er, and a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives
from 1827 to 1833. He served in the Massachusetts Senate
from 1834 to 1837. In 1848, after serving as Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education since its creation, he was elected to the US House of Representatives. Mann was a brother-in-law to author Nathaniel Hawthorne
.
Arguing that universal public education was the best way to turn the nation's unruly children into disciplined, judicious republican
citizens, Mann won widespread approval from modernizers, especially in his Whig Party
, for building public schools.
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
Forts, arsenals, garrisons, armies, navies, are means of security and defence, which were invented in half-civilized times and in feudal or despotic countries; but schoolhouses are the republican line of fortifications, and if they are dismantled and dilapidated, ignorance and vice will pour in their legions through every breach
God draweth straight lines but we call them crooked.
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals. As childhood advances to manhood, the transition from bad manners to bad morals is almost imperceptible. Vulgar and obscene forms of speech keep vulgar and obscene objects before the mind, engender impure images in the imagination, and make unlawful desires prurient. From the prevalent state of the mind, actions proceed, as water rises from a fountain.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.