Some of the most important people involved in the improvement of the movement was Horace Mann, Catherine Beech, Emma Willard, and Noah Webster. To comprehend the concept of Education before the reform, in simplistic words a majority of the children were homeschooled. Students were artistically taught from the Bible by their parents. New England at the time was acknowledged to have the highest literacy rates and African Americans were limited from education. Of all the people associated with the movement, Horace Mann was one of the most outstanding leaders of the Education Reform Movement in the 1800s.
He is known as the Father of Common School Movement. Mann concluded that in a democratic society, education should be free and universal; it was important for democracy. It should be reliant on well-trained professional instructors. According to Britannica, during Mann’s own lifetime, the essence of education had weakened as school power had gradually shifted into the guidance of economy-minded local districts. A vigorous reform movement emerged, bound to halt this deterioration by reasserting the state’s power.
The event was an establishment, in 1837, of the State Board of Education replenished with announcing school information throughout the state. A majority of the aggression for Education was to draw it under the direction of the government. The reformers strived to enhance the techniques and recourses available to persuade the state to support a uniform system of education. Tax-supported primary schools, attaining support in Antebellum America but in fact, the quality of education was dependent on wherever one lived.
Although Mann and the other reformers amined to advance the form of education, their intention was never to take it under their own entire control. Their litigations were completely focused towards the advantage of the society. When Mann became President of the Senate, he represented an essential role in creating the Massachusetts Board of Education in 1837. Selected as the boards first secretary, the same year his purpose implied to fulfill three objectives. His first objective was the state collection of data. His second objective as the state adoption of textbooks.
His last objective was the state control of teacher preparation. He established approved school libraries and normal schools otherwise known as teacher colleges. He founded the age grading system, which parted children into grades based on their ages. He also neologized the term Common Schools, which assigned to the basic form of schools that would allow education to all no matter the class, color, or race. Mann also sustained sharp and strong opposition from the protesting directors who argued that Mann was using his powers as secretary to inflict his own Republican ideals. He consciously chose to ignore the doubters.
Horace Mann, although being the most notable leader, was not the only leader. As mentioned before, Catherine Beech and Emma Willard made important contributions to the reform as well. Focused on the betterment of education for women, Beech pushed for the mid-1800s and Willard supposed that women were the intellectual equals of men. In 1821, after facing various problems and rejections from the society and the government, Willard opened the Troy Female Seminary in New York and Noah Webster made the contribution of creating the American Dictionary of 1828.
