Horace Mann

Personal Statement:
    My name is Horace Mann and I was born on a lovely afternoon of March 4 in 1796.  I was born in my small house located in Franklin, Massachusetts.   Mostly self taught, I was twenty years old when I was admitted to the sophomore class at Brown University.  At the university I took interest in politics, education, and social reform.  At my graduation I gave a speech on advancement of the human race to benefit mankind.  After graduating from Brown I practiced law until I was a representative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833.  From 1835 to 1837 I served in the Massachusetts Senate.  While I was in senate, the quality of education was suffering.  In 1837 when the state created the first board of education I was the secretary.  I started a biweekly journal called Common School Journal in 1838 for teachers.  As the secretary of education I increased the funding of schools and improved the preparation and support of teachers.
Issues:
  During my life I spent majority of the time improving the education system.  My most controversial work was my advocacy of nonsectarian religious education.  I believed that children attending public schools should be taught the ethical principles common across Christianity not those doctrines which were disagreed upon by sects.  My approach was criticized by many as anti-Christian or seen as a reflection of my Unitarianism beliefs. My motivation for this comes from my brother's funeral when the Calvinist priest preached that my brother, who had died of drowning, was going to burn in hell for dying in the unconverted stage.  At that moment I commenced my belief in Unitarianism.
Solution:
  As a solution to the depreciating quality of education I came up with six principles of education.  The first being citizens can't have both ignorance and freedom. The second being the education should be paid for, controlled, and maintained by the public.  The education should embrace children of different backgrounds.  The education should be nonsectarian.  The education should be taught using tenets of free society.  The education should be provided by well trained and professional teachers. I face opposition from clergymen everywhere for my stance on education being nonsectarian.
Relationship to Others:
  I would feel most comfortable sitting next to Rev. Theodore Parker who often praised my work for abolition.  I believed in the importance of public education as a mean of creating a just society.  In one of my speeches to the House I said; "slavery would abolish education, if it should invade free state; education would abolish slavery, if it could invade a free state."