Mann's View

Rhea Santos
English 101 Page Response
15 September 2011
What is Mann’s view of the Powers of Education?
According to an article of From Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education, 1848 written by Horace Mann, he discourses about how education is essential for each and every human being and how social class portrayed around it. Even if a child comes from a poverty family, education should not be taken away from them to be able to accomplish whatever they desire. In Mann’s perspective education rights should be an equal opportunity for everyone regardless of what their financial status, background, gender or ethnicity, that way it should allow each one to pursue their goal in life, because he believes that education is a powerful tool for each individual must have. Mann’s a huge believer that diversity is the key to a perfect educational system. There were no limitations, at least in his mind, to what the common school could do. That is why he implemented that public school is the greatest institution which can receive and train up children in the elements of all good knowledge and of virtue before they are subjected to the alienating competitions of life. He mentioned that public school institutions are the greatest discovery of mankind. In the article Horace Mann continue to discuss the importance of different kinds of education such as political, moral, religious, intellectual, and physical. He believes that these are the key ingredients of success. He wrote religious because he believes that same standard of Christian theories and doctrines should be taught in public school for children to learn, instead of sectarian religious education. Though, conservatives criticized him for being responsible for secularizing the Common School system and liberals criticized him for not making public education completely separate from faith principles. Mann's theory was also centered in the belief that elevating individual education levels would allow people to increase their social moral compass and allow them to give back to the world and make it a better place. Today, a lot of us should be thankful of what Horace Mann had done and should keep his greatest work in mind, because without him we don’t know what is our educational system would be and even though our educational system is still not quite perfect Horace Mann did a lot of work to make schools a better place for the children.