=Love for the Common Schools.=--He believed most fully in the common school, declaring that, "This institution is the greatest discovery ever made by man.... In two grand characteristic attributes, it is supereminent over all others: first in its universality, for it is capacious enough to receive and cherish in its parental bosom every child that comes into the world; and second, in the timeliness of the aid it proffers,--its early, seasonable supplies of counsel and guidance making security antedate danger."
In his first Annual Report Mr. Mann asserts that, "The object of the common school system is to give to every child a free, straight, solid pathway, by which he can walk directly up from the ignorance of an infant to a knowledge of the primary duties of man." Horace Mann could hardly have anticipated the kindergarten for the infant years, and the high school at the end of the course, as they now stand in the common school systems of our country. And yet, what has already been accomplished in our educational scheme fulfills the prophecy implied in his words.
The best known and most important of Mr. Mann's written documents is his Seventh Annual Report, in which he gives an account of European schools. Concerning this Mr. Winship says, "He had made a crisis, and his Seventh Report was an immortal document; opposition to the normal schools was never more to be heard in the land, and oral instruction, the word method, and less corporal punishment were certain to come to the Boston schools."[170]
After severing his connection with the State Board of Education, Mr. Mann served in Congress from 1848 to 1853, and was defeated in his candidacy for governor of Massachusetts. At the age of fifty-six he accepted the presidency of Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, a position which he held until his death in 1859. He closed his last address to the graduating class at Antioch with these noble words: "_Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity_." He himself had won many great victories for humanity,--in the improvement of the common school systems of his native country; in the establishment of free schools; in the founding of normal schools where teachers might be trained; in the adoption of milder means of discipline; in the improvement of schoolhouses; in the better support of schools; in better methods of instruction; and in the inspiration he gave to teachers for all time. Therefore he at least had no need to be "ashamed to die."