HORACE MANN 1796-1859 “The Father of American Education”

1. HORACE MANN1796-1859“The Father of American Education” “Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men -- the balance-wheel of the social machinery.” “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

2. SCHOOLING • Believed that schooling should be: • Free • State financed and controlled • Universal • Compulsory • Common School • Great equalizer • Poverty would disappear as popular intelligence would tap new treasures of natural material and wealth • Crime would decline as well as violence and fraud • Social good was infinite

3. Schooling continued • Schools must teach appropriate set of morals. Known as the common elements of the common school. (Great Christian truths) • Religion should be taken out of schools (Calvinist religion) • State school would lead to moral and political consensus • Educating the masses would result in increased economic benefits for the nation. • Common schools would need teachers so he supported the Normal Schools. • Illustration on page 63 is an excellent depiction of the tier system

4. 2-Tier System of Schooling • Common Class • Vorschule-elementary school • Compulsory attendance • Develop patriotic citizens—motto “God, Emperor and Country” • Taught basic literacy and numeracy • Most graduates went into workforce • Technical School or Normal School • TS-Produced technicians and middle range managers • NS-Taught how to teach

5. Aristocratic Class-3 levels of schooling • Vorschule-elementary school • Gymnasium • Academically oriented-classical education • Designed to produce future officers of the army or the University • Graduates may go on to Military Academies • University • Research institute • Dual functioning • Produce new knowledge • Educate future civic and religious leaders

6. Teacher Education • Teachers needed special preparation to comprehend the nature of learners, the learning process, subjects of the common school curriculum and how to teach. • Teachers needed knowledge of organization of curricular materials, classroom organization, pedagogic methods and discipline. • Opposed recitation teaching methods as well as corporal punishment. • Academic portion of the curriculum be limited to the subjects taught in the common schools. • Wanted institutions that would teach only teacher education

7. Teachers needed to be moral exemplars • Women were cheaper labor and naturally better suited for the instruction of children: “Is there not an obvious, constitutional difference of temperament between the sexes, indicative of a prearranged fitness and adaptation, and making known to us, as by a heaven imparted sing, that women, by her livelier sensibility and her quicker sympathies, is the fore chosen guide and guardian of children of a tender age.”

8. Criticisms of Mann • Common school reforms placed control in a centralized government away from local control. • Exclusion of religion from schooling • Conflicts between the Whig Party(Mann) and the Democratic Party. Democrats thought Normal Schools would teach teachers Whig values and then teach to their young students. • Public Tax support for those schools that were non-sectarian Protestant in orientation but not for schools that were Catholic. • Instead of schooling for religious and republican virtue, he was instituting a system of schooling for social control. • Minority groups had little active participation in the fundamental decision making about their education.