Public School Crusader

Lawyer and Legislator

. Born and raised in Franklin, Massachusetts, Horace Mann graduated from Brown University in 1819. He served as a tutor at Brown for the next three years while simultaneously studying law. In 1823 he was admitted to the bar of Norfolk County, Massachusetts. Mann practiced law at various places throughout the state from 1823 to 1837 and served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1827 to 1833 and the Massachusetts Senate from 1833 to 1837. As a legislator he was instrumental in the creation of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, of which he served as secretary for nearly twelve years. Mann began his task as secretary with exuberance, exclaiming on 2 July 1837: "My lawbooks are for sale. My office is to let! The bar is no longer my forum. My jurisdiction has changed. I have abandoned jurisprudence, and betaken myself to the larger sphere of mind and...