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Horace Mann was born in Franklin, Massachusetts.
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Horace Mann became The ‘Massachusetts State Board of Education’ first secretary following an intense reform movement for improving quality of education.
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He became a prominent proponent and spokesperson of education and held teacher’s conventions, delivered lectures and introduced several reforms. He visited all schools of the state. He initiated the Massachusetts ‘normal school’ system in Barre, Lexington and Bridgewater. He was not in favor of corporal punishment in schools which was in disagreement with some teachers in Boston.
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In 1838 he started and edited a biweekly journal ‘The Common School Journal’ which focussed on public schools and their issues.
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In September 1852, the ‘Free Soil Party’ nominated him for the governor’s position in Massachusetts. He was also selected as the president of Antioch College which was set up at Yellow Springs in Ohio.He taught philosophy, theology and economics in the college. His lectures supporting public schools were attended by audiences from all over the Midwest.
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He died in Yellow Springs, Ohio, U.S. He was buried by the side of his first wife Charlotte Messer Mann in the North Burial Ground, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
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In 1852, he backed the decision of adopting the Prussian education system in Massachusetts and after the adoption , the New York Governor implemented the system on trial basis in twelve schools of New York.
