School is the institution where the students are taught in a learning environment by the teachers. The awareness of knowledge passing in every possible way has always been around, and school is the place where these ideas have been implemented through specific systems that can help the students to learn in a more efficient environment.
Who was Horace Mann, Father of the Common School Movement
according to zmscience, in 1837, a lawyer and educator Horace Mann became the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in the newly-formed United States. Mann was a supporter of public schooling and he believed that without a well-educated population political stability and social harmony could not be achieved. So he put forward the idea of a universal public education system for teaching American kids. Mann wanted a system with a set curriculum taught to students in an organized manner by well-trained subject experts.
“Without undervaluing any other human agency, it may be safely affirmed that the Common School…may become the most effective and benignant of all forces of civilization.” Horace Mann, Father of the Common School Movement.
Mann employed his “normal school” system in Massachusetts and later other states in the US also started implementing the education reforms that he envisioned. He also managed to convince his colleagues and other modernizers to support his idea of providing government-funded primary education for all.
Due to his efforts, Massachusetts became the first American state in 1852 to have a mandatory education law, school attendance and elementary education were made compulsory in various states (mandatory education law was enacted in all states of the US by 1917), teacher training programs were launched, and new public schools were being opened in rural areas.
The innovative ideas and reforms introduced by Mann in the 1800s became the foundation of our modern school system. For his valuable contribution in the field of education, historians sometimes credit him as the inventor of the modern school system.
Horace Mann, often called the father of education of common school, began his career as a lawyer and legislator. He spearheaded the common school movement, ensuring that every child could receive a basic education funded by local taxes.
The power of school education can be well understood from what famous French poet Victor Hugo once said, “He who opens a school door, closes a prison”.