Horace Mann is
considered the father of democratic schooling. He believed that schools should
be provided by the state for the purpose of educating a collective democratic
citizenry. From the "Twelfth Annual Report of Horace Mann as Secretary of
Massachusetts State Board of Education," Mann (1848) wrote:
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. [...] [Education] gives each man the
independence and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other men.
The spread of education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open
a wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if this education
should be universal and complete, it would do more than all things else to
obliterate factitious distinctions in society. (p. 3)
Though these words were written back in 1848, they sound more contemporary than ever; a warning or a reminder of our responsibilities towards future generations.
