course, had to patronize public schools but looked upon them as a burden to be borne none too willingly. The chil- dren went because they had to, not because they were interested, for

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V V KS»S«K%% 3«g3«XX «SgX deaf mutes to speak. He said that signs were not used but that the pupils were taught to speak by the muscular formation of the words. He was bitterly assailed for this re- port by his foes, who denounced it as false, and who tried to use it in an effort to have him discharged. However, with his unusual and un- failing wit and originality, he wrote and published an answer which ef- fectively silenced their criticism. At last, in 1848, after eleven years of toil when he resigned to serve in Congress, he had seen most of his proposed reforms completed and many others so well started that they could continue without him. He had provided three good Nor- mal schools, seen many high schools built and others improved, raised teachers’ wages as well as their morale, equipped many schools with libraries, improved attendance, lengthened the school term, and, above all, aroused a lasting interest in the public schools of Massachu- setts. It might be thought that after he left the Board of Education in Mass- achusetts, his work was finished in that field, for he was growing old, his health was poor, and he de- served rest and leisure. However, his desire to see that all Americans had the best possible opportunities for education led him to extend his work further. About 1852, in Ohio (at that time a backwoods settle- ment) a new college, Antioch, was founded which was to be the most liberal of any yet established. The institution was in reality the re- sult of his own ideas and theories which were rapidly spreading throughout the United States. It was coeducational, open to all races, nonsectarian, and its purpose was to build the character of those young people who would be the pi- oneers of the next generation and to bring culture to the wild and rough settlements of Ohio. He in- stituted the famous “Code of Hon- or’’ here, which was a system un- der which the students were put on their own responsibility for obeying the laws of the college and seeing that their fellow-classmates did likewise. Under his guidance and perseverance, all, or at least the majority, of his aims were ac- complished, and in spite of serious financial troubles, difficulties were eventually smoothed out. Horace Mann worked tirelessly for the cause and could he have lived a lit- tle longer, his college would have advanced to a standing twenty-five years in advance of any other. How- ever, he worked too hard, exhaust- ed his strength, and having seen his third graduating class leave as cul- tured people of good character (for his code was such that he could not graduate any person from Antioch who had not a high moral standard) he died. He can never be forgoten, how- ever, for he still lives today in the many schools which bear his name, in the progress of his work, which has become the basis of the Amer- ican public school system, and in the present excellent condition of our schools which we hope will ad- vance to higher achievement in the future. More especially, he lives for us today in his many, wise, of- ten quoted sayings, of which the most beautiful, courageous, and the most like him are the last public 19