Horace Mann
Horace Mann
Horace Mannwas an American politician and educational reformer. A Whig devoted to promoting speedy modernization, he served in the Massachusetts State legislature. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Historian Ellwood P. Cubberley asserts:...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth4 May 1796
CityFranklin, MA
CountryUnited States of America
We must be purposely kind and generous or we miss the best part of life's existence.
If there is anything for which I would go back to childhood, and live this weary life over again, it is for the burning, exalting, transporting thrill and ecstasy with which the young faculties hold their earliest communion with knowledge.
Knowledge is but an instrument, which the profligate and the flagitious may use as well as the brave and the just.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Teaching isn't one-tenth as effective as training.
Deeds survive the doers.
Knowledge is a mimic creation.
As each generation comes into the world devoid of knowledge, its first duty is to obtain possession of the stores already amassed. It must overtake its predecessors before it can pass by them.
Above all, let the poor hang up the amulet of temperance in their homes.
They who set an example make a highway. Others follow the example, because it is easier to travel on a highway than over untrodden grounds.
Biography, especially of the great and good, who have risen by their own exertions to eminence and usefulness, is an inspiring and ennobling study. Its direct tendency is to reproduce the excellence it records.
Had I the power, I would scatter libraries over the whole land, as the sower sows his wheat-field.
A teacher should, above all things, first induce a desire in the pupil for the acquisition he wishes to impart.
So, in the infinitely nobler battle in which you are engaged against error and wrong, if ever repulsed or stricken down, may you always be solaced and cheered by the exulting cry of triumph over some abuse in Church or State, some vice or folly in society, some false opinion or cruelty or guilt which you have overcome! And I beseech you to treasure up in your hearts these my parting words: Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.