Who was Horace Mann?

Horace Mann was a reformer from the mid-1800s. He is best known
for his efforts towards improving the state of public education in the United
States.

During the 1830s and 1840s, there were a number of reform
movements going on in the United States. There was a growing middle class that believed in the
somewhat progressive idea that people could more or less perfect their society. Mann started his
work in areas other than education. He worked on improving mental hospitals, just as Dorothea Dix
did.

However, it was later that Mann took up the cause that he
became famous for. He became the most important education reformer in America in those days. Mann
was responsible for the creation of normal schools for training teachers and extending
educational opportunities to many more children in Massachusetts. As the link below
says,

Mann, more than
any other single person, is responsible for bringing Massachusetts, and in turn the nation, to
acknowledge the importance of providing public education for all mentally competent
citizens.