was re-elected for a number of terms, he displayed the same integrity, energy, and eloquence, which had previously promised a bright career at the bar. His moral sense was largely developed, and he showed an especial interest in temperance, charity and education.

In 1835 he entered upon the work with which his name is chiefly associated and in which he rendered the greatest service to his native state and to the American union. In that year the legislature appointed a Board of Education to revise and reorganize the common school system of the state. Owing to various forms of opposition, it was a work of great magnitude and peculiar difficulty. The Board, which was composed of able and distinguished men, called Horace Mann to be its secretary · a position that made him practically the state superintendent of education. Recognizing at once the responsibilities and opportunities of the office, he gave up his legal and political career, and devoted himself with great singleness of purpose to the duties of his new position. He visited all parts of the state, and delivered able and enthusiastic addresses; he established The Common School Journal for the discussion of educational questions; but above all other agencies for reaching and molding public opinion must be placed his "Annual Reports," in which he treated the various phases of education in a practical and masterful manner. To a comprehensive grasp of the subject he joined the charm of an eloquent style and the force of a deep conviction.

In 1848 he was elected to Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of John Quincy Adams. To this new field he carried his moral enthusiasm and his interest in education. In 1853, giving up a political life, he accepted the presidency of Antioch College; and during his brief administration of six years, he gave the institution a wise, progressive, and liberal policy. His death, which occurred August

2, 1859, cut short a career which would otherwise, no doubt, have exerted a far-reaching influence in the field of higher education.

The following extract is taken from his twelfth and last "Annual Report," which was made in 1848. It may be regarded as presenting the matured convictions resulting from his work as secretary of the Board of Education. He does not discuss education in the abstract, but in its relations to the material, intellectual, and moral welfare of society. He had been charged with a purpose to exclude religion from education; and in vindicating himself from this charge, he lays great stress upon the importance of religious training. The extracts given, though but a small part of the Report, present its essential features, and will serve to show his fundamental views, and the masterful grasp and the splendid energy with which he asserted and maintained them.

SELECTION FROM HORACE MANN.

PHYSICAL, INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the common school, improved and energized as it can easily be, may become the most effective and benignant of all the forces of civilization. Two reasons sustain this position. In the first place, there is a universality in its operation, which can be affirmed of no other institution whatever. If administered in the spirit of justice and conciliation, all the rising generation may be brought within the circle of its reformatory and elevating influences. And, in the second place, the materials upon which it operates are so pliant and ductile as to be susceptible of assuming a greater variety of forms than any other earthly work of the Creator. The inflexibility and ruggedness of the oak,

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when compared with the lithe sapling or the tender germ, are but feeble emblems to typify the docility of childhood when contrasted with the obduracy and intractableness of man. It is these inherent advantages of the common school, which, in our own state, have produced results so striking, from a system so imperfect, and an administration so feeble. In teaching the blind and the deaf and dumb, in kindling the latent spark of intelligence that lurks in an idiot's mind, and in the more holy work of reforming abandoned and outcast children, education has proved what it can do by glorious experiments. These wonders it has done in its infancy, and with the lights of a limited experience; but when its faculties shall be fully developed, when it shall be trained to wield its mighty energies for the protection of society against the giant vices which now invade and torment it, - against intemperance, avarice, war, slavery, bigotry, the woes of want, and the wickedness of waste,— then there will not be a height to which these enemies of the race can escape which it will not scale, nor a Titan among them all whom it will not slay.

I proceed, then, in endeavoring to show how the true business of the schoolroom connects itself, and becomes identical, with the great interests of society. The former is the infant, immature state of those interests; the latter their developed, adult state. As "the child is father to the man," so may the training of the schoolroom expand into the institutions and fortunes of the state.

Physical Education.

My general conclusion, then, under this head is that it is the duty of all the governing minds in society whether in office or out of it to diffuse a knowledge of these beautiful and beneficent laws of health and life throughout the length

and breadth of the state; to popularize them; to make them, in the first place, the common acquisition of all, and through education and custom the common inheritance of all, so that the healthful habits naturally growing out of their observance shall be inbred in the people, exemplified in the personal régime of each individual, incorporated into the economy of every household, observable in all private dwellings, and in all public edifices, especially in those buildings which are erected by capitalists for the residence of their work-people, or for renting to the poorer classes; obeyed by supplying cities with pure water; by providing public baths, public walks, and public squares; by rural cemeteries; by the drainage and sewerage of populous towns, and by whatever else may promote the general salubrity of the atmosphere: in fine, by a religious observance of all those sanitary regulations with which modern science has blessed the world.

For this thorough diffusion of sanitary intelligence, the common school is the only agency. It is, however, an adequate agency. Let human physiology be introduced as an indispensable branch of study into our public schools; let no teacher be approved who is not master of its leading principles, and of their applications to the varying circumstances of life; let all the older classes in the schools be regularly and rigidly examined upon this study by the school-committees, -and a speedy change would come over our personal habits, over our domestic usages, and over the public arrangements of society. Temperance and moderation would not be such strangers at the table. Fashion, like European sovereigns, if not compelled to abdicate and fly, would be forced to compromise for the continual possession of her throne by the surrender to her subjects of many of their natural rights. A sixth order of architecture would be invented, the hygienic, —which, without subtracting at all from the beauty of any other order, would add a new element of utility to them

all. The "health regulations" of cities would be issued in a revised code,- a code that would bear the scrutiny of science. And, as the result and reward of all, a race of men and women, loftier in stature, firmer in structure, fairer in form, and better able to perform the duties and bear the burdens of life, would revisit the earth. The minikin specimens of the race, who now go on dwindling and tapering from parent to child, would reascend to manhood and womanhood. Just in proportion as the laws of health and life were discovered and obeyed, would pain, disease, insanity, and untimely death, cease from among men. Consumption would remain; but it would be consumption in the active

sense.

Intellectual Education.

Another cardinal object which the government of Massachusetts, and all the influential men in the state, should propose to themselves, is the physical well-being of all the people, the sufficiency, comfort, competence, of every individual in regard to food, raiment, and shelter. And these necessaries and conveniences of life should be obtained by each individual for himself, or by each family for themselves, rather than accepted from the hand of charity or extorted by poor laws. It is not averred that this most desirable result can, in all instances, be obtained; but it is, nevertheless, the end to be aimed at.

True statesmanship and true political economy, not less than true philanthropy, present this perfect theory as the goal, to be more and more closely approximated by our imperfect practice. The desire to achieve such a result cannot be regarded as an unreasonable ambition; for, though all mankind were well fed, well clothed, and well housed, they might still be but half civilized.