HORACE MANN “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.”

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

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

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 2-Tier System of Schooling

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

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

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.”

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.