1. Horace Mann: The Father of Public Education
Public (COMMON) School Reform!
“Our means of education are the grand machinery by which the raw material of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers.”- Horace Mann

2. Early 1800s…before reform:
Best schools are private schools
High tuition (cost)
Available to wealthy families
Private tutors also available
Many children did not go to school at all
School in Kansas. Frontier schools were sparse, poorly staffed, and inconsistent.

3. In the City…before reform:
Children were breaking laws:
Stealing
Vandalism
Arson
Reformers believed that education would raise them from poverty and crime

4. Time for Reform! Horace Mann travelled to all the
schools in Massachusetts and
documented the bad conditions
Change began in Massachusetts
Voted to pay taxes for:
Better school equipment, buildings…
Higher teacher salaries
Special training for teachers
Still an unfinished reform…
African-Americans and often young girls still couldn’t attend school

5. Progress! Oberlin College (Ohio) accepts women starting in 1837
Sets precedent for other public colleges (1860’s)
Some common schools allow girls in elementary grades

6. Detriments…what stood in the way:
Prudence Crandall admits an African girl to her all-girls’ school in Connecticut
Parents were outraged; removed their children
Crandall goes to an all-African student body
Enraged whites vandalize the school, Crandall is jailed for two years
School ultimately closed down

7. More Progress!
Horace Mann becomes president of Antioch College in Ohio
New college for men and women (first to integrate the sexes)
“Be ashamed to die, until you have won some victory for humanity.”

8. Public School Reform Horace Mann
He and other reformers think education will lower crime rates with children
First public schools are in Massachusetts
Taxes raised to build schools, pay & educate teachers
From there the idea spreads
More Schools begin accepting women
African Americans had to wait longer